Letters, May 3, 2023

Cat carnage

I WAS interested to read in ‘letters’ how goshawks are now threatening native wildlife that had been successfully coping with such native predators for millions of years.

I guess it’s an example of the emotional views that the ‘cat wars’ are producing and, as the council is reviewing its position on the control of cats, I decided to add my ‘sixpenny worth’.

The community group BUSHCHECK has been monitoring birds in several forest sites in Mt Lofty Ranges since 1995 (28 years).

One of those sites is Woorabinda Forest Reserves (WBR), which we have been monitoring for 20 years.

In 2006 our data showed that the more abundant bird species in WBR were declining relative to the less abundant species.

Then the Friends of WBR began to report tracks, scats and remains of kills, clearly indicating that the culprit was a predator.  Several years later the Friends of WBR acquired an automated wildlife camera, which recorded images of domestic cats hunting in WBR.

I also refer you to a study of domestic cats in the Adelaide suburbs several years ago by the University of SA’s Barbara Hardy Institute.

The collars attached to the study animals showed that they roamed several kilometres from their suburban homes.

Such roaming by domestic cats was not recreational.

The cats were hunting!

Unfortunately our love of cats blinds us to the damage they do.

This is well illustrated by the letter about goshawks having a similar effect on native wildlife as cats.

Rob Tanner, BUSHCHECK, Bridgewater

Don’t change it

THE Voice is starting to roar; we should listen but also be very wary.

Many countries have democracies, but there are very few multicultural societies where political change is not accompanied by civil strife.

We are indeed a lucky country, primarily due to our Constitution.

It’s not broken – don’t change it.

Our Government proclaims that all should be equal under the law, there should be reconciliation and acceptance of our differences in ethnicity, culture and religion.

And yet these same governments have produced reams of legislation that are discriminatory: e.g. in the areas of health, heritage, art, land, welfare et cetera in favor of one sector of our community.

This has all been done with input from many Aboriginal voices, and there are already appointed advisory committees of Aboriginal members to Premiers and Ministers, in all states, as well as good representation in Parliament.

As we all should know, legislation can be enforced by law, but it does not change people’s attitudes.

This can only be achieved through education and familiarisation with different cultures.

Any discriminatory practice set in legislation, or worse still, in the Constitution, is a valid excuse for continued discrimination in society, sadly to the detriment of the original intent.

Let’s all continue to work to be ‘one nation’, rather than enshrining discrimination in our Constitution.

Harold Gallasch, Hahndorf

Simplistic thinking

THE letter “Control cats” by Ian Westley (The Courier, April 26) is full of upside-down logic.

Cats do not need to be controlled for the sake of our wildlife – data from council areas across Australia that have used containment of cats for wildlife reasons, document the failures of containment.

Data shows an increased number of cats in the area while the human population climb has remained just above 2% over four years.

In other words, more people have not brought more pets into the area and yet in this time the cats complaints increased by 143%.   The cats impounded rose by 67% and the cats euthanised rose by close to 18%.

The council in question, Yarra Ranges, acknowledged that the significant increase in cat complaints is likely to be a result of the introduction of a 24-hour cat curfew in 2014.

I could go on and quote you other statistics from other councils.

On the other hand, councils that practice “desex return to home”, stabilise their cat numbers, excellent examples of these councils can be found right here in Adelaide.

Your inhumane idea of culling the entire non-pet cat population is grotesque and a quick study of the Macquarie Island experiment which achieved a 100% cull shows what a disaster it was.

The rabbit population exploded and their burrowing undermined the land bird nests and caused a crash in their population.

Wherever I read of new poison bait trials I see the same thing – a bird population declines.

Unless you want to lock up every predatory animal and lay charges on the poison companies, stop vilifying the cat.

And stop this over-simplistic thinking.

Lisa Daintree, Strathalbyn

Fast food litter

OPEN letter to McDonalds and Rebecca Sharkie:

In the light of how much litter is thrown out of cars for a radius of up to 20km around each McDonalds, I would like to suggest that McDonalds compensates by running a different sort of publicity campaign: A “fight the litter” campaign. They can work from within, on their customers.

Lets face it, McDonalds, it is seriously bad publicity having your wrappers scattered all around the State.

They may even put a 10c deposit on each item.

That would clean up the streets.

Caroline Johnson, Aldgate

Vacuum effect

I READ with interest that more than 500 feral goats were removed from Montacute and Cudlee Creek, resulting in a strong recovery of native vegetation.

Yet, according to the vacuum effect, the removal of feral cats will not result in a strong recovery of native animals.

This vacuum effect that seems to apply only to cats, is a truly magical property.

Dawn Lancaster, Meadows

Voice debate

I’VE been listening to the many discussions for and against the upcoming vote for a Voice for our First Nation peoples and, like a lot of people I know, will be voting no.

There are many reasons why I think it will be a very bad idea for our country.

Jacinta Price and her husband’s explanation of why they are also no voters sums up very well what the no vote reasons are.

You can hear Jacinta on YouTube.

Richard Phillips, Bridgewater

Entrance statement

IT’S unfortunate, with the approval of the Bunnings development application for Totness on April 19 by the Council Assessment Panel, that an entry or welcome sign for Mt Barker, for the second biggest city in the State, will be redundant, or parodied, by the large and highly visible ‘Bunnings Warehouse’ advertising sign on the side of their new building facing the freeway.

Not only will it be a parody of any entry sign, it will be an undesirable driver distraction at this very busy freeway exit (akin to ‘the big pineapple’, ‘big banana’, ‘big mango’ et cetera, but without any perceived tourism benefit).

Also, despite its claim to having ‘green’ credentials, Bunnings will remove most of the trees on the site, including an old gum estimated up to 300 years old with 11 hollows.

The panel agreed that tree removal was regrettable, but allowed under our current State legislation.

Yes, there will be landscaping, but that will take years to have any visual impact.

Further disappointing is the fact Bunnings would not commit to increasing the landscaping buffer zone adjacent the freeway.

The development was supported in principle by the residents association, but with some concerns, none of which were addressed. Admittedly the land has been rezoned industrial/employment, but this doesn’t mean there cannot be concessions for environmental, aesthetics and liveability reasons.

Douglas McCarty, Chairperson

Mt Barker and District Residents Association