Aside from the benefits of having Cats as our pet at home, these animals have been proven to be the great killers in the Opua Forest of New Zealand. Several laws like ones in Alaska has been implemented in order to control and protect this species as leash laws. This is somehow beneficial too in protecting the wildlife living in the forest.
Trapping efforts to control slaughts and protect the forest
Bush Bay Action is doing pest control in the Opua State Forest, near Paihia in the Bay of Islands. Their volunteers trap the big four killers known in the forest such as rats, possums, stoats, and cats.
Since the year 2011, this community-based organization has captured up to 89 cats which could have greatly affected the number of living birds and other wildlife in the Opua State Forest.
Bush Bay protects around 450 hectares on both public and private land. They aim to expand this every year until they ensure the sustenance of the forest and the wildlife depending on it. In the present, they have already seen real progress in restoring balance to the bush.
Conservationist's classification of cats
There are two classifications of cats according to the conservationists - the Feral and the Domestic. While these two are somehow similar as to the danger they pose to the forest and its living creatures, both require a different type of approach to managing them effectively.
Feral are those cats who have been born to strays and are not socialized to people. They pose a greater threat than domestics because they hunt wildlife for food and often make native species their kind of meal. Ferals have never been domesticated making them truly wild.
They don't depend on people or the human being, they prefer hunting their own food, living in the wild, killing native species and scavenging.
They also prefer the natural environment for its shelter and protection.
On the other hand, we have Domestics which we can further subdivide into strays and semi wilds. Although both of them have a lineage of being a domestic cat, they are still feral in substance. Semi wilds are those that could have been pets initially but fail to socialize with the human being.
They often prefer to stay in dirty dumps or in wherever they could find food.
Strays, on the other hand, are pets at some point but have been lost or abandoned. They still have potential to be rehabilitated into being pets, however, they still are posing a great danger when their owners let them outside where they hunt the defenseless native and other wild animals.
