The hypocrisy of humankind in describing feral cats as 'invasive' beggars belief

The Week, a website, has the title "6 of the most invasive species on the planet". The author lists the feral cat as the second most potent invasive species. And I've heard this numerous times. You hear this in Australia by the way where the feral cat is in general hated certainly by the authorities. Of course, the domestic cat is also an invasive species in Australia but you don't hear them say that.

Remember that the so-called "feral cat problem" is actually a human problem because it is of human making. This picture is in the public domain in my assessment.

Sidebar: let's remind ourselves that all invasive species are the handiwork of humankind. That's true to the best of my knowledge. All species would not have moved around the globe from one country to the other but for the movement of humans bringing those species into countries where they don't belong.

The Australians regard the dingo, as a native Australian wild dog species. But the fact of the matter is that the dingo is an invasive species because it was imported into the country 4000 years ago approximately, I'm told. In other words, the dingo did not evolve over hundreds of thousands of years on the Australian continent. The animal was imported into the country. Technically that makes them an invasive species.

But where do you draw the line? For how many thousands of years does an animal have to be in a country before they qualify as native? That's the issue and as far as the Australians are concerned 4000 years is long enough. Therefore, there is a limit. The term 'invasive species' is not an absolute term.

So, the feral cat in Australia is an invasive species because it was brought into Australia via domestic cats with the early settlers in the 1700s. That isn't long enough for feral cats to be native.

And the other problem which led me to write the title about hypocrisy is that this invasive species is the handiwork of humankind. The feral cat is the victim of humankind's carelessness. Humans brought the domestic cat to Australia and then they let them loose to become feral.

The creation of feral cats, to stress the point, is entirely due to human carelessness. That doesn't stop them being invasive. Feral cats, as mentioned, are invasive because there had never been any cats in Australia until the domestic cat was imported into the country.

But it does stop people, on a moral level, denigrating the feral cat and wishing to kill the feral cat in inhumane ways to protect wildlife. In hating the feral cat, Australians are indirectly hating their human ancestors. Perhaps they do hate them because they were British prisoners, were they? Perhaps the Australians have a real problem knowing that their ancestors were British prisoners.

Today, it is estimated that 20% of the Australian population are descended from people originally transported as convicts. Is it possible to speculate that the Australian authorities' hatred of the feral cat is because they hate their ancestors?

You don't carelessly take pot shots at feral cats - who are the victims of human negligence - which harms and injures them and leave them to slowly die because you are being negligent again. You are being negligent twice over and the victim, as mentioned, is the innocent cat. This is clearly immoral.