Australian local council introduces a $10 bounty for feral cats

Banana Shire Council in the state of Queensland, Australia has introduced a AU$10 bounty for feral cats. The shooter gets AU$5 for every kitten he kills. The idea is bananas, literally. In all, the council has allocated AU$25,000 to this new initiative under its Land Protection budget. This is yet another way to try and eradicate feral cats in Australia. They are trying anything and everything. They are terrified of them.

Australian local council give bounty to feral cat shooters
Photo: Daily Mail.

Important note: Trolls, cat haters and feral cat shooters should not comment. Attempts to comment will result in a ban and the comment deleted.


The bounty relates to feral cats killed on “rural properties” only. Property and land owners have to give permission to the party killing the feral cats and kittens if it is not the owner himself. They have to sign a form which gives written authorisation to kill feral cats on their land.

The motive behind this initiative is a study – yet another Australian feral cat study – which indicates that feral cats kill 316 million birds every year and pet cats kill 61 million birds. I presume this is a local study that relates to Queensland of part of the state. It is not clear from the article published on the Daily Mail website what area the study relates to. All cat predation studies end up with estimated kills because they have to extrapolate from small studies which makes their conclusions dubious.

It is well-known that the authorities in Australia are bending over backwards to try and eradicate feral cats in their country and will devise any number of methods to achieve that objective and on this occasion it is a bounty to shoot or kill in any way adult feral cats for AU$10 and kittens for half that.

They say that most birds killed are medium-sized and birds that nest and feed on the ground and also birds on islands or in woodlands grasslands and shrubland.

In defence of the cat and truthfulness, the bird is not a priority for the cat as a prey item. Ground dwelling animals such as rodents are priorities and birds are well down the list. But in terms of protecting native species the authorities in Australia are often particularly concerned about native birds.




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