Robotic Feral Cat Killers Have Been Devised by Australians

We know that Australians in government are waging a war against the dreaded feral cat in their country because they feel that it is killing too many native wild animals. There have been many proposals on the best way to kill feral cats. They are all inhumane. TNR has never been discussed.

Now they have devised robotic killers which detect feral cats and then spray poison onto the cat’s fur. The poison is licked off by the cat and the cat dies. These devices have been deployed in the desert.

Robotic device which poisons feral cats
Robotic device which poisons feral cats. John Read inspects it.
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

The device has been invented by John Read. He is an ecologist. It took him seven years. He has manufactured four of these devices and the first one is currently in action in a nature reserve in South West Queensland.

He says that “this trap targets the cat’s Achilles heel”. What he is referring to is that all cats are fastidious self-groomers. They’re bound to lick the poison off their fur. His robotic device exploits this “weakness” as he sees it.

The device employs laser range finders. It detects when something moves in front of it. If it detects that the animal is taller than a cat it shuts down. The same response takes place if the animal is “low-slung” such as a wombat. Obviously the intention is to avoid killing native species!

Two rangefinders at the front and back of the device have to be triggered simultaneously for the device to spray poison on the animal in front of it, which should be a feral cat if the device is functioning properly. What about domestic cats who are wondering outside?


Custom search results for killing feral cats in Australia on PoC


John has clearly given a lot of thought about how to avoid killing native species which would be the exact opposite to his intentions. Another way to ensure that the device kills cats is that the poison being used is called “1080”. This occurs naturally in some plants. The idea is that native animals are less susceptible to it — i.e. to being killed by it. The dosage used is able to kill three cats but unlikely to kill a native animal, John says. I am not sure that his thinking is logical. Is it logical to state that just because an animal is native to a country it is less susceptible to a poison simply because it happens to be contained within some plants which are also native to the country? I’m not sure about that.

Another argument that John makes is that most animals other than cats are less likely to lick their fur as cats do and therefore are less liable to ingest the poison.

In addition, this poison producing device emits sounds similar to those of the prey of feral cats which hopefully will attract the cats to the device.

There are, in fact, three trial locations. Based on the trials the devices will be optimised with the intention of manufacturing 50 or more for further and more extensive trials over a wider range in the future.

Up until now just under AU$500,000 has been spent developing the traps. Part of the funding comes from the South Australian government.

It is hoped that the devices will help protect parrots at the Pullen Pullen Reserve.

What you think about this? Australian scientists are certainly exercising their brain matter to devise ways to exterminate the feral cat in Australia. This device is one in a long list of proposed methods. Poisoning seems to be coming to the fore as the most effective means of achieving their aims. The great weakness with poisoning is that you might poison animals other than feral cats. The fact that the death is inhumane and cruel and that Australians created the feral cat appears to be irrelevant to their thinking. Oh…and they also ignore the simple fact that humans kill far more wildlife than cats through habitat destruction. Hypocrites.



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83 thoughts on “Robotic Feral Cat Killers Have Been Devised by Australians”

  1. I am deeply disappointed that the feral cats of Australia have been so targeted. And anybody with a brain knows that anything that eats a poisoned cat will be poisoned too. So it seems like the idea is to get rid of predators and keep rodents and birds. If this plan succeeds, the next thing you know you will be overrun by rats and the bird flu will hit. I don’t have an answer on how to save birds that live in the ground, but I really doubt that their only predator is the cat. Snakes? Wombats? Possams? Large Spiders? Large Birds? Dingos? Kukaboros? etc., etc. Anyway there are a lot of animals that would want to eat ground birds, so its amazing they exist. It’s interesting that you value the lives of birds over cats. Blaming all the problems on one species (often done with races in humans) is truly simplistic, and it is comparable to racism. Speciesism doesn’t have the same negative connotation. I just saw an article where people in Australia are discouraged from having bird feeders because it will make cats watch, which is likely to send cat haters into a frenzy. Geesh, never knew Aussies hated them so much until now. And the stuff about these aren’t cuddly cats is ridiculous. Its all about environment, so even a feral cat can become a pet with time and patience. I don’t have a solution to this problem, but I have only considered it for about 15 minutes. Placing devices to spray poison isn’t a good solution and certainly wont be limited to cats. Demonizing one species and valuing the rest above them is simplistic and leading to what I consider equivalent to hate crimes against cats.

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  2. One thing that everyone seems to be overlooking: What about the animals that eat carrion? If the animal was killed by poison, whatever eats its flesh will also die from poisoning. DUH!!! These pee-poles need to go back to school and pass before spewing this crap.

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  3. I bet you won’t publish this one! Mustn’t show anyone just how wrong you are, now can we. That’s okay, it’s being published on every other site about this topic so everyone already knows this about you. The whole world is laughing at you now. The only place you’ll have a chance of refuting anything stated will be here on your own site. LOL

    Here is glaring proof of how, as cat-hoarders so often and mindlessly respew, “Trap-Neuter-Release is the most effective means of managing feral cat populations. In fact, it is the only proven way to do so.”

    The residents of the UK who invented that TNR lunacy in the 1950’s have been relentlessly practicing that failed ideology NATIONWIDE for over 60 years now. And all they have managed to do with TNR is DOUBLE their vermin cat populations — from 4.1 million vermin cats in 1965 to 7.9 million vermin cats in 2014. And to help, all this time they are still killing them in shelters and legally shooting them to death in rural areas under their animal depredation-control laws. By foolishly hoping and praying that their very own TNR concept will reduce vermin cat populations someday they have now even driven their one and only NATIVE cat species to extinction with their invasive-species vermin “moggies” (feral house-cats) — with less than 35 “Scottish Wildcats” left in the whole world. (Along with 421 other species that they have already made extinct in the last 200 years — over 2 species per year gone forever due to British cultural beliefs, practices, and values.) All the while they still insist that practicing their failed TNR policies will still save their “Scottish Wildcat” from being wiped from the earth forever. You can kiss their “Scottish Wildcat” good-bye too now. (Laughably ironic if it weren’t so pathetically, globally, and PERMANENTLY sad.)

    Nice plan. TNR sure does work, doesn’t it!

    You know that saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The British have proved the failure of their vermin cat-insanity for over 60 years now. You too can be just as ecologically destructive, ignorant, and just as insane as the inbred mentalities of the Toxoplasma gondii brain-damaged moggie-licking British by practicing and promoting their failed-belief in their TNR concept! 🙂

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    • I will publish it but your comment is colored by anger and bias. If TNR is practised properly and consistently it works. The Aussies just prefer to kill animals. This device won’t work. It won’t solve the problem. At the end of the day they’ll come back to something like TNR as it is the only way currently of decreasing feral cat populations.

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      • You must have learned some arithmetic that is very different than that learned by all the rest of humanity. Since implementing TNR in the UK the feral cat population has gone from 4.1 million cats in 1965 to 7.9 million cats in 2014 in the UK. And you see that as TNR “decreasing feral cat populations” in your mind. Okay. LOL Keep floundering in the face of reality. I’m sure that many are tuning-in now to watch the joke. Let us know when the lobes of your mind have finally throttled themselves to death in trying to twist and squirm itself away from facts and the real world. Oh wait, it’s already beyond that. LOL

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        • TNR is not practised widely in the UK. In fact it is hardly carried at all. You need to do more research. Your arrogance and desire to “win the argument” has blinded you.

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          • Then by default TNR is STILL A TOTAL FAILURE! You’ve been trying to promote it to the general population for over SIXTY YEARS and still people are not buying it — NOT EVEN PEOPLE WHO LOVE CATS AS MUCH AS THEY DO IN THE UK. What makes you think that any population anywhere else on earth will buy it? In fact, when I researched the percentage of population that will even support it with so much as a “likes” mouse-click on facebook, it comes to less than 0.005% of the human population everywhere on earth that even care that as much as a mouse-click about saving the lives of your vermin cats. The other more than 99.995% of humanity can see right through all the blatant deceptions and lies that are TNR. Let’s promote TNR for another 200 years. That surely will make it work! LOL It’s time you realized that you’re on the dreadfully losing side. While you destroy countless thousands of species of animals on the planet in your arrogance in hoping and praying that people will someday buy your failed foolish ideas to save unwanted vermin cats.

            Hint: if it was a good idea, even a half-assed idea, at least 50% of humanity would be behind it and supporting it. You can’t even get your own kind to promote and practice it! LOL

            You’re a LOSER, of the worst kind! So much for people finding anything worth knowing about the British. LOL

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          • Oh, while I have your attention. Here’s a good site for you to dream about at night. It shows how your “loving and humane” euthanasia by “TNR attrition” actually works to reduce cat populations by supporting, promoting, and practicing TNR:

            http : / / realoutdoorcats . tumblr . com /

            Enjoy!!! 🙂

            After you view all the photos and read all the articles on that site, come back and tell us all about that concept of “humane” that you use when promoting TNR and how much that you truly love cats. 🙂 This should be fun! I wonder how many of your visitor’s cats ended-up photographed on that site, all due to you telling them to practice TNR. 🙂

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  4. Lets get thing straight here, most people here are happy for an introduced hunter to attack and eat a native animal alive, and that is humane how? Australian Marsupials have evolved for milions of years without Felines (cats) of anysort and have no reconition of them as dangerous. So get eaten alive.

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  5. Pam…are you serious? What a deep understanding of the problem feral cats are. Band the trees, all 5 billion of them. You can somehow tell none of the people on this site are country dwellers…sheesh..

    Reply

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