No place for feral cats in updated pest plan

TRC chairman David MacLeod said the council was not ignoring the feral cat problem.

Taranaki Regional Council has added ferrets, stoats and weasels to its updated regional pest management plan.

But there is no room for feral cats, much to the dismay of independent conservation organisation Forest and Bird.

The regional council amended the plan this week to include the three predators, as well as a new rule under the Biosecurity Act to control them, after receiving submissions from eight organisations, including two Taranaki iwi. Forest And Bird was the sole submitter not to give general support to the amended plan on the basis that feral cats were not included.

Taranaki Regional Council (TRC) operations director Dan Harrison told Tuesday’s meeting that the council had begun a

10-year rural mustelid trapping programme in 2018 as part of the Towards Predator-Free Taranaki project.

Towards Predator-Free Taranaki is working to eradicate possums over 4500ha from the Kaitake Ranges to the coastline, and has an urban project trapping rats.

The programme has so far covered 75,000ha with more than

6000 traps, and included a trap barrier around the national park Te Papakura o Taranaki resulting in a 90 per cent reduction in mustelid populations, he said.

Harrison said the new rule will identify predator control areas where landowners agree to set traps and maintain mustelid numbers at a reduced level.

‘‘The vision, which we believe our community share, is to see native birds, wildlife and plants returning to our region and thriving. This new rule is the latest piece of the puzzle to help us achieve that.’’

TRC also worked with landowners to control feral cats as part of the Key Native Ecosystem biodiversity programme.

However, Forest and Bird regional conservation manager Amelia Geary said the council was using ‘‘double standards’’ to control predators. If predator control was keeping levels at low numbers and working ‘‘perfectly fine’’ in a non-statutory framework, why did the council feel it necessary to list mustelids as pests, and be given powers of enforcement, and funding allocation, under the Biosecurity Act, Geary asked the meeting.

‘‘This suggests that the council understands perfectly well that working in a solely non-statutory framework is insufficient in the long term if you want to control pests over a big area on largely private land.’’

Forest and Bird supported adding mustelids to the plan ‘‘but cats were just as bad, if not worse, and require the same level of management,’’ she said.

TRC environment services manager Steve Ellis said although there was a significant number of feral cats in the region, there was no real way to monitor numbers.

The council provided cat traps to landowners who requested them, and so far 40 people have applied. Controlling feral cats was not included in the Towards Taranaki Predator-Free programme for government funding, he said.

TRC chairman David MacLeod said the council was not ignoring the feral cat problem.