Cats: Australia's Enemy Number One (TWEETS, PHOTOS)

A five-year crusade has begun. Australia has drawn up the battle plans. The enemy: cats. To be more specific: feral cats.

The country plans to kill two million feral cats by 2020, according to the Washington Post. Feral cats have the run of Australia's bushland and are being blamed for the extinction of many mammals in the country.

A feral cat is one that was born and has lived its life in the wild or a domestic cat that has returned to the wild. A feral cat is different from a lost pet or a stray cat that has been socialized.

Gregory Andrews, the country's first threatened-species Commissioner, said Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt "is declaring war on feral cats, and he's asked me to take charge of that program."

"Of the 29 mammals that we've lost to extinction, feral cats are implicated in 28 out of those 29 extinctions, and over 120 Australian animals are at risk of extinction from feral cats," Andrews told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "So the scientific evidence is crystal clear that they're the biggest threat."

The government plans the mass execution through "weapons" like poisoning, baiting and shooting, according to Time. The government says the killing will be done in a "humane and effective" manner.

"It has been a problem that's been neglected. So feral cats have spread across our country over the last 200 years," Andrews said on national radio. "It's very important to emphasis too that we don't hate cats. We just can't tolerate the damage that they're doing anymore to our wildlife."

"By 2020, I want to see 2 million feral cats culled, five new islands and 10 new mainland 'safe havens' free of feral cats, and control measures applied across 10 million hectares," Hunt said, according to the Telegraph.

This isn't the first call-to-arms for the Australian government. Other species deemed invasive, such as cane toads and European wild rabbits, have been in the government's sights in the past.

Animals being threatened by feral cats include:

the bilby...

...the bettong...

...the quoll...

...and the nemby.

Tags

Australia, Cats, Feral cats, Cat, Extinct, Extinction, Endangered, Endangered species, Poisoning, Shooting, Wildlife, Wildlife conservation