Rod Liddle on invasive species. I agree of course.

I would like to think that Rod Liddle has read some of what I have written about invasive species before writing his article in The Sunday Times (11th Aug. 2024). What I say is that the authorities focus too much on the damage that invasive species do to native species and not enough on the damage that humans do to native species through all kinds of ways such "as housing developments, pesticides, the fragmentation of habitats and "people paving over their front gardens so they can park their hideous Nissan Jukes. In other words, it's us." 

Ron Liddle. Pic from his X account.

That's a quote from Rod Liddle and it is the kind of thing I could have written myself. For years I've been bleating on about the way people pass the buck to animals for the depletion in biodiversity in their country. Australia is the worst at this. Australia contributes to global warming by mining coal and selling it to China. And then they complain about the Great Barrier Reef turning bleached white because the sea temperature off the Australian coast has risen because of global warming and that this rising sea temperature has chronically and catastrophically damaged one of the world's most amazing natural wonders.

And I wonder if there's any coming back from it. I don't think there is. But Australia is contributing to the catastrophic damage to the Great Barrier Reef and yet they complain about feral cats in their country killing small native mammals and marsupials. They need to look inwards, at themselves, in the mirror, and decide what they can do to help protect nature and biodiversity in their country before they attack animals such as foxes, rabbits, kangaroos and camels. Foxes, feral cats, rabbits are all non-native in Oz as are camels!

But in Britain a particular non-native species has hit the headlines and that is the wallaby which is a nice connection to Australia.

The wallaby is a marsupial. They apparently exist in the wild in the UK because they escaped from a private zoo or something. Apparently there's a colony around Loch Lomond. One was seen in the town of Calverton. Minding its own business. The head of Communications of Nottingham Wildlife Trust said: "If numbers of wallabies are present and establish a breeding population this would be a concern as our native UK wildlife is already under threat."

Yes, he's probably correct but as I've said we should be looking at ourselves first in order to protect wildlife. The British human population is growing rapidly thanks mainly to immigration. There are calls in Britain to build far more homes. The Labour government wants to build 1.5 million new homes annually.

They're going to build the homes on "brown sites" or "grey sites". But ultimately they'll start building houses on green belt which is countryside in the UK. And that will automatically damage wildlife, reduce biodiversity and destroy habitat.

People need to look inwards, at what they are doing to damage wildlife and what they can do to protect it. This is an issue which irks Ron Liddle. He wants to respond to the statement by Nottingham Wildlife Trust with the following: "Listen, mate. It's not a few wallabies that pose a threat to our native wildlife. It's housing developments, pesticides, the fragmentation of habitats and people paving over their front gardens."

Yes, exactly, and the RSPB dislike parakeets because they take British nests. Ron Liddle believes that it is unjust to constantly blame non-native species for damaging British wildlife. He is right. It's human arrogance. It is the concept of humans having dominion over animals. I have written about that as well in the past numerous times.

This comes from Christianity and the legacy is still present today. It's time we started to share the planet with animals and treat them with greater respect. We are so far from that. We really are. Animals are commercial assets to be abused and used to make money. And if they get in the way and become a nuisance they are shot. Conservationists have a hard time of it. It's a losing battle actually.

About Mr Liddle

Rod Liddle (born 1 April 1960) is an English journalist, and an associate editor of The Spectator. He was an editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme. His published works include Too Beautiful for You (2003), Love Will Destroy Everything (2007), The Best of Liddle Britain (co-author, 2007) and the semi-autobiographical Selfish Whining Monkeys (2014). He has presented television programmes, including The New Fundamentalists, The Trouble with Atheism, and Immigration Is A Time Bomb. - Wikipedia.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

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.

To declare the domestic cat an "invasive species" is stupid

You may have heard that Poland's scientific community (Polish Academy of Sciences) has declared the domestic cat in their country an invasive species. They are technically correct but they are stupid. The domestic cat is, indeed, an invasive species in Poland and in all other countries where the domestic cat did not originate. That's most of the world's countries. 

The domestic cat is a domesticated North African wildcat and it is believed that the first N. African wildcats were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent which is now Syria and the area around Syria including the North of Egypt and the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. From there these early domestic cats were exported to other places with commercial travellers.

RELATED: Poland puts domestic cat on invasive species database.

The Maine Coon cat originates from barn cats from the middle of the 1800s and those cats originate from cats imported into America with the first settlers who came from Europe around 400 years ago. Are we saying that the Maine Coon cat is an invasive species? It is stupid to think like that.

But for the first 2000 years or more these were tamed wildcats. They were not true domestic cats. And they were all tabby cats. It was only during the era of the ancient Egyptians that true cat domestication took place. That was about 4000 years ago which is around 6000 years after the first wildcats were tamed.

Those are the general thoughts about the domestic cat's early years. But when you are talking in thousands of years it is no longer feasible to speak of the domestic cat as an invasive species. The domestic cat is perhaps the world's most popular pet. They been around in true domestic form in places like Japan for more than a thousand years. The same applies to Turkey. And the UK.

In the UK, the Romans who occupied the UK in around A.D. 200 brought domestic cats with them. This is around 2000 years ago. Technically the domestic cat is an invasive species in England and the rest of the UK but it is stupid to state that.

There must come a time when an invasive species is no longer an invasive species. And if you don't believe that, you are going to have to state that humans are also an invasive species in most of the world.

The human originates from Africa. They evolved on that continent and then migrated out to the rest of the world. So, the human is an invasive species in almost all countries of the world. Of course, we're looking at millions of years ago when the human first originated but the point that I'm making is that there must be a time limit on when an invasive species no longer becomes an invasive species. What is that time limit?

Well, the domestic cat was first imported into the USA, it is believed, with the first settlers from England and Europe around 400 years ago. I will state that it is impossible to describe the domestic cat in America as an invasive species. Often people do and these are normally ornithologists and people who dislike the cat and dislike the fact that they prey on native species. But after 400 years of living in America, the domestic cat is no longer invasive. America is their home.

And also, the phrase "invasive species" is normally a derogatory comment. It is descriptive of a species which damages the ecosystems and environment of the country in which they find themselves. The domestic cat does prey on native species and this causes consternation among conservationists. But they also provide a huge amount of pleasure, comfort and entertainment to many millions of people on the American continent. That must be set against the negatives.

And lastly, it is humans who describe the domestic cat as an invasive species in places like Australia or America. But it is also humans who imported the domestic cat to those countries in the first place. The problem is with humans. The cat is an innocent victim of human behaviour. This should prevent the human from criticising the cat an invasive species. The criticism should be directed at people and they should take steps, humane steps, to deal with the so-called feral cat problem in Australia.

Cats are the third most costly invasive species

According to the phys.org website domestic, stray and feral cats are the third most costly invasive species on the planet. To be clear their scientific name is Felis catus. The infographic below tells us that the cumulative cost of costs between 1970 and 2017 in billions of US dollars is 51.6. This is dwarfed by mosquitoes costing hundred US$148.7 billion.

 Cats are the third most costly invasive species. Infographic: phys.org.

Of course, the reason why cats are invasive species is because of people. We made this rod with which to punish ourselves. It all started when people began to travel on ships to far-flung countries and they took their domestic cats with them. Romans brought domestic cats to the United Kingdom in around 200 A.D. We don't refer to them as invasive species, by the way, in the UK. This is probably because they're not invasive species as the wildcat once lived in the UK and the domestic cat is a domesticated wildcat.

They say that the domestic cat is one of the worst invasive species and that it has been taken across the world for hundreds of years. The cat is "invasive in almost all the islands of the world" according to Franck Courchamp, director of the Paris-Saclay laboratory.

He said that they have been responsible for "the most killings in the world of birds, reptiles and amphibians, which are not prepared for this type of predator."

In general, they concluded that there has been a 70% increase in invasive species since 1970 in the 21 countries where they studied them. In all, invasive species have cost nearly US$1.3 trillion to the global economy since 1970. This is an average of US$26.8 billion annually. The figure is probably an underestimate.

Most of the financial damage is caused by damage to ecosystems, fisheries and crops.

My mind is inevitably drawn to Australia, a continent to which cats were introduced by the early settlers in the 1700s. They brought with them some domestic cats. They badly managed them and they became free-living cats. These became feral cats. They procreated on a continent abundant with the kind of prey animal that cats feed on such a small mammals. Now the authorities don't know how many feral cats there are in Australia but they are in the millions.

They are very concerned about the impact that they have on conservation. As a consequence they do all they can to kill them as fast as possible. It is a pet hate of mine because there must be better ways of reducing the population of feral cat than inhumane poisoning, shooting or any other method of killing which they employ. Camels have also been introduced to Australia and they are in the wild as well.

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 century. Others had postulated that Malaysian fishermen, in the 17th century, had brought cats with them to Australia.

Other cats were deliberately introduced into certain parts of Australia in order to control other species of animal such as rats and in one case this applied to an island. There are misconceptions and misleading articles about how cats devastated bird populations on certain islands in Australia. You will find that on occasions these articles misdescribe what has happened. Sometimes domestic and feral cats are scapegoats in Australia. In one case rats not cats killed the birds after the cats were killed by humans. Typical human stupidity.

Yes, the feral cat is an invasive species in Australia but that is the fault of humans. As it is the fault of humans it is beholden upon humans to do the right thing (e.g humane processes) in order to control feral cat populations on that continent. This, regrettably, is not happening as there have been several proposals to eradicate feral cats all of which have been very cruel, impractical, unhelpful, and doomed to failure but they do indicate a distaste for the feral cat on that continent by the authorities.