Fluffy fox and feral cat campaigns not a hoax

Two bewildering campaigns calling for an end to Australia’s feral cat “massacre” and crowd-funding to build a fox shelter, in turn promoting foxes as legitimate pets, are apparently real.

The news that Australia needs to rid our country of two million feral cats by 2020 has reached the United States, with the California-based animal liberation group In Defense of Animals (IDA) starting a campaign to “end Australia’s feral cat massacre”. The group urges people to write to Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt, “urging him to stop the brutal killing of feral cats”, and calling for sterilisation instead of culling. “A death sentence currently threatens Australia’s feral cat population, so please help these vulnerable felines by opposing Australia’s mass killing initiative…Please educate yourself about the real cause of bird declines,” states the IDA, pointing to humans as the primary cause of our native birdlife destruction.

The other bizarre campaign run by the Sydney-based Introduced Species Welfare and Education League (ISWEL) is calling for donations to erect enclosures at its non-native and feral animal shelter, allowing people to visit and mingle with foxes and other non-native animals. “We are no longer allowed to take our foxes off the property, so we want to be able to bring you to the foxes. We need funds both to finish our fox new enclosures…and also to build new deer and dingo habitats,” states ISWEL on its Go Fund Me page.

The group, which is linked to the Sydney Fox Rescue group that is campaigning for an overturn of the New South Wales government ban on owning foxes as pets, is also considering establishing a dingo and wild dog rescue program, along with a deer haven for orphaned deer.

These two campaigns highlight the misunderstanding surrounding hunters and the reality of the harsh Australian bush. The SSAA knows hunters have a great appreciation of animals and the outdoors, and have firsthand insight into the harm some non-native animal can do to our land.

The SSAA encourages the community to consider how sustainable wildlife management works in practice and to look at the destruction feral cats and wild dogs are doing on farmland and the native landscape.

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