Aussie Finch Forum

Does anyone else have bad neighbours? One of my neighbours is unbelievable.Other neighbours have told me that he often goes bush and kills as many native animals and birds as he can, day or night, and then goes home for a sleep.

I must have done something to upset him as he waits until after dark and comes over to my place, pees all over my back veranda, defecates in the kids sandpit and in the vegetable garden, (seems to like the look on our faces when we find it with our hands) He has also on occasions bumped and shaken my aviaries disturbing the birds on nests, resulting in dead young and abandoned eggs. He seems to delight in seeing them break their necks as they hit the wire in the dark.

On a couple of occasions he has brought his girlfriend home and they scream all night outside my window, keeping me awake, until I phone the police, then they disappear. The police say they can do nothing, unless it is proven that it was actually my neighbour that was doing these atrocious things, in which case they would arrest him, charge him with malicious damage, trespassing, harassment, lewd behaviour and being a public menace.

The behaviour is the same, the results are the same but because the perpetrator of all this behaviour is a cat nothing is done about it. Councils need to regulate cat ownership as we would not tolerate this behaviour from another human or any other animal. Cats, like some religious groups and powerful people, seem to be immune to the law.

Yes have had the same problem, funny one day i must have accidently spilt some coolant into a plastic container containing milk when working on the car, the next day the milk was gone. Come to think of it never seen that neighbour again.

I am often sitting very quietly in front of the aviaries when a collarless ginger sneaks out from the shadows.....I usually reach for the nearest something and end up hurting my shoulder.

Despite the very real possibility that this cat has been the reason for a few losses (young bullfinch recently), I have no issues with rodents...at all...!

Mate , I am currently led to believe over here on the dark side , they are trying to pass through parliment or working on one , a bill to make all cats be registerd with council just like dogs. It should be able to give the local ranger the oportunity to check up on cat breeders like they have been knowen to with dogs for sale in the paper to see if they are registered .Might make people stop and think about theIr four legged assasin ,I for one will be able to supply them with fresh cats to put in the pound...
It may be hard to work at first but I guess over time it should be fine . Dog owners cant have there loving pit bull roam the streets , so why should those pesky cats be able to I say..... PETE

Good dog = No cats. Tried everything else but they kept coming, get rid of few and a few weeks later they are replaced by new ones (cats that is).The experts reckon on average each feral cat is eating at least half a dozen natives everday.Times that by thousands of feral cats and you start to realise what sort of damage they do, not to mention your own back yard.

Cats just shouldn't be aloud outside period a that's all. Ever. Annoys me so much that they are let out

At first I thought what type of people do you live near then read the part about the cat, a good cat will hunt rodents not prized birds but they are hard to find. Feel sorry for anybody that has losses to a cat, but there are actions in which you can take, how about a saucer full of milk and two Panadol because after a hard night of scaring your birds it may have a head ache, or if you can maybe adding lead to its diet- hear some cats have a lead deficiency. There's these new toy guns that shoot paper bullets if hit enough might deter him.

I wonder if enough people wrote letters or signed a petition to have stronger enforcements on roaming cats something might happen? We all have our cat problems it seems but nothing is ever done about it by the local councils etc. Almost a thousand people on the AFF plus individual people we may know, plus I am sure if we asked the members in each of our local bird clubs we could get quite a strong point across. I think it would be worth a try at least. We may even be able to get the ABA involved too. Any takers? The majority of these irresponsible cat owners won't say anything because they just don't care about their animals.

Agreed i have have a cat at home with my dog and our cat is not allowed outside unless hes in his cat cage going to the vet to get his shots. You are rite the owners dont care. Not to mention the cat can come into harm going outside wherever it likes or into someone elses house. Its unfair to the native animals and birds but also to the bloody cat itself.

Desertbirds, I was just speaking to someone from the Native Animal Rescue Group (they were picking up signs from my work) about the cat problem. They said that an average cat can kill up to 30 birds/lizards etc in one day and that the last estimate of numbers (recorded 8 years ago) was around 90 million in Australia. One can only imagine the devastation they have on our wildlife aswell as our pets.