The boy who shoots the most cats wins $250 in New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand have a cat problem. Billions of mammals, birds and other creatures fall victim to fur noses every year. While Australia tries to prevent domestic cats from hunting at night with curfews, the neighboring country is targeting feral cats. In doing so, they reverse the roles: they turn the hunted into the hunted.

The organizers of the annual North Canterbury Hunting Competition had the brilliant idea. They decided without hesitation to introduce a separate shooting category for feral domestic cats. However, the competition was not aimed at experienced hunters, but at: Children under the age of 14.

Hunting competition for children

The hunting competition for juniors has been around for a long time. It is part of the annual hunting competition which doubles as a fundraiser for the local Roterham school. Last year, however, only possums, ducks, rabbits, rats and geese were on the hit list of the 250 participating juniors, reports the New Zealand news platform Stuff.

On April 14, the organizers announced on their Facebook page that feral cats would also be on the hit list this year and would be considered a separate hunting category. The boy who kills the most feral cats between 15 April and the last weekend in June will win the NZ$250 prize. is it[called[genoemd

Participants were also asked to learn about the differences between domestic and feral cats. For this, the hunting association linked a website of the Department of Conservation about feral cats. However, to the concern of many cat owners, it says:

Conservation spokesperson Craig Gillies confirmed to Stuff that the visual difference was “virtually impossible” to see. The measures taken by the hunting association, meanwhile, offer no reassurance: if a child’s prey contains a cat with a microchip, it will be disqualified from the competition.

In other words: The hunters don’t know if the prey is legitimate until the animal is already dead.

Animal welfare is at stake

The animal protection organization SPCA Canterbury (Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Incorporated) got wind of the case and was very concerned. On their Facebook page, they warned:

In addition, children often used air guns on such occasions. These increased the likelihood of pain and prolonged death. Just such a case occurred on April 17 – two days after the opening of the hunting competition. A house cat with a bullet wound from an air gun was handed over to them, which eventually succumbed to its injuries. It is still unclear whether the cat was shot during the game, according to SPCA Canterbury.

But they could not give more than a warning, according to animal welfare. The competition itself does not violate any law and therefore they cannot take any action against the organizers.

The organizers withdraw

However, the great outrage in society and the media did not go unnoticed by the organizers. On April 17, they announced on Facebook that the cat category had been removed from the competition:

Unfortunately, some inappropriate messages have been sent to Rotheram School and other stakeholders. As the school’s sponsors and safety are top priorities for her, the category has been dropped for this year. The following statement makes it clear that the decision was probably not made to worry about domestic cats:

Cats as a threat to biodiversity

However, there is no denying that cats are a big problem on the island. According to a 1978 research report, cats helped wipe out at least six endemic bird species and more than 70 subspecies. There is a specific reason why cats are such a big problem for the local animal population: apart from only two species of bat, no land mammals lived in New Zealand until the Polynesians and Europeans settled there. Therefore, until about 1250, the birds inhabited the island without competition from mammals.

Both the arrival of the cat in the mid-18th century and the introduction of other mammals shook New Zealand’s ecological system. That’s why in 2016 the New Zealand government announced the world’s first predator eradication programme. Goal: By 2050, the country must be free of introduced pests such as opossums, rats, mice and stoats. But cats are not on the list. This is despite the fact that they are also considered predators and pose a major threat to the local wildlife. At the same time, however, they also hunt the animals that the government wants to exterminate. In addition, the outrage about cat measures should be great: With 1.4 million domestic cats, New Zealand has one of the highest cat ownership rates in the world.

While some places in Australia have taken the first steps towards mitigation with overnight curfews for domestic cats, New Zealand is still at the beginning of its cat problem with failed feral cat hunting.