Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water are seeking your feedback on the draft updated Threat Abatement Plan for Predation by Feral Cats 2023.
Feral cats kill over 1.5 billion native mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs, and 1.1 billion invertebrates each year in Australia. Predation by cats is a threat to over 200 nationally listed threatened species and they have been implicated in 28 mammal extinctions. They are a major cause of decline for many land-based endangered animals such as the bilby, bandicoot, bettong and numbat. They can also carry infectious diseases which can be transmitted to native animals, domestic livestock and humans.
Predation by feral cats is recognised as a key threatening process under the Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), in recognition of the significant detrimental impact of feral cats on many Australian threatened species. The national management of feral cats has been coordinated and implemented through a succession of threat abatement plans (established in 1999, 2008 and 2015). These plans have contributed to major gains in knowledge about cats and their impacts; to important advances in the efficacy and range of options available to manage them; to significant conservation outcomes, especially for species most susceptible to cat predation; and to broad stakeholder recognition of the threat posed by feral cats and the need for actions to reduce that threat. This plan builds from the foundations established in these previous plans.
Reducing the impact of this introduced predator on our native species will support their populations to recover. Threat abatement plans establish a national framework to guide and coordinate Australia’s response to key threats, like feral cats, that impact on our threatened species and ecological communities. The plans identify research, management and other actions stakeholders across Australia can take to ensure the long-term survival of native species and ecological communities.
Your feedback will be used to inform the final threat abatement plan. Submit your feedback here by 11 December 2023.