Domestic Cat First Brought to Australia in 19th-Century
It appears to have been confirmed that the domestic and feral cat in Australia was first introduced onto that continent in the 19th century by Europeans. This probably coincided with the 162,000 convicts which were transported to various Australian penal colonies by the British government between 1788 and 1868. I, for one, had always thought that that was the case. We know that there are no wild cats in Australia and there never has been because of the water barrier between the Asian mainland and Australia. A study examined the genetic structure of Australia's feral cat populations and found the link, it appears, to 19th-century European immigrants. I say European because that's what my source says but it seems to me that most of the Europeans would have been British. Before the study there are various suggestions as to where this "invasive species" had come from. Perhaps, it was suggested, they come from ship's cats or European explorers in the late 18th cent