Feral cat devours native skinks
A feral cat in Canterbury has been found with 17 full native skinks, and the parts of several others, in its stomach.
It’s thought the lizards were all eaten within a day of the cat being trapped, due to their state of digestion.
It highlights the damage cats can do to vulnerable native species.
The cat was trapped on the Kaitorete Spit, near Lake Ellesmere in Canterbury, during the coronavirus lockdown. A ranger checked the contents of its stomach when clearing the trap soon after the lockdown eased.
The southern grass skinks are relatively common on the spit, but nationally in decline, however, the cat was caught near the habitat of a highly threatened lizard species. It was cut open to check whether it had eaten any of the rarer species.
The Department of Conservation would not say what the rare species was because of concerns over lizard smugglers.
Endangered species ambassador Erica Wilkinson said the southern grass skink population was expected to decline by 10 to 70 per cent in the next 10 years, based on targeted sampling of some sites. The decline is from a mixture of predation and land use changes.
Almost 50 feral cats were caught in Kaitorete Spit last year, but it was estimated about 200 remained in the area. The area is ecologically sensitive and home to endangered species of birds, lizards, insects and plants.
There are 72 kill traps in the area year round, while another 200 leg traps will be set up and monitored during the breeding season of the banded dotterel, a nationally vulnerable plover that lays eggs in nests on riverbeds, fields or beaches, from August to November.
Wilkinson said cats sometimes got dumped there as the area was remote. The feral population was bolstered by nearby unfixed domestic cats interbreeding. It was thought the caught cat was a recent descendant of a domestic because of its black and white colouring, which tended to be an easy target for hawks and did not last long in the wild. Most feral cats had tabby colouring.
Wilkinson said cats were widespread throughout the country from sea level to 3000 vertical metres. They liked braided rivers where native birds nested on the ground.
She said feral cat populations were hard to remove, with about 100 cats from Little Barrier Island taking about 400 days, with the help of 128 people.