Japanese are aghast at Australian plans to kill millions of stray cats, with many perplexed at how a nation which sanctimoniously lectures them at every opportunity about their whaling and tacitly supports eco-terrorism can simultaneously destroy millions of lovable felines.
Australia’s Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre is reportedly testing a system of poison traps designed to kill cats by “exploiting their natural curiosity.”
The trap uses light and sound to lure cats in to investigate, and once they have entered the trap a sensor attempts to determine whether they are a cat, and if so the trap delivers a dose of fatal poison. Cats are said to be uninterested in traditional traps, requiring a cat-specific lure playing upon their investigative nature.
In a macabre pun the system is dubbed “Curiosity.”
Australia is estimated to have a population of 18 million stray cats, which frequently prey upon Australia’s often times pathetically fragile native species.
Government efforts to control undesired non-native species have over the years seen countless millions of foxes, cats, dogs, pigs, rabbits, and fish destroyed by methods ranging from trapping and shooting to the introduction of viral agents, with mixed success.
Japanese hearing about the system were disgusted at the barbarous slaughter of so lovable a creature, particularly in light of their association of Australia with eco-pirate band Sea Shepherd and an unending stream of criticism about the (in Japan) uncontroversial issue of whaling:
“As expected of the Aussies. They fall over themselves to protect whales but abuse other species; this level of opportunism… it’s truly shameless.”
“Please don’t kill those lovable little cats! Cats are even more sensitive than whales. Please don’t kill them just for the sake of keeping their numbers down!”
“Australians are so crude!”
“What have Sea Shepherd to say about this? Nothing, because there’s no money in it for them?”
“I think Australia is justified in killing these cats, and Japan is also justified in killin whales. However, Australia has no right to be criticising Japan.”
“We’ve got to launch attacks on Australia to stop the slaughter of these poor cats!”
Whilst the ecological arguments for destroying an “invasive species” are generally considered sound, the ecological arguments against whaling are rather problematic – for example, the UN does not consider minke whales to be endangered and global populations are stable at several million, whilst Japan takes an annual catch of only 500.
Since Australian opposition to whaling is evidently based primarily on an irrational emotional and cultural attachment to whales, Japanese are naturally left wondering why their equally irrational emotional and cultural attachment to cats is any less significant.
While I’m against killing the cats as well, as strays they are technically an invasive species that can wreak havoc on populations of the native species, many of which are endemic to Australia and nowhere else in the world. The whales are being slaughtered in their natural habitat. Plus, hopefully the Aussies won’t be eating the cats.
There’s a difference between these two arguments: a)Whales are not invasive species while b) cats are invasive species. If Japan’s argument about cats is based on “how cute” they are vs damaging the ecosystem, then the Japanese fail.
If you enjoy whaling feel free to do it in your own back yard (oh wait you do…), but when you start whaling near our waters in violation of international accords which Japan signed. (One or two whales of every species for study would suffice for scientific research) expect us to be slightly pissed.
More to the point the people who brought up WWII should be ashamed don’t think Australia has forgotten what the Japanese did to our prisoners of war, The soldiers who made it back alive were mostly nothing but skin and bone those who aren’t buried by the side of the railways they were forced to build that is. Or even worse what the casual r♥♥e and murder of Women who were captured in Singapore and it surrounds. But I’m sorry I’m sure all of that was in the front of your mind when you were criticising Australian troops. Or the bombing of Civilian Darwin or the Notorious submarine attack on Sydney harbour when Japanese mini submarines torpedoed an again civilian ferry.
But war crimes aside the best you could come up with is that we are killing feral cats? Please feel free to come and take our feral cats away if you would like them I’m very sure no one would object. Of course that would require you to actually care about anything outside of your own selfish interests but Japan is not exactly known for that is it, you can’t even take care of your own people with a ridiculous level of suicide, depression and personality disorder and a huge under reporting of r♥♥e and corruption. Oh and you still enjoy state sponsored Murder also known as the death penalty nothing like a good execution to make the population feel better about themselves…
Oh and before you respond let me point out that I actually think their are many beautiful parts to Japanese culture and many wonderful Japanese people, your lack of informed political discourse however and pandering to the lowest common denominator (by no means unique to Japan but you seem to have adopted it as policy in general)catering to the peoples base fears of xenophobia and in group out group racism is simply disgusting.
So, is less criticable killing and selling whales’ and dolphins’ meat even when knowing their meat is contaminated with mercury?
I see.
Watch “The Cove” , google it if you don’t know what it is.
look i can sort of agree with what we aussies are doing, the feral cats are a major issue, if you don’t like it come on over and take a few with you, though i think you might change your mind when you see a *FERAL* cat is different then other cats with not being all cute and cuddly :3