Brigitte Bardot slams Australia's plan to kill 2 million feral cats

Johnny Depp should join BB's campaign IMMEDIATELY.

So should we all.

If the only answer to a problem you can think of it 'Let's kill something/someone', you've got the wrong answer.

I love cats, but I support this program. The numbers are too large for the more humane method of sterilisation; also, if you've ever seen a cat with mange starving to death, a few seconds of carbon dioxide is a vastly preferable end.

Australia has problems controlling their rabbit population, and now this...Maybe what Australia needs on first place is a reform of their Environmental Ministry.

If people properly spayed and neutered their pets and didn't let their cats roam free for food all day and hanky panky all night, you wouldn't have this problem.

The real culprits are the lazy pet owners.

harvey, check out the difference between domestic pet cat, stray cat and feral cat.

Domestic cats were first introduced into Australia around the beginning of the 19th century, and the first feral cats were seen around 1820. Way back then, letting pet cats roam wasn't seen as 'lazy' - it was just the way cats were kept. Pet owners today are not the cause of the feral cat population.

The real culprits are the ignorant folk back then who thought introducing exotic species (cats, rabbits, foxes, goats, cane toads, camels and the rest) into a virgin and unprotected ecosystem was any kind of good idea.

tsunami of death and violence...love the hyperbole!

She doesn't know what the hell she is talking about. These introduced cats are killing the native animals.

This animal genocide is inhumane and ridiculous

BB is also vocal in supporting the people of Aleppo.

Sorry, that should read donkeys, not people, but my delete key has malfunctioned.

Are there any natural predators left in Australia? Just thinking that if you wipe out the predators you end up with an unsustainable overpopulation of species in an already fragile ecosystem. That's one reason deer are culled in the UK... we don't have any wolves to prey on them to keep numbers at a natural level.

I'm not a cat person by any description, but a mass cull just seems mindless and cruel. They should begin a programme of sterilisation and eventually reduce the numbers to a sustainable level.

You also have the culling of rabbits and horses because they are competing with sheep... which are an introduced exotic animal. They also sacrifice native species such as kangaroos and wallabies at the alter of sheep.

How do you herd that many cats??!!

Agree with BB absolutely. Ever heard of Darwin's evolution? Survival of the fittest? Maybe some douche made the mistake of introducing feral cats 200 years ago, but wiping them out? It's not as if peoples' livelihoods are at stake. Let the poor creatures be. It's not their fault that they're just trying to survive. It's a dog eat dog, or should I say, a cat eat cat world out there. Let evolution take its course. Coming from a cat lover.

Are there any natural predators left in Australia?

Apart from Homo Transportatus Australis?

Crocs, great whites, snakes, big feck off spiders and deadly wee octopuses.

How do you herd that many cats??!!

This is how:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

Same problem where in Japan with none native fish and reptiles in the major rivers. Japan may soon lose many of its river fish and reptiles unique to Japan.

Problem with foreign species brought in as pets being let loose into the local environment.

Prevention is probably an "ideal" situation, but when prevention fails, there are two options. Let the local native species disappear and change the entire ecology or preserve the native species by removing the invasive species.

When time is critical, it takes drastic action.

Every country has to deal with the situation as they see fit, based upon their "need" and not necessarily on their "ideals". If the need is physical survival then it may override the "ideal".

BB can send her millions and see if she can save the cats, rather than "sound off" and expect others to do the work.

We had a gorgeous pygmy woodpecker chick in our garden until the cats got it. Thanks, Fluffy!

Ever heard of Darwin's evolution? Survival of the fittest?

Another problem with this kind of 'cull' is that the ones that don't get culled are the ones best able to avoid the human-implemented measures to kill them - i.e.., the ones that are best able to survive, survive; they pass on to their offspring their superior survival skills and in a couple of generations the numbers are back up, but this time the animals are harder to kill. A bit like bad use of antibiotics creating a strain of antibiotic-resistant bugs.

Which means that this kind of programme does no good except for providing a 'feel-good' factor for those who think killing is any kind of answer; and in the process it inflicts a lot of unnecessary and uncalled-for suffering on an animal population that didn't particularly want to go to Australia in the first place and are just doing the best they can to get by.

Let the local native species disappear and change the entire ecology or preserve the native species by removing the invasive species.

So you'd recommend a cull of all the sheep and cattle that were introduced? They have 'changed the entire ecology' every bit as much as, if not more than, the moggies.

Sounds like a GOOD IDEA to me, better than the SMELLcat dung everywhere.

If this sort of culling were to occur in an Asian country, you would get 100 times more comments condemning it.

I had a Great Uncle who was a master builder and player of traditional "hillbilly" musical instruments. Uncle Zeke swore up and down that the skin of a cat was the absolute best material for making the head of, that most American of stringed instruments, the banjo.Uncle Zeke was always on the lookout for stray, feral and/or unattended cats to satisfy the demand for his beautiful hand crafted, fret-less, five string banjos. Demand was strong and he made pretty good money at it.

One of Uncle Zeke's stratagems for acquiring his raw materials came in the form of an old coon dog bitch named Olive. she could chase down any cat and kill it without poking holes in the skin. My uncle would drive around with Olive in the back of his pickup when they'd spot a cat she would jump out and go. Couple of minutes later Uncle Zeke had a dead cat in the bag. I never could figure out how Olive killed those cats without breaking the skin. She was pretty old maybe she gummed 'em to death.

Great Uncle Zeke was a well respected member of the community and everybody loved his music. But it was common knowledge that if you had a cat and wanted to keep it; you'd better keep it in the house. With Uncle Zeke and Olive on the loose no cat was safe. Needless to say there was no feral cat problem in Uncle Zeke's neck of the woods.

For my Uncle, cats represented a potential for profit; the Australians need to think like that. The only realistic solutions to this problem need to have a profit motive attached for them to be really effective. Turn feral cat population control into a business opportunity. Of course the first thing that pops into a lot of minds is just killing the cats and for some people that is a viable option. A bounty system would most likely be popular in more rural areas as a source of supplemental income; but to really make it work the government could award contracts to big pest control companies and let them make a pile of money, while at the same time, getting rid of the cats. But there is no law that says you have to exterminate the population to control it. Encourage the formation of bio-friendly businesses that use methods more palatable, to more people, and award contracts that make it worth their while. The key is to make it profitable and let marketplace innovation come up with a solution.

And there is always the banjo head supply business to consider.

Hi @cleo!

Yeah, back then or today, it is and was still being ignorant and lazy. If pet owners today don't properly take care of their cats today then they're still just as bad as the ignorant and lazy who first introduced the cats. You don't get a pass for just saying, "They started it!"