SCIENTIST CATCHES CATS ON CAMERA

A HOBART ‘tabby tracker’ is using special cameras placed throughout Tasmania’s wilderness to discover just how many feral cats are roaming the state.

University of Tasmania PhD student Alex Paton uses more than one thousand heat and movement-sensing cameras placed throughout regions of Tasmanian wilderness to help research the number of feral cats in the state and what impact they are having on our wildlife and environment. “On mainland Australia, feral cats have contributed to 57 per cent of mammal, reptile and bird extinctions,” Ms Paton said.

“While we haven’t seen the same thing in Tasmania yet, I am trying to find out where feral cats are located in Tassie so that if it becomes a problem here, then we can best target the areas that their influence is the greatest,” she said.

Ms Paton said feral cats were not to be confused with stray cats.

“Stray cats are born on the streets and live in areas exposed to humans and can be rehabilitated and adopted as pets.

“Feral cats are born in the wilderness and have no interaction with humans and taking one home would be like taking a Tassie devil home.”

So far, Ms Paton has processed more than 16,000 images of cats throughout the state and has identified more than 500 individual cats based on their coating patterns.

The young scientist said she had almost 20,000 more photos yet to be assessed as part of her research.