The Savannah cat breeder so callously treated by the Australian authorities is pursuing a $2 million claim for compensation against the Australian Federal Government.
His business plan of breeding Savannah cats in Australia was destroyed when Environment Minister Peter Garrett banned the importation of breeding Savannah cats into the country on the grounds that if they escaped they would become feral, mate with the existing feral cats and produce an army of super feral cats that would eradicate native Australian wildlife. Sounds fairly reasonable on the face of it, only the government had already approved the importation of these cats and the breeder, Glenn and Karen Parker, of Benowa had acted on this by investing financially into facilities and received deposits on cats.
Also the arguments propounded by Mr Garrett really don’t stack up. It is not as if the breeders were going to be housed in an ordinary home. They would have been caged securely by the breeder and the cats bred would have been f5 generation cats, true domestic cats probably a lot less able to kill wildlife than many Australian moggies. Plus the sold cats would all have been altered (neutered and spayed).
As Mr. Parker said the Garrett’s decision “opened a can of worms” as there are already many similar hybrids, such as Bengal cats, in Australia. What will happen to these?
The trouble with suing the government is that it is very hard to achieve a successful outcome. That on the face of it will leave the Parkers out of pocket. What I suspect will happen is that the government will settle the matter quietly and reimburse the Parkers. That is the only equitable outcome on the facts of the case that we read about. Of course, there could be more to the story.
I am not surprised that this Savannah cat breeder is making a 2 Million dollar claim. It is just a damn shame it came to this. This post covers the topic more fully: Savannah cat ban is wrong.
From Savannah Cat Breeder Makes 2 Million Dollar Claim to Savannah Cat
