livingart Posted April 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2009 only one of each night was partially eaten most just had bite marks to the back of the neck when we first started on the property we had a local idiot who thought it was funny one night to chuck a tame ferret into the main pen we had setup it killed 17 guinea pigs, 5 young turkeys and 4 young pheasants before i caught up with it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted April 25, 2009 Report Share Posted April 25, 2009 Some animals like foxes will do a lot of killing over and above what they can eat but they will hide a lot for another day but ferrets just seem to kill because they can. There is a cycle that happens in the Southern Alps. About every four years the beech trees have a particularly large crop of seeds and that year the mice multiply like mad because there is lots of food. The mustelids then multiply like crazy because they have heaps of food. Unfortunately for the next three years there is not much seed so not much mice so the mustelids eat birds. Cute they might be but native bird killing machines they are also. I have no problem with irradicating them any more than possums or rabbits. Given a choice, I would go for native birds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caper Posted April 26, 2009 Report Share Posted April 26, 2009 livingart wrote: it killed 17 guinea pigs, 5 young turkeys and 4 young pheasants before i caught up with it Oh my gosh that was awful. Why did this person do this, did he/she think that because the ferret was tame it wouldn't kill or was the person just a...a...nasty "human" ferret? Caper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livingart Posted April 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2009 just a...a...nasty "human" ferret? Caper full of jealousy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smidey Posted April 27, 2009 Report Share Posted April 27, 2009 Oh my gosh that was awful. Why did this person do this, did he/she think that because the ferret was tame it wouldn't kill Caper possibly the most important remark made in this thread :roll: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skaffen Posted April 27, 2009 Report Share Posted April 27, 2009 Reminds me of the Scorpion and Frog parable. A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back because the scorpion cannot swim. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too." The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?" Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caper Posted April 27, 2009 Report Share Posted April 27, 2009 Good one Skaffen really good point Caper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted April 27, 2009 Report Share Posted April 27, 2009 I think the registering of dogs came about as a way to get some control over the disease of hydatids. You can train a dog and there are not many ferrel dogs out there. A cat is like a ferret and does what a cat does. There are heaps of ferrel cats out there and they are not as good as ferrets but they are also by nature killing machines. Microchipping is all poitics and does nothing. You have to catch the dog before you can read the chip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted April 27, 2009 Report Share Posted April 27, 2009 compulsory microchipping is great for lots of reasons, never mind the government motives for bringing it in. For dogs ending up at the pound without their collars, its the difference between going home with their owner or being pts, ditto for any hurt dog taken into the spca. Its the only guaranteed way to prove ownership of a stolen dog, and there's plenty of cases of stolen dogs being taken to the vet for something by their new owner, and being found out by the details on their chip. You can put all your dogs details on it, so if they are found the spca etc has instant access to their medical history and ten different contact numbers for you. For cats, if a cat ends up in a feral trap it will usually be put to sleep if it doesn't have a collar or chip, and collars can be very dangerous. If a cat is lost after moving house and picked up miles away, its still easy to trace the owner. Of course, it all depends on the owners complying with it, and registering them on the proper database, and keeping their details up to scratch. I've had a couple of dogs from the pound who were chipped, but not on any of the databases, so the chips were useless. Both lovely pedigree dogs who must have had a loving owner once, who knows what happened to them, but if the chips were done right we could at least have found out more about the dogs, their age etc, and saved having them shaved for speying when they were done already. I don't know why farmers are so against it, i would have thought $10 for chipping would be worth it to help protect their often highly valuable dogs from being stolen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted April 27, 2009 Report Share Posted April 27, 2009 lol i'm starting to sound like a chip campaigner. Yes dog regos were for hytadids control, now its largely revenue gathering in most places. Except waitakere, they do a brilliant job. Feral cats aren't the accompalished killing machines ferrets are, but cause more damage cause there's more of them. We need a government supported trapping program and desexing to do anything about them. I wish our council here would do something, even providing free traps and euthing would go someway towards helping, we're surrounded by bush and national parks and all they care about is possum control. Cat traps work just as well on ferrets as livingart has shown, and i get sick of lending out my one trap to people and having ten more waiting to use it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
repto Posted April 28, 2009 Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 are you for real Twinkles?To quote you,"feral cats aren`t the accomplished killing machines ferrets are"You are not going to get away with a statement like that on here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livingart Posted April 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 another pet hate, cats in the bush :evil: feral cats have been feral longer than mustelids Feral cats predate on a wide range of native bird species, reptiles and insects. It has been estimated that domestic and feral cats kill up to 100 million birds in New Zealand annually. Feral cats can spread parasites and disease including toxoplasmosis and tuberculosis. from this pdf http://www.es.govt.nz/Documents/Biosecu ... 20Cats.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted April 28, 2009 Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 i'm not saying feral cats don't kill lots of birds, skinks etc just that ferrets are better mass slaughterers, but cats are worse because of the sheer number of them. Cats are more likely to catch a bird, play round with it, and eat it, but a ferret will kill the bird, leave it, and go looking for the rest of its family. But the point i was trying to make at the start, was that instead of banning ferrets, they would have done better to introduce better controls on owning and breeding all pet species. Perhaps we should ban cats, dogs and rabbits and make everyone keep fish? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted April 28, 2009 Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 i didn't know they can spread tb? I thought it was only possums that do that. But I know nearly every feral i've trapped has had either ringworm/feline herpes/feline calici/or feline aids. Not nice to have around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skaffen Posted April 28, 2009 Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 I'm a cat person, but I agree, feral cats are a huge problem. It's surprising how many there are. I was watching the sunset out at Raglan the other weekend, and spotted several by a rubbish bin near the carpark. I had a bit of a poke around in the bushes, and there were little trails running all through the scrub. Do they all live in vicinity to humans (read food sources), or do you find them in the deep bush too? edit: Again, you can't blame the cats for what they are. If people got them nutered like they should, and took responsibility for destroying unwanted cats instead of wussing out and dumping them, the problem wouldn't have arisen. We'll never get that genie back in the bottle edit 2: Are there many feral dogs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livingart Posted April 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 the ones in the deep bush are a different animal to the average housecat hard to hunt and some get to a good size too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted April 28, 2009 Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 They're not just in around people, there's actually too seperate categories of feral cat under the most recent legislation on it, one being feral cats that live in cities or around people, and scavenge for food, the other being truly wild cats that live and hunt in the bush. My partners cat came from the middle of the bush near ruapehu, someone stumbled across him and his brother in their nest, 10 days old. He's a beautiful cat, different from any pet or town feral, with camo markings and a perfectly balanced body. Which suggests to me there's a good few generations of bush cat natural selection in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted April 28, 2009 Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 i've known one case of a feral dog, and it was the pup of a pig dog that was lost in the bush. Pup was captured by another hunter when it was a young adult, and is still wild. Its owned by someone who does dog rescue, and has the run of her farm, sticks around but wont let anyone else touch it. I don't think there's packs of feral dogs roaming the bush, but maybe someone else can prove me wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livingart Posted April 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 the ones i have seen from a few generaions of feral have been like a pale mottled or pale tortoiseshell in colouration Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted April 28, 2009 Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 this boy's a mottly-spotty tabby, perfect camoflage, i've had a few tabby cats but nothing like him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted April 28, 2009 Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 i've known one case of a feral dog, and it was the pup of a pig dog that was lost in the bush. Pup was captured by another hunter when it was a young adult, and is still wild. Its owned by someone who does dog rescue, and has the run of her farm, sticks around but wont let anyone else touch it. I don't think there's packs of feral dogs roaming the bush, but maybe someone else can prove me wrong? I'd be surprised if there weren't a few packs of feral dogs around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted April 28, 2009 Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 There may be the odd feral dog around but there are heaps of feral cats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
repto Posted April 28, 2009 Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 uncontrolled dogs roaming at night,lost pig dogs etc have done plenty of damage to ground birds,kiwis in particular.Remember what happened up north somewhere?Heaps of dead kiwis were found,one bite to their back and just left. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted April 28, 2009 Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 That sounds like a ferret. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livingart Posted April 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 no it was a dog http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/dogs ... iwi+refuge mustelids bite the back of head or neck from whakaangi landcare trust Any breed or type of dog can kill kiwi:Dogs can’t resist the strong smell of kiwi. They are easy to find and usually unable to escape. The kiwi excites the dog by kicking and snapping its bill. The dog cannot be blamed for showing interest – this is a strong instinct. It is seldom that a dog will eat a kiwi. Rather, it will grab the kiwi by the back or chest and quickly inflict fatal wounds by shaking or crushing the bird. If the bird does survive initially, it usually dies later from infections. Excitement is a positive reinforcement for dogs, so they often become repeat offenders, responsible for the disappearance or extinction of local kiwi. Be a responsible dog owner. Keep your dog, or your visitors’ dog out of kiwi habitat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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