Current and emerging feral cat management practices in Australia

Australia sorely needs effective feral cat management programs to alleviate unsustainable impacts on endemic fauna and other negative impacts on livestock and people. Unfortunately, land managers lack clear guidance on how they should approach the design and implementation of best practice feral cat management in their local contexts. As a key first step in bridging the gap between ‘supply and demand’ for feral cat control knowledge, this workshop brought together Australian experts to establish reasonable expectations about the effectiveness of various control tools for managing feral cats in a range of different ecoregions. Experts provided assessments of effectiveness for 10 contemporary feral cat management strategies, for each of four ecoregions. This information will be used to develop an integrated management decision tool in subsequent stages of the project. Additionally, participating experts were asked to identify and prioritise key research gaps in Australia’s feral cat management. From the 18 topics they identified, experts agreed that (1) effective monitoring; (2) understanding cat impacts on prey species; (3) measuring the longevity of management benefits; (4) quantifying feral cat exchange between urban and natural areas; and (5) finding ways to prioritise sites for eradication, were the most pressing of Australia’s feral cat management research needs.