Idiots

A New Zealand council is planning to eradicate cats.

A regional council in New Zealand has proposed banning all domestic cats in an attempt to protect native animals.

The South Island council’s new “pest plan” calls for all domestic cats in the Omaui region to be neutered, microchipped and registered. Then, when a cat dies, residents would not be permitted to have another.

Think about the implications of that for a moment. Sure cats are predators – although they are more scavengers, taking the easy option where they can. But, yes, hunting is a part of their nature. Their main prey is rodent, which is why they became domesticated in the first place. However, we have a nasty authoritarian council getting way above its station in life and deciding that residents are not allowed to keep them.

Some of those residents keep cats for their original intended purpose.

Omaui resident Nico Jarvis told the Otago Daily Times that she was shocked and planned a petition against the plan. She said that her three cats were the only way to combat a massive rodent problem the area had. “If I cannot have a cat, it almost becomes unhealthy for me to live in my house,” she said.

In more rural areas, this will be the case. Although from personal experience when mine have brought in dead rats, perhaps not so unusual in urban environments.

Jarvis likened the plan to living in a “police state … It’s not even regulating people’s ability to have a cat. It’s saying you can’t have a cat.”

Yes, well, the kind of people who take on these roles in life do tend to be police state advocates – it’s why they want to be politicians in the first place.

The move comes as New Zealand works on an ambitious goal to become predator-free by 2050. That plan is devoted to wiping out introduced species of rats, stoats and possums.

Right. I can see that working well. What, I wonder, preys on small rodents such as rats? Oh, yeah, cats…

Economist turned parliamentary candidate Gareth Morgan has long proposed wiping out cats from the New Zealand as a way to protect native species from what he called “natural born killers”.

As the RSPB has noted in this country, the kitty killer image is much overstated and they are not a serious risk to wildlife. Indeed, they are not especially effective hunters, so take the sick and weak. The only killers here are a bunch of extremist nutters trying to kill off liberty. And there comes a point where introduced species have been around so long that they are now native. You cannot return to the past and nor should you try.