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New Zealand: Cats out of law
In some areas of New Zealand, cats are already forbidden and in several decades, you may not come across any in the whole country. Are you interested in what makes New Zealanders create these rules?
New Zealanders love cats. You’ll find at least one in almost a half of the households and they take keeping them very seriously. For example, New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals recommends neutring and emphasizes that inhabitants should not forget about their pets even in emergency scenarios, e.g. for an earthquake.
The regulations and recommendations for keeping cats differ in various regions and cities. They often order neutering cats not intended for breeding, the obligation to have a microchip and there are sometimes also limits on the number of cats in a household or the prohibition of free movement of cats overnight.
These measures usually aim to protect cats themselves, to prevent health risks, not to disturb neighbours and to protect original bird populations. And it's also for the birds that the regional council of Omaui on the South Island wants to prohibit cats at all. Nowadays, all cats have to be neutered, registered, have microchips and getting new cats will be prohibited.
As everyone knows, cats are natural hunters and they largely contributed to the extinction of several dozens of birds, reptiles and mammals. According to biodiversity experts, if cats were absent from New Zealand, it would mean a great improvement for local nature. This local suggestion follows the New Zealand plan which aims to get rid of many predators which are not natural there such as cats, rats, brown rats or weasels by 2050.
By all means, Omaui is not the first region which wants to prohibit cats. For example, Kapiti island prohibited cats in 1934 already and the largest New Zealand city of Auckland has a rule which says that each cat without a microchip captured in an environmentally valuable area is put down.
The sad truth is that cats really contribute to the extinction of species to a large extent. According to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they managed to contribute to the extinction of 63 animal species worldwide in only 500 years. The most endangered are island species, for example those on Madagascar or New Zealand. When an unknown predator (a cat in this case) gets to their isolated space, they got no chance.
That’s why it’s understandable that New Zealanders want to eliminate this “foreign beast of prey” even though they love them. Is this the only solution? What do you think?
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