Rationalizing violence and justifying massacres is the lot of today’s propaganda media mobs. No wonder then that the inhuman and barbaric act of mass killing of millions of feral cats in Australia is finding its apologists in publications, ones like The National.
In the article Explained: why is Australia killing millions of cats? the publication used a number of goodies from sleek and mellow trove of words to lull the reader’s bad feeling about the mass murder of cats via poisoning and shooting feral cats. And it started with the very title “Explained…” Explained—because when they want you to accept the horror as a masked beauty, you need an explanation. And they would love to talk you into something. So the “explanation” follows. First comes the defense that many approve of the massacre.
Many of the country’s residents view the cull as a positive move for conservation of native Australian species.
My question—says who? How many think so and how do you know—via surveys, interviews, polls, what methods (and where are the records of those inquiries?)
Next, they tell you that feral cats are “aliens” to Australia and pose a threat to the native fauna’s existence. To back up the claim, a 2015 research is cited. But when apologists try to defend a bad position/view, they always go selective and ignore (or twist) the opposing view. Hence the questions raised in The Conversation about the shaky scientific grounds underlying this slaughter of feral cats have been completely, and conveniently, ignored.
The focus on killing cats risks distracting attention from other threats to native wildlife. These threats include habitat loss, which has been largely overlooked in the Threatened Species Strategy.
The less obvious but perhaps the most important side of this ecological jihad against cats is the bigger question: how is a life-form which is biologically more advanced and arguably more intelligent than its prey carries less value than those you want to save? Ecologists do tend to categorize animals in a hierarchy—and humans of course top that hierarchy as they prey and feed on a huge number of other species. But you don’t go out on a human cull, because the evolutionary ego is in the way.
At the end of the article in question, Gregory Andrews is cited saying, “We have got to make choices to save animals that we love, and who define us as a nation.” I dare to differ. It’s not certain species that define your nation, it’s your values regarding treatment of life. If Australia cared about “aliens” hurting “local” they would deport all immigrants and their families that are way more recent to Australia and far more threatening to the local communities than the feral cats. But the guns are pointed at the helpless animal that needs to eat and survive.
So, Australia, how about giving these cats some food so that they won’t have to eat your precious little, nation-defining “native” species?
