Hurunui District Council is urging the Department of Conservation to consider feral cats in its long-term goal to eliminate harmful predators from the country.

Council is submitting on the Predator Free 2050 Strategy Review and the Implementation Plan for Te Mana o te Taiao – Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy 2020.

Council’s Water and Land Coordinator Rima Herber, on behalf of a Council working group including West Ward councillors Tom Davies, Ross Barnes, and Dave Hislop, presented draft submissions for endorsement at last week’s Council meeting.

Herber said while the intention of Predator Free 2050 is to remove rats, mustelids and possums from New Zealand by 2050, it was appropriate for Council to advocate for cats to be included in the longer term - along with mice and hedgehogs if technologies became available to make this possible and practical.

A first step would be to legislate for domestic cats to be registered, microchipped and desexed.

These measures would help reduce the number of stray cats that become feral, Herber said.

“There are an estimated $22.5 million feral cats in New Zealand. As a rural council, Hurunui is very aware of the harm feral cats are doing to indigenous wildlife, and aware of how many cats there are in our environment.

“If feral cats aren’t included as a pest species it is questionable if predator removal is worthwhile in some environments.”

Hurunui District Mayor Marie Black said feral cats were a major issue in looking after Hurunui’s indigenous wildlife and, from a farming perspective, the diseases feral cats carried were a “massive threat” to domestic stock across the district.

Herber said Council broadly supports both strategy reviews but raises several issues for further consideration, including consideration for incentives and support for private landowners, catchment groups, the QEII Trust, and community conservation groups working to both eliminate predators and protect biodiversity. “Biodiversity protection should not be an added financial burden on landowners.”

For community groups, support could be in the form of funding for paid coordinators to optimise work already being carried out in communities.

Cr Fiona Harris said many of the district’s rural residents and Hurunui farmers had put significant time and effort into indigenous biodiversity protection. “It's good to see that we recognise that, and support them as well, because for many of them it’s a deep money hole doing a lot of this work.”

Cr Harris said many in Hurunui’s communities and schools were supporting Predator Free initiatives. A coordinator would make a big difference “because sometimes it's just knowing where to be and who to get in touch with - it's a massive body of work and challenging for the whole country, so we have to optimise what we can”.

Herber said it was important to maintain the gains already made in predator control “as a priority”.

“It is better to secure the areas that are predator free and keep them that way, than spread effort thinly and lose the gains.”

To view Council’s full submission to both strategies, please go to https://www.hurunui.govt.nz/council/council-submissions-and-advocacy

© Scoop Media