23/09/2025
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
Q. Why are feral cats considered pests?
A. Feral cats are one of Australia’s most damaging invasive predators — collectively they kill vast numbers of native animals each year, with estimates of more than 1.5 billion animals killed annually.
Brought here by early European settlers, they have spread across almost the entire continent, from deserts to rainforests. Unlike domestic cats, feral cats live and hunt entirely in the wild. They prey on small mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians — killing over an estimated 1.5 billion native animals every year.
Feral cats have contributed to more than 20 mammal extinctions in Australia, making them one of the single greatest threats to native wildlife. Their impact also extends to agriculture, where they can spread diseases such as toxoplasmosis, which causes stock losses in sheep and goats.
Because of their wide distribution and stealthy behaviour, feral cats are extremely difficult to control, and are recognised nationally as a Key Threatening Process to biodiversity.
(Video credit: Threatened Species Recovery Hub )