Animal welfare protestors at a hunting contest in rural New Zealand have faced off against a group of child attendees, some clutching dead feral cats, who repeatedly chanted the word “meat” at demonstrators.
The North Canterbury event had previously scrapped the category for killing feral cats after it was criticised by animal welfare groups, but was reinstated following apparent support from the local community.
Entrants aged under 12 had not been allowed to participate in the feral cat culling portion of the North Canterbury contest when it was reinstated, but were permitted to hunt other invasive pests, an organiser said. Video filmed by one of the activists and supplied to the Guardian showed children holding dead animals.
The contest’s announcement in April was condemned by animal welfare groups and prompted a fraught debate about the management of New Zealand’s feral cat population.
Mat Bailey, the organiser of the North Canterbury Hunting Competition said the backlash against the event’s cat culling category had at first prompted its scrapping. But residents of the rural South Island region north of Christchurch – including the competition’s sponsors and the local primary school due to receive the money raised – told him they supported it.
“I don’t feel worried about the feelings of people who don’t understand this issue,” said Bailey, who added that threatened native birds were less visible in the region due to predators. Of the cats, he said: “We take the side of the kiwi and the kākāpo and the kea and every other species that’s in danger because of these pricks.”
Children in the rural region “grow up in an environment” where animals are hunted, skinned, processed and eaten, Bailey said. “It’s just our way of life.”
Bailey said he heard the children chanting “meat” and told them to stop, but rejected the suggestion that the standoff had lasted all day. He added that the children’s chant was prompted by protesters calling the children “murderers” and asking them how they would feel if someone skinned them.
Sarah Jackson, a spokesperson for Christchurch Animal Save, said her group attended the event to protest against the killing of animals for sport and prizes.
“They’re glorifying it and kids are being brainwashed into thinking it’s fun and a commendable thing to kill animals,” she said.
Jackson said her group – which numbered between six and 10 people – was taunted and heckled by adults and children, some holding dead animals by the tails, throughout the day as the protesters picketed outside the event.
She said her group had not called the children murderers. She said the question about skinning was written on an activist’s sign, and was not voiced aloud.
About 1,500 competitors – 400 of them children – killed hundreds of animals during the contest, including 243 feral cats, according to the contest’s Facebook page. Hundreds of kilograms of wild deer mince and steaks were processed for local food banks, Bailey said.
The animals are “among the top introduced predators in New Zealand’s ecosystems”, Craig Gillies, the conservation department’s principal science adviser, said in a statement. “With their high prey drive, they have a major impact on native birds, bats, lizards, mice, wētā and other insects.”
Both Bailey and Jackson said New Zealand’s government had not done enough to prevent the proliferation of feral cats.
Gillies, the conservation official, told the Guardian that reducing the animals’ population was a “constant battle” as the creatures promptly reinvaded areas from which they had been culled.
In one part of the South Island, between 150 and 200 feral cats were still caught each year, 18 years into an initiative to remove them.
The number of feral cats in New Zealand is not known, Gillies added.
