Anti Cat Watch

Australia Is Locking Cats Indoors Twenty-Four Hours a Day and America Should Pay Attention Wyndham City in Victoria, Australia just extended its cat curfew from nighttime-only to full 24-hour containment. Starting January 1, 2026, all cats must be confined to their owner's property at all times. Not just at night. All day. Every day. Just like dogs. And Wyndham is not alone. The Crackdown Across Australia Merri-bek City Council in Melbourne adopted a 12-hour curfew running 7pm to 7am, effective July 1, 2026. Mount Barker in South Australia now requires all cats born after January 1, 2025 to be contained on the owner's property around the clock. New South Wales and Western Australia are both drafting amendments to their respective...

British Pet Cats Drag Home Up to 140 Million Dead Animals Every Year A University of Derby study published in March 2025 in the journal Ecology and Evolution tracked 553 cats for up to 43 months. The researchers counted every dead animal those cats brought home between 2018 and 2021. The result: the UK's 10.8 million pet cats return between 37.25 million and 140.4 million prey items per year. Just the stuff they carry through the cat flap. Just the trophies they dump on the kitchen floor. What They're Killing The breakdown: 83.21% mammals, 16.03% birds, with smaller numbers of amphibians and reptiles. Shrews, voles, mice, wood mice, bank voles, sparrows, robins, wrens — the entire base of the British food chain, dragged in nightly...

Cats Are Killing Eighty-Six Species of Bats Worldwide and Nobody Is Paying Attention When people talk about cats destroying wildlife, they talk about birds. Always birds. Occasionally lizards. Almost never bats. Meanwhile, cats are preying on 86 bat species across the globe, and roughly a quarter of those species are Near Threatened or Threatened according to the IUCN Red List. A comprehensive 2021 review by Oedin and colleagues documented the full scope of the slaughter. And the conservation world is barely acknowledging it. The Scale of the Problem Bat Conservation International published a detailed breakdown of why cats and bats don't mix. The numbers are staggering. In the UK alone, an estimated 250,000 bats are killed by cats...

Feral Cats Killed Twenty Percent of Monitored Kea in New Zealand in Two Years The kea is the world's only alpine parrot. It is endemic to New Zealand's South Island, it can solve multi-step puzzles, use tools, and work cooperatively with other kea to achieve goals. There are somewhere between 3,000 and 7,000 left alive. Feral cats are eating them. The Arthur's Pass Study Between 2019 and 2021, New Zealand's Department of Conservation tracked 45 kea fitted with radio transmitters across the Arthur's Pass to Lewis Pass corridor. The results were grim. Feral cats and stoats killed 13 of the tracked birds. DNA analysis confirmed cats were responsible for half of those deaths. Overall, 20% of the monitored kea were killed by predators...

Little Cayman Killed 176 Feral Cats and the Endangered Iguanas Tripled in Three Years Between June 2022 and May 2024, wildlife officials on Little Cayman shot and trapped 176 feral cats. By March 2025, the population of the critically endangered Sister Islands Rock Iguana had more than tripled — from roughly 1,000 individuals to 3,500. That is not a typo. Three and a half times the population. In three years. The Numbers Don't Lie The Department of Environment's 2025 population survey recorded the highest iguana numbers since formal counting began in 2014. Hatchling proportions were the highest ever observed. The agency's report attributed the surge directly to reduced feral cat predation pressure following the cull. That's from...

The True Cost of Cats: $300K Medical Bills and $30K in Property Damage When people talk about the cost of cat ownership, they mention kibble, vet visits, maybe a scratching post. They do not mention the six-figure hospital bills or the gutted apartments. Here are the numbers nobody wants to publish. $300,000: One Cat Bite in Virginia A Virginia resident was bitten by a cat. Not mauled by a mountain lion. Bitten by a domestic cat. The bite caused a bacterial infection that required emergency surgery. The infection persisted. The victim was hospitalized for days, underwent a second surgery to address scarring, and accumulated $56,793 in documented medical expenses alone. The case settled for $300,000. According to the Mayo Clinic...

A Florida Couple Stored Dead Cats in Their Freezer While 57 More Suffered Next Door On June 12, 2025, Collier County Sheriff's deputies arrested Olga Murphy, 62, and Igor Mursalimov, 54, at their home on 1740 Piedmont Court, Marco Island, Florida. Inside: 57 living cats in medical distress and between 15 and 20 dead cats stuffed into a freezer in the living room. The couple held an active license to breed and sell Maine Coons. The "Quarantine Room" Deputies found a sealed-off room containing 24 cats, all suffering from untreated medical conditions. The couple called it a "quarantine room." None of the animals inside had received veterinary care. Floors throughout the home were soaked with feces, urine, and vomit. Among the worst...

Nene Goslings Are Dying of Toxoplasmosis From Feral Cat Feces in Hawaii In March 2024, a one-month-old nene gosling was found dead at Liliuokalani Park and Gardens in Hilo, Hawaii. Necropsy by the USGS National Wildlife Health Center confirmed the cause: toxoplasmosis. The parasite Toxoplasma gondii reproduces exclusively in the intestines of cats. Every infected cat sheds millions of microscopic oocysts in its feces. Those oocysts survive in soil and water for months, sometimes over a year. The gosling walked through contaminated ground in a public park. It never had a chance. A Mother Who Keeps Losing Her Young The dead gosling's mother, a nene tagged "NTC," has become a symbol of what feral cats cost Hawaiian wildlife. In March...

Surveillance Footage Captures Cat Igniting Kitchen Blaze in Garland Home On January 14, 2026, firefighters from the Garland Fire Department responded to a residential fire in a Dallas County home. What they found when they reviewed the surveillance footage was almost unbelievable: a house cat had jumped onto the kitchen stove, hit a burner knob, and ignited everything on the stovetop. The whole thing was caught on camera. Ten Seconds to Disaster The home security camera shows the cat leap onto the stove, which had combustible items sitting on it. Within seconds of the cat landing and pressing a knob, flames erupted from the burner. That's Jim Dugger, Garland Fire Department spokesperson, describing the footage to reporters. The...

Lisa Lacharite Kept 142 Cats, 164 Birds, and 3 Dogs in a Double-Wide While Teaching Second Grade In December 2023, Lisa Gale Lacharite, a 48-year-old second-grade teacher at Ben Hill Griffin Elementary in Frostproof, Florida, walked into a local SPCA facility in Polk County with 22 cats she wanted spayed and neutered. The staff noticed two things immediately. Lacharite reeked of ammonia. And the cats were in terrible shape: missing fur, covered in fleas, weeping eyes, nasal discharge, open wounds from fighting. Then Lacharite said something that changed everything: "The cats at my property are in worse condition." The SPCA called animal control. Deputies from the Polk County Sheriff's Office went to Lacharite's home on Fazzini Drive...

In Unincorporated Harris County, Feral Cats Rule and Nobody Can Do Anything About It Harris County, Texas is the third most populous county in America. 4.7 million people. It wraps around Houston like a sprawling suburban blanket. And if you live outside city limits, in the unincorporated parts of the county, there is not a single law on the books that limits how many animals your neighbor can keep. Zero. None. That's the situation residents of Atascocita South discovered in late 2025 when a colony of up to 30 feral cats took over their streets. Atascocita South: 30 Cats, Zero Solutions An Humble family in the Atascocita South subdivision started counting cats in their neighborhood. They stopped at 30. The cats were spraying urine...

David Spence Tried to Solve a Feral Cat Problem on His Own Property. He Was Forced to Apologize. Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff, Dallas, Texas is one of the city's trendiest neighborhoods. Boutique shops, craft cocktail bars, upscale restaurants. It also has a massive feral cat problem. Fat, happy, roaming cats everywhere: sleeping outside restaurants, darting through alleys, breeding in parking lots. David Spence owns over a dozen properties in Bishop Arts through his development group Good Space. Between May and October 2025, he began trapping feral cats on and around his properties and relocating them to Grand Prairie, a suburb about 15 miles west. His stated reason: public health concerns. Cat feces, fleas, urine on commercial...

A Maryland Nonprofit Blocked Puerto Rico's Park Service From Managing Its Own Historic Site El Morro is a 16th-century Spanish fortress in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's one of the most recognizable landmarks in the Caribbean. It's also home to roughly 200 feral cats that have turned its 75-acre grounds into an open-air litter box. The smell of urine and feces hangs over the Paseo del Morro trail. The cats kill native wildlife. They carry diseases transmissible to humans. By 2022, the National Park Service had enough. Population counts showed the colony was surging. The NPS formally announced removal plans in late 2023, contracting an animal welfare organization to humanely relocate the cats within six months. Then Alley Cat Allies...

Five Brands. Multiple Dead Cats. Bird Flu in the Food Supply. Since December 2022, the United States has recorded over 130 feline H5N1 cases. The mortality rate in infected cats: 67 percent. The source? Raw cat food made from poultry contaminated with highly pathogenic avian influenza. Five brands have been recalled. Cats are seizing, going blind, and dying. And the "raw feeding" community still thinks kibble is the real danger. The Recalls, One by One 1. Northwest Naturals -- December 2024 A cat in Washington County, Oregon died after eating their raw chicken product. Genetic sequencing confirmed an exact match between the H5N1 strain in the food and the virus that killed the cat. 2. Monarch Raw Pet Food -- December 2024 Los...

107 Fires. Three Years. All Started by Cats. The Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters released data that should make every cat owner reconsider leaving their pet unsupervised: between January 2019 and November 2021, cats started 107 house fires in Seoul alone. The cause? Cats jumping on touch-sensitive electric stove buttons. Nearly half of these fires -- 52 out of 107 -- broke out while the owners were not home. Four people were injured. The fires are not slowing down, either. Seoul logged 31 pet-caused fires in the first nine months of 2019, up from just 8 in all of 2016. By 2022, that number climbed to 157. How a Cat Burns Down Your Kitchen Modern electric stoves use flat touch-sensitive panels instead of...

An Oregon Man Caught Bubonic Plague From His Pet Cat in 2024 A 73-year-old man in Deschutes County, central Oregon, contracted bubonic plague from his domestic cat in January 2024. It was the first human plague case in Oregon in eight years and the earliest calendar-year case ever recorded in the state. How a Kitchen Cut Became a Medieval Disease The man's 2-year-old cat started showing symptoms on January 19, 2024 -- vomiting and a swollen abscess on the neck. A veterinarian drained and surgically excised the abscess on January 24. The next day, January 25, the owner sliced his right index finger on a kitchen knife. He then handled his sick cat with the open wound. By January 26, a tender, raised ulcer appeared on his right wrist...

Cats Don't Just Kill Birds. They Kill Traffic. Nobody tracks how many car accidents cats cause each year. There's no federal database, no insurance category, no CDC metric. But the incidents keep piling up, literally, and 2024-2025 delivered a string of them that ranged from absurd to fatal. Here's the highlight reel. 91 Freeway, Riverside, California -- September 4, 2024 A couple in their twenties spotted a kitten crossing the westbound 91 Freeway near Madison Street at 12:40 PM. The male passenger told the driver to stop. She did. In the fast lane. On a freeway. He jumped out, grabbed the kitten, and a trailing car swerved hard into the center divider. A third vehicle, unable to brake in time, slammed into both stopped cars...

One Woman in Elmira New York Cannot Keep Up With the Feral Cat Crisis Alone Linda Reichel moved to Chemung County, New York in 2006 and founded A Voice for All Animals / Second Chance Ranch near Wellsburg. For nearly two decades, she has been trapping feral cats, getting them spayed or neutered, and releasing them. She has sponsored low-cost spay/neuter programs for local dog and cat owners. She has tried to do this the right way — the TNR way, the humane way, the way that animal welfare organizations endorse. And she cannot keep up. The Math Does Not Work Reichel told reporters that in recent years, the problem has gotten so out of hand she can't keep up. The cost of trapping and neutering has become prohibitive. Elmira has a feral...

Honolulu's Biggest Newspaper Finally Says What We Have Been Saying: The Feral Cat Problem Needs Fixing Now On February 16, 2026, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser — the largest newspaper in the state of Hawaii — published an editorial titled "Feral cat problem needs fixing, now." Read that again. Hawaii's paper of record, a mainstream daily that prints to hundreds of thousands of readers, just put its editorial board behind the position that feral cats are an ecological disaster requiring immediate action. In a state where cat colonies are practically sacred, this is the equivalent of the Vatican Times running a headline questioning the Pope. What the Editorial Says The Star-Advertiser editorial endorses House Bill 1736, introduced by...

Another Cat Tests Positive for Bird Flu in Washington State as H5N1 Keeps Spreading On January 27, 2026, the Washington State Department of Agriculture confirmed that an outdoor domestic cat in Grant County had tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1. The cat came into contact with a dead wild bird. Then the cat died. This was not an anomaly. This was case number 150 in an ongoing national tally of domestic cats infected with H5N1 since the current outbreak began in 2022. One hundred and forty-nine cats before this one, across dozens of states, and the message still has not sunk in: outdoor cats are catching bird flu and dying at alarming rates. How Cats Get Infected The transmission routes are straightforward...