Cats are a pain in the arse.

Useless, lazy and full of diseases, cats as pets are a disaster - I can relate to that.

Cats carry toxoplasmosis - we know this. Toxoplasmosis causes serious birth defects or miscarriage - we know this as well.

What you may not know is that 25% of critically endangered Maui dolphins have toxoplasmosis indicated as at least partly responsible for their deaths. Yeah, toxoplasmosis in humans might also cause increased chances of suicide as well, but let's not get too concerned about that, because those things are only side-issues to the big ones with cats.

The biggest problem with cats is that they are enormous producers of carbon and are adding massive strain to the earth's climate. Sound unlikely? Only because you're not looking at the whole picture.

Vast energy and resources are utilised in making cat food. Every animal grown to feed cats is carbon-producing and we all know that animals grown for food are critically bad news for carbon release into the atmosphere. Once you factor in the enormous amount of oil used to produce plastics to wrap the food in, the effect on landfills of disposed cat litter and all the other things cats do just by being alive, you'll start to get the picture.

For NZ, the immediate issue is that cats kill birds; lots and lots of birds, including many native species.

I'd be very happy to see every single domestic cat turned into fur stoles and gloves, but I see no need to lie about how bad they are.

The Morgan Foundation - yes, that is Gareth Morgan's foundation - claims there are between 3 and 14 million (yes, million) feral cats in NZ.

As someone who spends, and has always spent, a lot of time in the bush, I can tell you that those figures are blatant, unadulterated bullshit. There are only 1.4 million domesticated cats in NZ and to suggest there are more feral cats is nonsensical and any media outlet worth a dime would be screaming that fact. Alas, few journalists nowadays know what facts are and fewer still go bush.

Think about it: there are reputed to be 80 million possums in NZ. You can prove this by looking at any rural road, where you will see dead ones littering the sides of those roads, whereupon they are usually seen being eaten by harrier hawks.

Given that possums live up trees and cats don't, you could expect to see at least a corresponding number of cats - i.e., for every 20 dead possums, you should see at least one dead cat.

But you don't.

Other places you don't see these mythical feral cats is in the bush, where they reputedly live. Ever. In thousands of kilometres tramping through NZ bush, I have seen zero cats. Millions of birds, thousands of possums, deer, pigs, millions of rabbits and a smattering of weasels and stoats, but not so much as one tabby or tortoiseshell.

Ok, let's assume I'm blind then.

Fine by me, so let's use logic instead of eyesight.

A domestic cat requires around a third a pound of food a day - about 170 grams. And that's a domestic cat that lies around doing nothing all day. A feral cat will require more to survive, especially in winter, but let's go with 170 gm/day.

A blackbird weighs around 100 grams, so a cat would need to eat three every two days to survive, and most native birds that cats can actually catch are considerably less than 100 gm. There are very few blackbirds or "city"  birds in the bush. Even if we kid ourselves that there are a million feral cats, that would be 1.7 million birds a day to feed them all. 1.7 million a day? Are you kidding? That is over 600 million birds a year. Utterly bloody absurd, and that's using one million cats. If we use Morgan's idiotic figure of 14 million cats, they would be eating well in excess of 8 billion birds a year.

Yet, there will be people out there who believe these numbers, because they aren't capable of thinking it through. The idea that billions of birds are dying a year is stupid to a level you wouldn't expect to be mouthed by sane people, yet it is being reported as somewhat factual.

In reality, it is the exact opposite - a complete falsehood invented to support a proposal.

 

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