But are generally slow and dopey, with woeful eyesight. A cat would have no
trouble sneaking up on one. Perhaps the cat wouldn't kill an adult directly,
but the adult koala would sustain injuries that would lead to its death. The
cat would easily kill a baby or juvenile koala - and what would happen to a
baby koala if its mother was injured or killed by a cat? It would die too.
Ditto with wallabies (the smallest wallaby, btw, is the size of a mouse)

Its probably a little of both.

There is no native equivalent of the domestic cat in Australia. Domestic
cats eveolved in a far more competitave ecology, one that was filled with
relatively small, fast moving, prolifically breeding prey with an
insitinctual reaction to a cat - run and hide!

The same cannot be said for our native fauna. Similarly sized native fauna,
and the young of larger fauna are in comparison, slow, stupid, have no idea
what to do in the face of a cat, and don't breen prolifically - maybe only
one or two youung per year as opposed to the 'millions' such things as
rabbits and mice make. Whilst the cats introduced into Australia were
origianlly to keep the rat & mouse population down (which were also
intorduced to Australia) the cats - not being stupid - quickly found easier
prey to catch. Native mice, native marsupials (we don't have native mammals
bar the dingo), and of course, young koalas, young wallabies etc etc (and
koalas and some wallabies really aren't that big - size of a hare or
thereabouts). Cats catch native birds, too, but the ground animals are much
easier prey than birds (which by and large are quite smart compared to the
marsupials)

We also don't have anythign that would prey on the domestic cat.

So we have a huge problem.

Not only that, the cats out there in the bush are generally not 'domestic',
they've gone generationally feral. Through natural selection, Australia has
two type sof 'domestic' cat - the house cat, and the 'bush' cat. The hosue
cat is still the same size and temperament of house cats around the world,
the 'bush' cat is significantly bigger, smarter and far far meaner. The
'bush' cat could not be re-domesticated much like a bobtail could not be
domesticated, they are *wild*.

The problem here in Australia with catch, neuter, release is twofold. First,
we're a big country with sod all population for the most part. You'd have to
pay someone to drive a day to go inland to the scrubland, set traps, stay
overnight somwhere that doens't have accomodation, then drive a day back.
After a week, you'd have to do the same thing to collect the cats that were
trapped. You'd have to have a small army doing this to make any difference
at all, and no-one has the funding for that.

Teh other problem is that even a neutered 'bush' cat can continue to
decimate the native fauna for many years to come, and continue to pass
disease onto the animals (domesticated and otherwise) it meets, even if its
not making more bush cats.

The bush cats need an eradication program, and no eradication program is
'pretty'. Please do not think of these 'bush' cats as potential pets - they
aren't. They are like bob cats or small lynxes that have had a population
explosion.

But Australians also need to change their attitude towards domestic house
cats, and they slowly are. Now both cats & dogs are required to be registed
by most councils (county areas). And its alot more expensive to register an
unneutered animal. Australians also need to know the impact even their
little neutered housecat can have on the native wildlife in suburbia, and
think very long and hard about letting said cat out between dusk & dawn,
when most cats do their hunting.

New Zealand, for the same reasons of unique ecology, has a similar problem.
The domestic cat has directly caused the extinction of a bird that laid its
nest on the beach. The kiwi - a flightless bird - is under threat. The story
of the domestic cat in these two countries shows just how the 'circle of
life' is actually a delicate balance, once that can easily go disasterously
wrong when a species that did not evelve int hat circle is introduced. (The
cane toad is another disaster story, and is pretty much exactly the same as
the cat problem).

Yowie

Sounds to me like somebody's an idiot. No way could a cat take down a
wallaby - a young joey maybe (they start out TINY and very dependant
on their mother)
The biggest problem with cats in Australia is them killing small
native birds - wrens, thrushes etc. Around Melbourne, cats have also
done a lot of damage to the lyrebird population (lyrebirds are very
large and beautiful birds but flightless and VERY slow and stupid...)
Feral cats are a big problem sadly... but as many Australians are
cat-lovers as in any other country!