Feral Cats Cover Over 99.8% of Australia Say Scientists

[C C]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...0716309223

EXCERPT: Dr. Sarah Legge says, "Our study highlights the scale and impacts of feral cats and the urgent need to develop effective control methods, and to target our efforts in areas where that control will produce the biggest gains. At the moment feral cats are undermining the efforts of conservation managers and threatened species recovery teams across Australia. It is this difficulty which is pushing conservation managers into expensive, last resort conservation options like creating predator free fenced areas and establishing populations on predator-free islands. These projects are essential for preventing extinctions, but they are not enough - they protect only a tiny fraction of Australia's land area, leaving feral cats to wreak havoc over the remaining 99.8% of the country."

[stryder]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...0716309223

EXCERPT: Dr. Sarah Legge says, "Our study highlights the scale and impacts of feral cats and the urgent need to develop effective control methods, and to target our efforts in areas where that control will produce the biggest gains. At the moment feral cats are undermining the efforts of conservation managers and threatened species recovery teams across Australia. It is this difficulty which is pushing conservation managers into expensive, last resort conservation options like creating predator free fenced areas and establishing populations on predator-free islands. These projects are essential for preventing extinctions, but they are not enough - they protect only a tiny fraction of Australia's land area, leaving feral cats to wreak havoc over the remaining 99.8% of the country."

If that's taken seriously do you think they will go the way of Myxomatosis (wikipedia.org)?

[Magical Realist]

How many decades must pass before an invading species is recognized as indigenous?

[C C]

How many decades must pass before an invading species is recognized as indigenous?

Apparently thousands of years is not even enough.

"The Invasive Species Council does not regard them [dingoes] as a native species..."
https://invasives.org.au/blog/dingo-grea...tion-hope/

Determining whether species are native or not is actually a worldwide conundrum,” says Associate Professor Peter Banks from the University of Sydney. “Scientists, governments and legislators have struggled with the question of how long it is before you can consider a 'new' species to be native." The dingo (Canis lupus dingo) is a case in point. Arriving at least 4000 years ago (having originated in China 18,000 years ago), they’re considered native if you go by the pre-1788 cut-off. However, dingoes are said to have arrived with humans - and no one knows if they were domesticated or wild at the time - which leads some scientists to categorise them as introduced.
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/b...al-native/

But on the other hand, there's hope:

The main idea is that local prey species, like the bandicoot (Perameles nasuta), will have specific survival adaptations against native predators and have little or no adaptations against alien species. The thinking goes that if the native prey responds to a species, then it must have gained native status.

[...] This points to dingoes’ integration into the ecosystem, suggesting that even after thousands of years, bandicoots recognise dogs – ergo dingoes – as a threat and will avoid them.

[...] Invasive predators often have catastrophic impacts because [native] prey don’t recognize them as a threat,” says Dr Mike Letnic from the University of New South Wales. But he agrees that these results are important for borderline species like the dingo. “It shows that bandicoots have coevolved with dingoes to the extent that they can perceive dingoes as a threat,” he says. “This lends support to the idea that dingoes should be regarded as native.”

[Magical Realist]

How many decades must pass before an invading species is recognized as indigenous?

Apparently thousands of years is not even enough.

"The Invasive Species Council does not regard them [dingoes] as a native species..."
https://invasives.org.au/blog/dingo-grea...tion-hope/

Determining whether species are native or not is actually a worldwide conundrum,” says Associate Professor Peter Banks from the University of Sydney. “Scientists, governments and legislators have struggled with the question of how long it is before you can consider a 'new' species to be native." The dingo (Canis lupus dingo) is a case in point. Arriving at least 4000 years ago (having originated in China 18,000 years ago), they’re considered native if you go by the pre-1788 cut-off. However, dingoes are said to have arrived with humans - and no one knows if they were domesticated or wild at the time - which leads some scientists to categorise them as introduced.
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/b...al-native/

But on the other hand, there's hope:

The main idea is that local prey species, like the bandicoot (Perameles nasuta), will have specific survival adaptations against native predators and have little or no adaptations against alien species. The thinking goes that if the native prey responds to a species, then it must have gained native status.

[...] This points to dingoes’ integration into the ecosystem, suggesting that even after thousands of years, bandicoots recognise dogs – ergo dingoes – as a threat and will avoid them.

[...] Invasive predators often have catastrophic impacts because [native] prey don’t recognize them as a threat,” says Dr Mike Letnic from the University of New South Wales. But he agrees that these results are important for borderline species like the dingo. “It shows that bandicoots have coevolved with dingoes to the extent that they can perceive dingoes as a threat,” he says. “This lends support to the idea that dingoes should be regarded as native.”

If you've ever seen a squirrel go crazy chattering at a lurking cat in a park, you see that a native species is responding to an invasive one. Crows too will squawk at such threats. Interestingly squirrels don't react this way with dogs. They like to play with them it seems, scrambling around tree trunks as the dogs go crazy trying to get them.