Project snapshot:
Kangaroo Island as a model for landscape scale feral cat control
Showcasing Kangaroo Island’s ongoing feral cat control programs:
Kangaroo Island (KI) in South Australia – the country’s third-largest offshore island – is significant for its biodiversity conservation, primary production, and tourism. The island hosts many unique wildlife species which thrive in the absence of certain pests. KI is fortunate to be free of foxes and rabbits, and to have had success in the eradication of other pests including deer and goats, with pig eradication within reach. However, KI is not yet pest free. Feral cats remain a major concern on the island, where their population densities are significantly higher than adjacent parts of the mainland.
On KI, feral cats hunt and kill native wildlife including endangered species such as the KI dunnart. Feral cats also spread diseases among wildlife and livestock and are estimated to cost sheep graziers on the sheep graziers between $2—4 million every year in lost meat production from sarcocystis. The impacts of feral cats on wildlife increased following the 2019-2020 bushfires as the removal of large amounts of shelter made hunting easier, putting additional pressure on wildlife at their most vulnerable. To address these concerns, several coordinated efforts are underway across the island to manage feral cat populations, with the goal of eradicating feral cats from the island altogether. Feral cat management on the island has had significant community support and engagement, and perhaps due to this, organisations working on KI have received funding from bushfire recovery programs, as a priority place under the Australian Governments Threatened Species Action Plan, and from other grants and sources. However, future programs are awaiting funding.
A map of KI showing areas which have undergone feral cat management between 2020 and 2024. Image: CISS, NFCFMC Program.
Efforts to control feral cats on KI are headed by two main organisations: the KI Landscape Board and KI Land for Wildlife. These organisations work together with an expansive number of project partners (too many to list them all here) including the Australian Government, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Australian Wildlife Conservancy, Agriculture Kangaroo Island, Department for Environment and Water, Kangaroo Island Dunnart Recovery Team, National Environmental Science Programme, Nature Foundation, Trees for Life, World Wildlife Fund, Zoos SA, Encounter Solutions, and a large number of volunteers, landholders and the KI community.
On the east end of the island, the KI Landscape Board are responsible for the Dudley Peninsula Feral Cat Eradication Plan which aims to remove feral cats from the 384 km² geographically isolated Dudley Peninsula. The Dudley Peninsula program is acting as somewhat of a pilot for the potential future island wide eradication, with some unique approaches being tested to assess their applicability to large landscape scale eradication. Faced with a daunting amount of land on which to undertake management actions, and with broadscale baiting logistically difficult, a rolling front of cage and leghold traps has been used to push a control line across the peninsula towards a predator proof fence, with monitoring and mop up work continuing behind the trapping ‘front’. Feral cat control on the Dudley has applied an integrated management approach, using a wide range of tools including fencing, baiting, shooting, detector dogs, Felixer grooming traps, and advanced trapping and surveillance alert technology. As of 2024, 100% of the peninsula is covered by the feral cat eradication zone, with traps monitored 7 days a week to maximise control efforts.
Cage trapping is commonly used in feral cat management programs on Kangaroo Island. Image: CISS, NFCFMC Program.
The critically endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart (Sminthopsis fuliginosus aitkeni). Image: Jody Gates.
On the western end of the island, the focus is on limiting further damage to native ecosystems, with this work increased in the wake of the 2019-2020 bushfires. Work here is undertaken by KI Land for Wildlife, the KI Landscape Board, in collaboration with other organisations.
KI Land for Wildlife is a private land conservation organisation that conducts activities including feral cat control across more than 25,000ha on over 80 member properties . As part of their work on the western end, KI Land for Wildlife partnered with Australian Wildlife Conservancy and others in the formation of the Western River Refuge Project. Immediately following the bushfires, this project established a 369-hectare feral predator-free critical refuge in some of the remaining unburnt portions of native vegetation, using a variety of control methods to eradicate the feral cat population inside a fenced area protecting endangered species. The Western River Refuge acts as a sanctuary for threatened and endemic species including the KI dunnart (endemic), KI echidna, western pygmy possums, native bush rats, glossy black cockatoo (endangered), and southern brown bandicoots. Fauna surveys indicate that the Western River Refuge has double the species diversity and 25% more animals than outside of the fence.
Following the 2019-2020 bushfires, wildlife tunnels were used to provide refuge for native wildlife like the KI dunnart. Image: CISS, NFCFMC Program.
Following the 2019-2020 bushfires, the KI Landscape Board established the Dunnart Recovery Program to aid in the recovery of this threatened endemic marsupial. This program employs a similar methodology the Dudley Peninsula project, but with a focus on feral cat population suppression rather than complete eradication. Funding for this program allowed for the trialling of some of the technology that is now also used on the Dudley. Thousands of cats have been removed from the western end of the island since the bushfires, with wildlife surveys indicating the recovery of some important species including the KI dunnart. KI dunnart monitoring has also improved our understanding of these highly cryptic endangered species.
Keeping feral cat populations at bay is a difficult task to accomplish, and the programs on KI are works in progress. Some of the successes on KI are undoubtedly due its status as an island which aids in border control. However, a more important factor in the successes of feral cat control on the island is the level of community engagement present. A large proportion of the feral cat control on the island takes place on private land, and annual community Feral Cat Trapping Blitzes have made invaluable contributions to feral cat management on the island. Feral cat management on KI is a collaborative undertaking involving numerous organisations and the local community, and the island is full of stories of the community working together to tackle feral cat control. Without the ongoing support and involvement of landholders and the community, achieving a coordinated approach to land management would be impossible. Any future whole-island scale cat eradication program will only succeed thanks to close partnerships between government agencies, non-profits, landholders, and the community of the island.
Information on this page was obtained from the Kangaroo Island Landscape Board, Kangaroo Island Land for Wildlife, and Australian Wildlife Conservancy. Click here to read more about the Western River Refuge Project.
This project snapshot initially appeared in the March 2024 issue of the National Feral Cat and Fox Management Coordination Program Newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, click here or fill out the form at the bottom of the page.
Banner photo: Gillian Basnett.
Other Resources
Click here to find out more about FeralScan a free community-designed website and smartphone app that allows you to record observations and evidence of introduced pest animals (such as foxes and feral cats), the damage they cause (including predation of native wildlife or lambs), and control actions in your local area (such as baiting, trapping and shooting).
The PestSmart Toolkits provide further information about how to plan, manage and improve your feral cat or fox management program.
The CISS Glovebox Guides, Planning Guides and Field Guides are useful pdf or printed booklets for managing pest animals like feral cats and foxes, developing a simple feral cat or fox management plan or undertaking a best practice baiting program.