Thousands of times every day the authorities in Australia (excepting ACT) violate their own animal welfare laws; the laws they created. Yes, the politicians of Australia violate in a massive an unacceptable way the very laws that they created and nothing happens. There is a complete acceptance of it. Silence. I guess there must be some complaints from Australian citizens but there won’t be many as most are indoctrinated into believing that this mass, cruel breach of animal welfare laws is a price worth paying to protect their precious native species.
RELATED: It’s impossible to kill all Australia’s feral cats but they go on killing them
You know what I am talking about, right? The mass killing of feral cats using the most inhumane methods. Poisoning and shooting are the favourites. Mass animal cruelty on a widespread scale across the outback.
I asked the internet’s AI bots whether an exception had been made in the country’s animal welfare legislation to accommodate this cruelty. Surely the governments of the various states had added a clause into their laws which permitted this as is concerns the protection of native species from super-feral cat predation.
No, there are no clauses which allow it. It is illegal on a strict reading of the law. Here is what the AI bots say about it:
Google Gemini
There isn’t a law in Australia that specifically allows cruelty to feral cats. It’s more a complex issue about managing a destructive invasive species while minimizing suffering.
Here’s the breakdown:
- Feral cats are a major threat to Australia’s native wildlife, estimated to kill billions of animals annually.
- Traditional methods like poisoning or shooting can be inhumane.
- Animal welfare groups argue for more humane control methods like trap-neuter-return (TNR).
The Australian government is looking for ways to reduce the feral cat population while minimizing cruelty. This is an ongoing debate with no easy answers.
Bing’s Copilot
In Australia, there isn’t a specific law that explicitly permits cruelty toward feral cats while protecting domestic cats. However, the government has taken measures to address the impact of feral cats on native wildlife and biodiversity.
Morality?
Can the mass killing be deemed moral as it protects native species? That would be the argument of the authorities. I don’t see it. Animal cruelty is animal cruelty. It can never be justified. There can be a reason for it but it is still immoral and still cruel.
No attempt
The authorities make not attempt to address the moral issues. They just kill hundreds of thousands of cats and no one complains. If a person did this in the UK he’d be in prison for years.
The justification is elucidated by a person who emailed me, Furio Giunta. I have never heard of him before. This is what he says about feral cat culling in Australia:
Before we proceed with this installment, I would like to issue an advisory warning you will see photographs of dead cats here, but please note that these are all invasive feral animals that were killed in remote parts of Australia and have been wreaking ecological havoc for centuries. Their culling is entirely commissioned and even encouraged by the Australian government. These Australian feral cats are a destructive super Predator that have about as much in common with your common house cat as with any Bobcat or Wolverine.
Furio Giunta
It is a justification for mass animal cruelty. It is a weak argument. It does not work as an argument.
Point of this post
The point of this post is to remind ourselves that the Australian authorities in each of the states of that continent are engaged in mass animal cruelty in violation of their own laws and no one except me appears to be complaining vociferously enough.
Note: I guess some Aussie animal advocates complain about the ‘culling’ methods.
RELATED: Australians are ‘nativists’ who want to destroy feral cats and restrict cat ownership