Exceptional Person of the Moment Awards:

These awards are hard to come by - they are in recognition of the recipient being on top of the list of people to whom I take exception for something they say, stand for, do, etc. Considering the amount of people I find candidates for this award, every recipient should be proud to be truly an outstanding individual.

Friday, October 18 1996 - Award Recipient:

Richard Evans, Western Australian Liberal MP

Congratulations, Mr Evans, on a truly stupid idea!

The RSPCA was quoted as saying that "the view that there was not enough room for both native animals and cats was simplistic, biased and blinkered".

Naturally, Mr Evans is not alone with this overly simplistic approach to wildlife conservation. Even some self-styled "experts", people walking around with hats made of cat fur, and other "clever" individuals, see votes, sponsorship money, personal recognition, or whatever, in such silly ideas.

The ideas are silly because they are based on a number of assumptions:

Assumption Number 1: cats were brought into this country by white settlers and are therefore foreign to our environment. This is popular mythology, but is somewhat questionable. Indeed, there are suggestions that cats have arrived in Australia quite some time before the white (wo)man, and therefore is part of the food chain which existed at the time of white settlement. In that case, most of the underlying reasoning for getting rid of cats is quite false.

Assumption Number 2: if cats are eradicated, our native wildlife will flourish again, and all the little animals will die in their sleep and of old age. A cute little concept which is, of course, based on wishful thinking, not reality. There are many other predators around who'd be only too happy to fill the cat's shoes, and some of them are not all that friendly to humanity either (e.g. our neighbour, the rat).

Assumption Number 3: the cat is the reason why many native animals are dying out. WRONG, Mr Evans, it's people who have wiped out the native animal population, not the cat. Perhaps if we had an eradication program of people (hey, let's wipe out all politicians over the next 25 years), we could save the wildlife.

A few points you have overlooked, Mr Evans:

1) The cat is about the only barrier between us and the rat. Get rid of cats, and we'll be overrun by rats. Would you REALLY prefer that, Mr Evans?

2) It has been proven, that cats make excellent companion-animals, because they are clean, affectionate, and require very little care. In fact, that makes them the most popular domestic pet in the western world, having overtaken the dog in most countries. It has further been proven that companion-animals are a very good preventive health measure, and an excellent aid in human therapy.

In other words, Mr Evans, cats keep their owners healthier and both physically and mentally fitter, particularly when it comes to the elderly and disabled. That means that cats, apart from serving a very useful social function, save us money in our already over-stretched health budget, and keep our elderly alive and sane.

So, are you really saying, Mr Evans, that you don't care about the health and welfare of your constituents, that they may get sick or even die, as long as you can get the votes of misguided conservationists?

3) Your type of simplistic conservation methods have been tried for many decades, Mr Evans, around the world, and with disastrous effects. And, like you, many politicians around the world think that they are doing the right thing, even against the advice of people who have given these issues some real thought, and have researched them properly.

This type of silly oversimplification has led to bounties on wolves in North America, many of which (stupidly) are still being payed today, endangering the existence of that most magnificent of animals, the wolf. And the native North American wildcat, the Cougar, has been hunted into near-extinction for the same silly reasons.

Quite generally, getting rid of predators has led to a drop in the numbers of animals this was meant to protect. It works like this (using but one concrete example):

In 1906, the Kaibab Forest along the northern rim of the Grand Canyon was famous as a "botanist's paradise". In addition to unique plant life and the famous black-tailed squirrels that are found nowhere else, a herd of about three thousand mule deer lived there. Teddy Roosevelt (he was a politician, Mr Evans - Ed), who prided himself on being a hunter as well as an explorer, decided to preserve the herd by preserving the forest. In an effort to help the herd grow, he declared a "war on predators" in Kaibab. Cougars and other predators were shot, trapped, and poisoned (sounds familiar, Mr Evans - Ed), making the expansion of the mule deer herd amazingly successful.

The effort, which continued even after Teddy Rossevelt's administration, was tragically successful. By 1923, the mule deer population in Kaibab was estimated at 100 thousand and still exploding. The range could not possibly support such a huge, artificially enlarged herd, and the animals ate all those plants that had so delighted botanists - just before they dropped of starvation. The range was gone forever, the predators were hunted into near extinction, and the unique plants of Kaibab were eaten down to stubble and dust - all because of uneducated efforts to preserve the range and animals.

Research, especially of predators, could have lessened or even averted the huge losses and lingering deaths of those animals. In many ways, those millions of buffalo (killed by hunters - Ed) suffered a more kindly fate, for at least they did not suffer for a year or two before dying. But the Kaibab mule deer slowly starved because of the best efforts of uninformed conservationists. It is easy to understand how everyone would want to come out in favour of the deer, protecting the big-eyed, beautiful creatures from apparently brutal deaths by big cats and wolves.(© National Education Corporation)

To put it simply: predators play an important role in nature. They capture weak, old, and sick animals, thus assuring that those who procreate are strong and healthy, and that they have sufficient food. It might sound cruel, but nature isn't exactly kind, and you aren't in any position to improve on what evolution, and/or God, have created over millennia.

I am under no illusion that you will see sense, Mr Evans, and I will therefore continue in my hope that what has been eliminated in 25 years will be ignorant politicians, not the cat!

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