Cat controller John Bowden has trapped almost a thousand cats in Tasmania in less than a decade, and has now set his sights on a feral cat population that has proven difficult to catch.
lungtalanana/Clarke Island is an Indigenous Protected Area in Tasmania's Furneaux Group of islands.
Feral cats are killing native species and have displayed little interest in trap bait of chicken or fish because of the bounty of food.
Mr Bowden is part of a multi-skilled cat eradication team gathered on the island for a week-long visit observing and attempting to trap cats.
A chance interaction by team member and ornithologist Eric Woehler OAM that has led to the discovery of a significant new breeding location of white-fronted terns is additional impetus to rid the island of cats.
A land and air response to feral cats
A network of 50 camera traps captures the feral cat problem that has drawn a land and air response to lungtalanana/Clarke Island.
Crouched along a track, pakana rangers Dion Everett and David Lowery pry open a camera trap to remove an SD card. Mr Everett inserts the card into a laptop and begins to scan through images captured by the motion-activated camera.
A cat appears on the screen, then again in another image taken 15 minutes later.
"That'd be a female. We're unsure why she's travelling such vast areas at the moment, but she seems to be getting around," Mr Everett said.
A report in 2018 estimated 80 feral cats inhabited the island. Released in the early 20th century by former landowners to control rabbit numbers, the cats have now become a problem population that threatens native species.
"The cat eradication project is part of the island land management work we're doing," Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Land Management Coordinator Andry Sculthorpe said.
"One of the main tasks for this week is to service the camera traps; the second thing we're doing is trialling some cage trapping.
"What we're hoping for with the drone is to find other ways of locating cats where we can't see them, so from the air with a drone and using thermal or infrared technology."
A thousand cats and counting
Mr Bowden starts his workday at 6am, checking traps, changing bait, and releasing by-catch.
"I've been doing this for around eight or nine years and in that time I've caught close to 1,000 cats," Mr Bowden said.
Sixteen cage traps are set on the island, each with a bait of cooked fish or chicken.
"The cats follow the roads. When there's an intersection, you're more likely to get good traffic coming through," Mr Bowden said as he crouches next to a cage.
After three days on the island, he is yet to catch a cat. Mr Sculthorpe puts this down to an abundance of food outside of the cages.
"There was one walk past the cage last night, we had a camera out and you can see the cage in the background," he said.
"It didn't go in to eat my chicken! I'm disappointed about that."
Vulnerable species under imminent threat
A recent discovery of white-fronted terns nesting on lungtalanana/Clarke Island means a significant portion of the overall nesting population in Tasmania is now under threat from feral cats.
The island is a previously unknown location for the vulnerable species, which is most widespread in New Zealand.
It is estimated there are fewer than 60 birds in the entire Furneaux islands.
After a chance interaction, Dr Woehler identified at least five breeding pairs in the new location.
"I heard a couple of these white-fronted terns calling, I turned around and I saw nine birds in the air," Dr Woehler said.
"This is a colony that is under threat by the cats. If the feral cats know that the terns are out there, they can easily get out onto that rock and wipe out that little colony.
"I've discovered something we didn't know about before and it feeds directly into the management needs for the island."
Restoring for the future
As an Indigenous Protected Area and the third largest island in the Furneaux Group, lungtalanana/Clarke Island could become an important future refuge for native species, Mr Sculthorpe said.
He believes it could become a refuge for native species under threat from climate change and invasive predators — if cats are eliminated.
Mr Sculthorphe hopes to secure more funds to grow the island management program.
"lungtalanana provides a place where we can restore country on a large scale," he said.
"We want to repatriate the animals but we're also connecting community to the island; it represents something important to be doing that."
