Bengal Cat Shot in Australia

My wife and I love animals but we both had a smile on our face when we saw a sign on a light pole down the street asking for information on a missing Bengal Cat. I would say it must be the same cat we have witnessed kill 12 of our chickens is our yard. Some of our neighbors have had the same problem with this cat. I hope it was stolen and is living a great life somewhere there are no chickens.

We would not like to see it killed. However, there needs to be a common sense clause put it the ownership of such a cat. I did not have a gun handy when I saw this cat attack the chickens but I don’t think I would have puller the trigger.It’s against the law to shoot a gun in suburbia anyhow. I’ve been waiting with a hockey stick instead.

Kevin

Someone commenting here that people should have the right to kill the cats to protect the “Australian fauna”. The “victims” of cats die naturally. Animal predators in the wild killing other small animals is a natural state of affairs. However, when you have humans blowing cats apart with rifles, this is not part of nature.

When you introduced the cats to Australia (just like you introduced yourselves onto the native Kiwi’s, massacring them long ago) you made the cats part of your “Australian fauna”.

So either spend the manpower/money to round up all these cats and have them shipped off safely somewhere else, or tolerate them. They can’t be that bad if your only excuse is that their killing your “Australian native rodents”, the very thing you brought them there to do….

Hi,

thank you so much for your comments. it means a lot to me to know that I am not alone in my thoughts. It was my Bengal that was shot in Norfolk UK, my other Bengal has never returned. So I now just have the injured one (who I must say has made remarkable progress in his recovery) needless to say he is now a house cat along with my black and white moggy cat. Through long hours of nursing him, and rebuilding his confidence he seems reasonably happy, he has some breathing issues due to the pellets in his head and shattering his sinuses.

I AM an nature lover, and we have plenty of it where I live, many Deer, rabbits, hares etc not to mention the birdlife expecially several types of Owls – but I respect ALL life which sadly I cannot say for the vast majority of the human race

Take care,

and thank you again for showing you care

Cathy

I just can’t wrap my brain around any of this. Who care’s who’s fault it is? What is going to be accomplished by arguing that? What matters is what’s being done about it. Coming from a place where we protect the rights of ALL animals, not just the ones that cause the least problems… I can’t comprehend shooting ferrals. There has to be a more positive way of dealing with the issue. Start a fundraiser to enable you to trap and fix them… then let them live out their lives. We have them… People just aren’t responsible with their pets. Dogs and cats cause a lot of problems. People donate money to the animal shelters to get these animals fixed, and in some places because of the huge numbers of strays… they are returned to the wild. They are also fed… which cuts down on the wildlife they kill. There are also programs that help low income people spay and neuter their cats. I agree, pet cats should be kept inside… for any number of reasons. But accidents happen. Anyone who’s taken on a cat that has previously been allowed out knows it’s nearly impossible to make them stay in. Just like dogs, they get out sometimes. People aren’t perfect and neither are our pets. When that happens there’s enough to worry about… Shouldn’t have to worry about your beloved pet getting shot!

I am disgusted. Australia UNTIL NOW was a place I always wanted to visit. I knew a woman growing up who was from Sidney, and ever since I heard her speak I’ve had an infatuation with this beautiful country. Which is how I stumbled across this page. I will absolutely NOT support a country that would treat another living thing in this manner. In my opinion their reaction to their ferral issue is childish, extreme, abusive, irrational, unnecessary… I could go on, but I’ll be nice! Shame on anyone who supports this incredible mistreatment of gods creatures!

I think you are exaggerating. Australians are protective of their native wildlife of course but the Australian people are the most efficient killers of it through for example habitat loss.

A cat hunting wildlife is natural and cannot be classed as cruel. But wantonly shooting an animal that is behaving naturally is cruel.

The only species of animal that has the capacity to be cruel is the human.

There are not “many examples” of whole species disappearing from islands etc. due to the introduction of a cat. I think the Australian authorities have a quite brutal attitude towards the domestic cat. And they have shirked from doing the right thing and rather chosen the callous, easy and ineffective route: shoot ’em. See Ground Shooting of Feral Cats.

My question is: why were these cats allowed to roam about in the first place? If they are allowed out of the house or cat run, then they are fair game to those trying to protect Australian native fauna. Cats are natural predators and are incredibly efficient at wiping out entire species from natural areas. There are many documented cases of cats being introduced as pets to island and small communities whereupon they then set about killing anything that moves.

You talk about cruelty to cats… what about the cruelty cats inflict on our native wildlife? Any person who has owned a pet cat can vouch for the “gifts” they bring in on a regular basis (and these are just the ones you are forced to see…there are many more victims!)… half dead lizards, birds and small mammals are only a small number of the amazing diversity of Australian NATURAL and NATIVE fauna under enormous threat from roaming cats. If you must have a pet cat, that cat should legally be securely kept in a cat run or housebound to protect our native animals. ALL pet cats should be neutered as a requirement of sale.

God, I feel bad for you and your cats. This is horrible and as far as I am concerned it is more likely to be deliberate. Probably some idiotic farmer who likes to shoot at anything that moves. Of course, it is a crime in the UK to deliberately shoot and injure a cat but try proving it or getting the police involved. You might call the police though and have them investigate.

I hope and pray Tyr gets better. For the future you might think of an enclosure that leads from the home via a cat flap (if it is possible). My mother has one and it took away all the anxiety she had about her cats as one got poisoned and at least two were killed on the road.

Good luck.

I just read about the Bengal shot in Australia. I have (or had) two brown spotted Bengal cats a female Porsha and a male Tyr. I live in a rural area and there are feral cats around, and gamekeepers that kill ‘pests’. Porsha went missing at the beginning of July, she is really friendly and I thought she may have either been taken or taken herself to another home. When I arrived home from work on Monday 27th July i found Tyr in my spare bedroom bleeding from his eyes, nose mouth and neck. I rushed him to the vet, there they said he had been shot – in by the corner of his left eye and out through his neck, they say it was NOT an accident, he has lost his sight, has a broken upper jaw, lost teeth and still has pieces of shot in him. The police think it was an innocent accident by a gamekeeper. I am distraught.

I now believe that they have also shot Porsha. They are my world, we are struggling to survive the recession, my partner was out of work for six months and is now working away to make ends meet and this happens and already the vet has cost us over £600, that is not the important thing because we would pay any sum to make our boy better. He still may not survive because he has shot in him that is too dangerous to remove. I have boarded my cat flap so that our third cat a black & white tom cannot get out and meet with the same fate.

I am devastated that some sadistic ignorant person can cause so much distress to our animals and us and not even be taken to task for the deed. I just needed to share my feelings with some like minded folk

Basically, it isn’t legal to kill people no matter how stupid, irresponsible our outright cruel they are and sadly, the laws against killing people are policed and punished much more then the laws about responsible pet ownership or animal cruelty.

I do support your position, though I don’t find it realistic for the whole of Australia. TNR is proven to work, and it frustrates me in the inner cities that it isn’t used. Cats are trapped and euthanized (no gun/poison use in cities) which I think is a selfish waste of effort and resources. Apart from not working, given the territorial ranges of many inner-city cat ‘prides’ probably wouldn’t inculde any area with native wildlife, then what is the harm of the cats being present?

It’s a different story in the country of course, and frankly I think the way they will eventually ‘fix’ the problem will probably be similar to how they ‘solved’ the rabbit problem in Qld – an introduced disease – and that really is a sad future for cats. Also, like with rabbits, because they can not/were not fully eradicated, after the initial death of a huge percentage of the population, those that survived bred resistent generations.

It’s illegal to own a rabbit in Qld currently – cat legislation and history has a long way to go by that standard. The best we can do as people that respect animal rights, is help individual animals and educate individual people, in the hope that it creates a large enough network to advocate real change. It’s sad that cats have to be killed here but Australia has too much to lose by playing the blame game and not acting, even if those actions are ultimately ineffectual. The theory is that ‘that’ cat won’t kill ‘that’ bilby/dunnart/kowari/etc, while they try to find a more permenant soultion.

So I guess I stand for both sides.

It is a shame that we are so far apart, a testament to a dysfunctional world. Maybe it is my fault for failing to explain myself properly.

I think we would all agree (it is a “given”) that we (people) caused the feral cat problem. After all, these are, or should be, domestic cats. They originate from abandoned cats etc.; irresponsible “ownership”.

In this world it is considered moral if the person who commits a wrong either through carelessness or deliberately pays the price, accepts the burden of putting right the wrong caused by his or her actions.

Why then are some Australians placing the burden of wrong in relation to feral cats, on the cat, the victim of the wrong perpetrated by us, by shooting the cat? This is the ultimate price to pay and the wrong animal is paying the price.

The only ethical solution is for us to rectify our wrong by putting commitment, through proper government funding, into the only currently known successful method to control and gradually eradicate the “feral cat problem”, namely TNR. If we did that we would be taking the burden of resolving the problem and moreover in a humane way; the proper and moral thing to do.

I hope that explains my position.

I think you’re confusing aggression with blunt realism… Except of course for the part where I said if you had half a brain it’d be lonely – that’s Australian slang, you seemed like you could do with the culture. I suppose I could have just said you were arrogant and ignorant, but that would have been very unoriginal.

As for me being the type to want to shoot Bengal cats… I’m not, I have respect for the right to life of ALL living organisms so I literally wouldn’t hurt a fly, can you say the same? The statement was just another example of your strange logic though – I assure you the people shooting cats are not specific to targeting bengal cats, and none of the bengal cat owners I know, are stupid enough to let their thousand dollar animals out where anything can get at them.

It’s sad but ironic that the cat owners who didn’t care about keeping their cats in for the sake of wildlife, now have to keep their cats in for the sake of the cat’s life. Nothing annoys me more however, then anthropocentric people who kill or harm animals because they simply see nothing wrong with it and can’t apply any sentinece to things that don’t speak the same as they do.

My comment does give an insight into the Australian mentality and reasoning for shooting cats, I’m not sure why you say that like it’s a bad thing, it was the whole point of the comment. I don’t care if you delete it though – the comment was for you, because you’re the one constantly damaging your arguement by saying things that are obviously stupidly biased and I’d much rather people believed you and thought better of cats.

No Australian could currently take you seriously, because you’re so biased, hypocritical and ignorant. I don’t mean that to be rude, they are literally the problems with your arguement.

For example – on the savannah cat issue: you blame our government for not managing feral cats in the past and yet you call them wrong for trying to do so now by not letting in another cat breed. Also, you insist on facts to support that cats are a problem in Australia but you ignore them anyway, and you use none to say that they aren’t. The fact that you know nothing more then what you’ve read about Australia doesn’t help, and when you’ve read the wrong thing – worse.

I’m sure I’m wasting my time with you though – because the ‘one’ thing you’ve learnt from Australians is that they can be rude and ill-mannered… Never in the multitude of people that have commented you, have you learnt anything positive?

Hi, Thanks for the comment. All comments help build the site. However, your comment would carry more weight if it was less rude and less just plain insulting. There is one thing I have learned about Australians. They can be damned rude and ill mannered.

I stand by all I have said. Your aggressive attitude in fact supports what I have said. It is Australians like you who are the type who would like to shoot Bengal cats, by the sound of it.

I could have deleted the comment but I think your comment gives an insight into the mentality of Australians and why their government allows ground shooting of feral cats in some states

“The Australians introduced cats into the wild to control other pest in the mid 1800s. Now they are punishing the cat and not themselves for the problem caused. Such arrogance and frankly ignorance.”

I agreed with you up until that, then your knowledge of Australia sadly descended you into a fully fledged moron – If you had half a brain it’d be lonely. The cat was not introduced to control pest species, that was the cane toad ‘bufo marinus’ an entirely different management disaster, where exactly did you get that ‘fact’ on cats from?

Aside from that, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but we do a lot more then shoot cats, we trap, poison and neuter too. Do you have any comprehension of the size of Australia and the management problems we face when trying to control feral cat populations? The cats being shot aren’t in cities, it’s not because they make too much noise at night or have become a health hazard to tourists. Mostly they’re out with our native wildlife, killing. Those are the cats being baited from helicopters and shot and trapped by land holders. Billions and billions of dollars every year go into controlling pest species like cats, as well as trying to restore and protect our native species. Have you heard of the Greater Bilby fence? 12 bilbies were released from this giant cat-safe enclosure, to see how they might survive and 9 of them were killed by cats in the first 12 weeks. This is in the middle of the desert! Australia is over 7 million sqkm’s and most of that is unpopulated.

So why don’t you come on down to Aus, I’ll buy you a tin of tuna and you can ‘here kitty, kitty’ off into the sunset because you clearly have all the answers and could fix the problem quickly.

“It is clearly the wrong course to take and the Bengal cat shot in Autralia story seems to bear that argument out. And to say the British introduced the cat into Australia is wrong. There has been long enough to resolve the feral cat problem, sensibly, and it has been ignored and neglected and in any case once settlers landed on Australia they became Australians.”

Human cruelty exists everywhere, it’s a human problem, not an Australian one. I don’t doubt, that taken back 200 years, were you a settler, you would have brought your lovely cat with you and not given it a single negative thought. Were you to lose your cat not long after arrival, as she ran off with a tom down the road, you would probably cry and get another one. Heaven help anyone that suggested hunting down and killing your first cat! In the wild it breeds, it kills, it brings the problems we face now.

For the sake of your own integrity in future, you should make more of an effort to know what you’re dealing with. In this instance, it’s an animal cruelty case that occured in Australia – governments don’t condone cruelty, just eradication by any means possible.

BTW yes I am Australian, except of course when I leave the country and become whatever nationality I land in…

I absolutly agree the law is horrendous on this subject but to lump all Australians together because they voted the government into power which put this law into place is ludicrous.
It’s like saying that all muslims in the UK are budding terrorists when they are not. or that because someone is “skinhead” they must be a neo nazi ! it’s rubbish.

Not all policies that the government wants in place are even brought to public opiniom prior to them being voted in, or are passed sometime down the line whilst they are already in power.
Their agenda on campaigning is always economical & finacial ( E.G John Howard got in power yet again and a couple of years later brought out new work laws that were detrimental to the public. None of this was ever on the cards when he was voted for, he became auzzies most hated man then he was then voted out last year because of this.) Sadly we don’t have a choice who to vote for on the cat shooting subject as both political parties seem to think it’s acceptable and one of our other laws in australia is we legally have to vote so what choice do we have other than to lobby the local state government in the areas affected and hope a change will come.

However on another note great website you have and some stunning photo’s
Keep up the good work.

firstly I need to point out that I am very much a cat lover and own two, one of which is a Bengal, however I was dissapointed in your note about a cat being shot in Queensland , Australia. Whilst it is upsetting to hear
It isn’t “Australians who introduced cats here it was our fellow UK immigrants in the 1800’s who introduced cats, along with other animals and birds into the country and as a result it has in some areas caused devastaing results to our local flora and fauna, and due to pet owners irresponsability over their animals it has lead to sadly having to have the laws allowing the shooting cats.
Whilst I disagree with shooting these beautiful animals & feel there needs to be a significant improvement in what is done to deal with the problem, an appreciation on why these laws came about in the first place needs to be understood.
Ferel cats are killing off birds and wildlife that are essential to ongoing ecosystems. Granted this wasn’t understood in the 1800’s when foxes cats and rabbits were introduced, but if the problem was left to continue certain crops and animals/ birds would die out completely.
The majority of Australians are not cruel towards animals and in most cases it is farmers who are shooting cats, foxes & rabbits just the same way they do in the UK and again like the Uk there are a percentage of the population who are not responsible in caring for their cats and getting them neutered if they don’t want to care for kittens. I keep my cats indoors, we are lucky enough to have a big enough home for them to get plenty of exercise and we play with them often and that we they are kept safe and they are not killing any local wildlife.

Adrian should be ****. There are too many Australians who sound (and it seems act) like mindless ill educated thugs particularly when it comes to cats. Worse, the authorities condone and encourage it.

Yes, it’s very sad some Aussies have this attitude after creating the problem for themselves.

There’s an Aussie called Adrian on YouTube whose mission in life is to append every hybrid/wild cat video with a sentence like ‘If these cats come to Australia it will be my mission to kill every last one of them’.