Svalbard: is probably the best-known place on the planet where domestic cats are entirely banned to protect wildlife. The main town in this remote archipelago (a cluster of islands) is Longyearbyen which is the administrative center. It is the most northerly human settlement in the world. The island is an icy wilderness with polar bears and other arctic circle animals. Thanks to a 1920 treat, Svalbard is part of Norway. It is deep inside the arctic circle. I don’t think domestic cats would want to live there anyway! Well, perhaps inside. But it seems that the authorities can’t trust residents to guarantee keeping their cats inside the home hence the total ban.
Svalbard is made up of several islands of which the largest and most populous is Spitsbergen. Geographically speaking it covers an area of about 61,022 km² which is 23,561 mi². However, much of the archipelago is uninhabited and covered by glaciers. The human population as at 2021 was around 2,500 people. The biggest settlement is in Longyearbyen. Norwegians and Russians are the primary residents with others working in industries such as mining, tourism and research.
Christmas Island, Australia: rather like Svalbard, cats are entirely banned on Christmas Island to protect the unique wildlife. It would seem that the only reason why domestic cats would be banned from an entire geographical place is to protect wildlife. Christmas Island is home to 2,000 human residents; the most common being Chinese and Australian.
Zealandia, New Zealand: this is a wildlife sanctuary in Wellington, New Zealand and it is predator-free and therefore domestic cats are not allowed within its boundaries to protect bird species. It was formerly known as the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary and is the first urban completely fenced ecosanctuary. I don’t believe that there are human residents in this sanctuary and therefore it barely qualifies to be listed here. It’s size: 500+ acres.
Canna, Scotland: this is a small island off Scotland where a ban on cats was implemented to protect the islands bird population; specifically to protect predation on ground-nesting birds. People do live on the island as there are about 15 residents.
It should also be noted that 3 of the 4 places listed are islands where predation by cats is of particular concern because in those instances where animal species have been made extinct by feral cat predation it has occurred on an island for the obvious reason that there was no way to escape because of the strict boundaries. A predator can totally dominate prey animals when left undisturbed. And if a species of animal is unique to an island it can be wiped out.
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