Feral cats and conservation – role-play
Aotearoa New Zealand has one of the highest cat ownership rates in the world. Nearly 40% of households have at least one cat – for the most part, we’re fond of our cats.
Unfortunately, domestic cats escape, get lost or are abandoned. It’s estimated that there are millions of feral and stray cats around the motu. Cats are predatory hunters, and they are having a devastating effect on native species.
Keeping an eye on things
Cats are a conservation enigma. While cats prey on rats, which pose significant threats to native species, they are hunters themselves. Even well-fed cats hunt.
Although feral cats are known to have devastating impacts on native species, efforts to cull them often result in a public outcry.
Pest management is an ongoing socio-scientific issue for Aotearoa. We know that species such as cats (and deer, hedgehogs and rabbits) are threats to native ecosystems. However, people hold conflicting views about their labels as pests and how to safely and humanely keep their numbers in check.
In this activity, students use the scenario of feral cat control as the context to explore personal and societal perspectives regarding pests and pest eradication.
By the end of this activity, students should be able to:
examine a conservation issue from different value perspectives
use social, scientific, cultural and economic arguments to support a particular viewpoint
consider who or what benefits from a particular viewpoint
reflect on what their personal viewpoints reveal about their perceptions of animals.
Download the Word file (see link below).
