Today's award goes to the organisers of the North Canterbury Hunting Competition in New Zealand. The BBC reports:
A children's cat-hunting competition in New Zealand has been cancelled following backlash against the event.
Organisers of an annual hunt were criticised after announcing a new category for those aged 14 and under to hunt feral cats.
The animals are considered a pest and a risk to the country's biosecurity.
Youngsters were told to not kill pets, but they were otherwise encouraged to kill as many feral cats as possible for a prize.
The child who killed the most between mid-April and the end of June would have won NZ$250 (£124; $155).
. . .
The event had been announced as part of a June fundraiser hunt for a local school in North Canterbury in the South Island, a largely rural area of New Zealand where hunting is popular.
The competition each year typically sees hundreds - including children - compete to kill wild pigs, deer and hares.
There's more at the link.
I know that feral cats pose a grave risk to small indigenous animals and birds, and that their population needs to be controlled, if not eradicated (the latter almost impossible in practical terms). However, to ask children to kill cats is dubious on several grounds.
- What about kids who have cats at home? They're used to thinking of cats as pets, even friends. Now they're told to kill them. Conflict, much?
- What about the kids who will gleefully kill any and every cat they come across, including other people's pets, in an attempt to run up their score and win the competition? You know as well as I do that such kids exist. I've met too many of them, both as a child and as an adult. Some of them will even take pleasure in torturing cats and other animals. Yes, they're out there.
- The organizers must have been as thick as two short planks in failing to take into consideration the number of cat-lovers who'd object to their contest. Did they have no public relations advisers at all among their number?
Peter
17 comments:
Wonder what the amount would be for the inevitable lawsuit when a family cat is killed.
Next month: Annual North Canterbury Kung Pao Chicken Festival. 😁
and you wonder why the Army can 't get recruits
I thought NZ had banned firearms? Are they planning to get the kids to club them like baby seals? And is this just another scheme to turn childhood into a horror story?
AFAIK, rats and mice remain a problem in NZ. Think I'd target cats AFTER those rodent populations are fully eradicated...
Yeah, I got in mild trouble a while back. I own 80 acres of land that I use primarily for hunting up in the Michigan Thumb area. I was chatting with some acquaintances up there and the topic came around to feral cats. Seems like folks from the city like to take unwanted cats up into corn country and release them, either figuring someone will take them in or they will become a "barn cat". Anyhow, I quipped "we have a word for feral cats we see on the property. We call them 'targets'". They didn't think that was funny.
But you're right. Feral cats do a lot of damage. Especially to young pheasants and turkeys.
Waidmann
Humane society in the Reno,nv area has a program where if one catches one live and brings it to them they will neuter it and let it go at the spot it was caught at. It is a much more effectivey was to reign in feral cat populations. The neutered/returned cat is still territorial so it drives off interlopers but there is no reproduction taking place. If you shoot them then 1,2,3 or4 new cats move in and vie for territorial rights. Breeding the whole time until a winner is determined.
Cats, both feral and pets are a massive problem in Australia, that BBC link had the following article in the links :
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-64806771
Some estimates are that cats kill have a frightening toll on Australian wildlife with "Overall, feral cats in Australia eat about 2 billion reptiles, birds, frogs and mammals each year, and over a billion invertebrates."
https://pestsmart.org.au/toolkit-resource/impact-of-feral-cats-in-australia/#:~:text=Overall%2C%20feral%20cats%20in%20Australia,and%20over%20a%20billion%20invertebrates.
There are some cat owners who do the right thing and ensure that their cats cannot remain indoors or in outdoor run's, but they are a minority, the vast majority allow their pets to kill thousands of native animals and birds so I find it difficult to raise any empathy when fluffy the pet cat gets caught in someone else's backyard, taken to the RSPCA and gets put down.
If you are a responsible cat owner then your cat would not be caught in someone else's backyard.
Bush in Oz
Why is Johnny Rotten's version of My Way now running through my head?
Peter…
Take a few deep breaths and calm down.
I was hunting and trapping well before that age. My father was trusted with a rifle at the age of eight. One of the first things you get taught, is the difference between the things you CAN shoot, and the things you CAN’T.
You get TAUGHT the difference between pets and livestock… and wild critters. Legal ones, because most native animals and birds are off-limits, too.
You get TAUGHT where you cannot hunt, which includes in the town limits and on property where you don’t have permission.
That is how country folks teach their kids.
When it comes to feral cats in a country that has ZERO mammalian predators (except for an insectivorous bat), I doubt you have any idea how destructive they are. They are a contributing factor in a number of extinctions. I get on well with my neighbours and I would respect a request to watch out for a specific animal, but the general rule is that if your cat is off your property, you have no-one to blame but yourself. Same goes for any “pet” dogs seen attacking livestock.
If I sound a little irate, I am. You might pause to consider that you don’t live in that community, as a member of that culture, and with their problems. Think deeply before you tell them how to live their lives. You owe them an apology.
Lawsuit?
“Where did you catch that cat, young Rangi?”
“In the Whakatarhea Park, across the Makataroa Road”.
“That’s three kilometres from town…. Case dismissed..”
@PeterW: Yes, I do understand how destructive feral cats can be. That's why I said, in the original post, that I "support the hunting of feral cats by adults as a pest eradication effort". However, my opposition to having children involved remains, for the reasons given.
As for living in that community and understanding their problems, that's not the point at issue. The whole reason the child cat hunt has raised so many red flags is that it's an issue going beyond that community. That's why a minor controversy in one area of New Zealand has been reported in the international news media - it goes beyond that community. It's not just about local standards and norms.
That being the case, I don't believe an apology is necessary.
New Zealand has more important problems to resolve first such as the highest level of child abuse in a 'First world' country and an increasing gang problem.
"Some of them will even take pleasure in torturing cats and other animals. Yes, they're out there."
And they usually go on to do really bad things when they get older.
Even Heinlein, obviously a cat lover, wrote about borrowing a pistol from a friend and shooting a feral neighborhood cat. It was savaging their own pet cat and he could see no other choice. I think the passage was in Grumbles From The Grave.
Kinda ashamed that Texas hasn't done this for feral hogs. IIRC back in the day some Texas counties would put a bounty on coyotes.
Sorry Peter,
You are wrong in this case.
Your prison experience was with the worst people in society. The VAST majority of people are NOT like them. We have all done wrong things as children, and most of us paid the consequences from mum & dad. We didn't become criminals. We cannot treat everyone as though they are nascent criminals. Otherwise we better "ban-all-the-things" because criminals use defensive objects illegally.
I'm Australian, not a kiwi but I can give you a local perspective.
I am all for kids shooting cats. As long as they have the legal right to do so. If someone's pet gets shot in the bush - great work !!! The cat was obviously out hunting in the bush for native kiwi fauna - WHERE IT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN. The pets' owner is fully at fault here.
If a child starts catching and killing cats in the suburbs; well, they're KIDS and it's up to Dad & Mum to supervise them and then discipline them if they do this. And in my opinion, the neighbour should NOT HAVE ALLOWED their precious, precious moggy to roam the damn neighbourhood spraying and pooping in other people's back yards.
Feral cats in Australia are a terrible problem from wildlife predation & disease (human & animal) perspective, and an extremely divisive topic. Opinions vary markedly between Aussie urban dwellers & Aussie country dwellers.
I have owned cats, and they are wonderful - IF - the owner is responsible. My cats were STRICTLY kept indoors. The vast majority of cat owners here allow them outside, and they will kill or (worse) maim anything up to ~3kg in weight.
The worst cats are allowed roam at night, and "spray" and poop anywhere. I am forced to carry a plastic bag & pick up any waste my dogs make "for environmental reasons" on a walk - but cat poop throughout my neighbourhood and vegetable gardens is OK because cat? Like hell !
In my friendships with Americans - they seem to be shocked anyone would want to kill a cat in the bush. They seem to understand why we do it intellectually, but not actually really "get it".
Feral cats in the Australian bush are really hard to target. They are not some stray city feral or a lost pet that wants to approach you for food and some love. These are completely wild animals, and act like it. They're extremely cryptic and despite the fact they are common and widespread across the landscape, are very hard to observe or find.
In the city, they are likely someone's pet and most of the wildlife in the inner big cities is feral anyway (eg mice, rats, Indian Miners, pigeons sparrows, starlings etc).
Best wishes,
Just an Aussie 8-)
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