The war on feral cats will need many different weapons

Katherine Moseby and John Read

At the Threatened Species Summit last week in Melbourne, Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Threatened Species Commissioner Gregory Andrews declared war on feral cats.

Cats are thought to be a significant contributor to the decline of many threatened species.

Targets in the released threatened species strategy include culling two million cats by 2020, creating new safe havens for threatened species (cat-free islands and sanctuaries), restoring habitat and emergency intervention for our most critically endangered species.

Excluding cats using fencing is an increasingly important tool used to protect threatened species. New exclusion fencing projects received significant funding under the latest strategy.

One of us (Katherine) was lucky enough to be asked to give a presentation at the summit on alternative methods of controlling feral cats. The following article summarises this presentation and highlights the importance of investing in a broad range of cat control methods.

Cats are highly adaptable and highly variable, hence we must continue to search for their Achilles Heel and invest in a wide range of control methods.

Poison baiting

Widespread poison baiting for cats has come a long way in the last few decades with baits such as Eradicat, Curiosity and a new hybrid Eradicat bait being produced.

These baits were developed after years of research conducted initially by the WA Department of Parks and Wildlife and are a soft meat sausage injected with 1080 poison or containing an encapsulated PAPP (Para-aminopropiophenone) pill. These baits have had most success in island eradications and areas where alternative prey are scarce.

In order to kill a cat using poison baits, cats must first find and then ingest the bait.

Unfortunately, cats hunt mainly using sight and sound so finding an inert sausage is a challenge for a cat.

Large numbers of baits must be laid, the usual density is 50 per square km, 10 times higher than the recommended fox baiting density of 5 per square km.

Despite this, many cats fail to find a poison bait before they break down and are no longer toxic. Even when cats do find baits, up to 80% of encounters do not lead to bait ingestion, with cats often ignoring, sniffing or avoiding baits when detected. This is because cats prefer to catch their own prey and will only ingest a bait when hungry.

Non-target uptake can also be high – species such as crows, goannas and quolls can take more than half of laid baits in some instances.

Successful baiting relies on using large densities of baits in areas with low food availability at the right time of year when cats are hungriest. Practitioners are continuing to develop ways of improving bait uptake and several important baiting programs received funding under the Threatened Species Strategy.

Grooming traps

A recent invention removes the need for cats to be hungry to ingest poison. An automated grooming trap squirts a poisonous paste onto the fur of the cat as it walks past a trap station, which it then ingests through compulsive grooming.

Cats are fastidious groomers and pen trials have found 9 out of 10 cats will ingest the paste when it is squirted on their fur. The trap uses an array of sensors to restrict triggering to target species and is currently being developed for field trials around Australia. The grooming traps have a silent activation, can store up to 20 doses and can sit unattended for months at a time.

Although unlikely to be used in broadscale applications, the grooming trap may be critical for protecting small threatened species populations and reducing the impacts of cats in areas where food availability is high.

The grooming trap received much needed funding for further development at the Threatened Species Summit.

Get rid of rabbits, get rid of cats

Widespread indirect methods of reducing cat impacts are also important. Recent work has found that the Rabbit Haemorrhagic Virus Disease (RHVD) (otherwise known as Rabbit Calicivirus) released in 1995 has had a significant positive impact on many desert threatened mammal species.

The range of species such as the Plains Mouse, Dusky Hopping Mouse and Crest-tailed Mulgara has increased by as much as 70 fold in the last 20 years due largely to reduced predation.

RHDV reduced rabbit abundance by up to 95% in the arid zone of Australia which resulted in a natural steep decline in feral cats and foxes, the main predator of rabbits in that region.

The increase in vegetation cover coupled with a massive decline in predation pressure has allowed these native rodents and marsupials to recover.

This would undoubtedly be one of the most significant recoveries of threatened species in Australia. RHVD was relatively cheap, for an initial investment of only $12 million. The agricultural benefit alone totalled more than A$6 billion and the benefits to threatened species have been dramatic but remain unquantified.

Other researchers have also found that by manipulating fire and stock grazing pressure, broadscale indirect benefits can be achieved for threatened species through a reduction in susceptibility to cat predation.

These indirect benefits include making it more difficult for cats to hunt by increasing ground cover, and increasing the productivity of the landscape thereby allowing native species to increase their reproductive output and tolerate higher predation pressure.

Serial cats

All cats are not created equal and recent work in the Flinders Ranges National Park has highlighted the impact of catastrophic cats on reintroduction programs. The reintroduction of the western quoll resulted in nearly a third of the quolls being killed by feral cats.

A quoll killed by a feral cat in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia. Melissa Jensen, Author provided

DNA analysis indicated that quolls were killed by large male cats with most cats responsible for multiple kills (Moseby, Peacock and Read,in press,Biological Conservation). These specialist hunters could be targeted by making their prey toxic, in other words employing toxic Trojans (poison capsules implanted under the skin of prey species where they remain stable) to control specialist cats.

Poison capsules can be implanted under the skin of prey species where they remain stable. If a cat kills and ingests a toxic Trojan, the capsule will break down in the acidic environment of the cat’s stomach releasing the poison and preventing it from killing more individuals. Research is continuing into this poison delivery device which may result in improved targeted cat control.

Get smart

Finally, an ARC linkage grant between the University of New South Wales and Arid Recovery is researching ways to improve the anti-predator behaviour of threatened species.

Our native species did not evolve with introduced cats and foxes and hence may exhibit inappropriate or ineffective anti-predator responses. This prey naivety can lead to high susceptibility even to low levels of exotic predators.

Containing our threatened species on off-shore islands or behind fences is potentially exacerbating the issue as they are not exposed to mammalian predators and can develop “island syndrome” where they fail to recognise predators as dangerous.

The project involves trialling “in situ” predator training where low levels of predators are added to populations of threatened species for extended periods to improve their anti-predator behaviour.

The theory is that natural selection and learning will lead to improved survival and behaviour of successive generations of threatened species.

Whilst this may be a long term endeavour, ways of facilitating co-existence and increasing the resilience of our native species to exotic predators are urgently needed as it is likely that the wily feral cat is here to stay.

The authors would like to acknowledge the following for contributions. Poison Baits – Dave Algar, Michael Johnston, Keith Morris; Grooming traps- Invasive Animals CRC; Broadscale indirect methods – Reece Pedler, Peter Bird, Rob Brandle Rick Southgate, Rachel Paltridge, Sarah Legge; Specialist Hunters – Dave Peacock; Improving Prey Responses – Mike Letnic, Dan Blumstein, Bec West. Ecological Horizons has received funding from Sporting Shooters, FAME, Bush Heritage and SA and Australian Govt for development of Feral Cat Grooming Traps.

Katherine Moseby is Associate Lecturer, Ecological and Environmental Sciences at University of Adelaide. John Read is Associate Lecturer, Ecology and Environmental Sciences at University of Adelaide.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission). Read the original article.

Feral feast: cats kill hundreds of Australian animals

By Tim Doherty

Feral cats are estimated to eat tens of millions of native animals each night in Australia. But what kinds of wildlife are they eating? In research published today in the Journal of Biogeography, my colleagues and I show that cats kill hundreds of different kinds of animals, including at least 16 species considered globally threatened.

Feral cats are a serious threat to wildlife globally, contributing to the extinction of numerous birds, mammals and reptiles worldwide. In Australia, cats have been implicated in the extinction of at least 20 mammal species and sub-species, including the lesser bilby and desert bandicoot.

Cats are widespread across the country, so it’s likely that their diet varies according to the local environment and fauna community – which might be affected by many factors, such as the amount of rainfall that an area receives or the native plant life.

Knowing what cats eat can help us decide how best to manage them.

Feline feast

What we found supports earlier research – the feral cat is an opportunistic predator – a generalist carnivore that eats a wide range of wildlife across Australia.

A feral cat degustation.
Tim Doherty, Author provided

Feral cats help themselves to a phenomenal number of species in Australia – 400 different vertebrates. This includes 123 bird species, 157 reptiles, 58 marsupials, 27 rodents, 21 frogs and nine exotic medium- and large-sized mammals. This is more than double the 179 species of animals that cats have been recorded eating on other islands worldwide.

However, this list only includes those species that have been recorded in diet studies, so it’s likely that there are many other species of native animals that cats kill and eat, that we just don’t know about yet.

Feral cats also eat many threatened species in Australia, and have been implicated in the decline of many species including the bilby, numbat, and western ground parrot.

We found that cats kill at least 16 globally threatened species and 12 others classed as near-threatened. This include mammals like the critically endangered mountain pygmy-possum and the brush-tailed bettong (woylie); the endangered northern quoll; as well as the critically endangered Christmas Island whiptail-skink and the vulnerable malleefowl.

Feral cats prey on the endangered northern quoll.
University of Technology Sydney/AAP

Desert desserts

What feral cats eat varies depending on where they are.

In our study, cats ate rodents most often in Australia’s tropical north. They ate medium-sized mammals, such as possums and bandicoots, most frequently in the south-east of the country. Still, cats ate rodents three times more often than other small, carnivorous mammals known as dasyurids (like dunnarts for example).

Cats also ate many mammals from a group that has suffered severe declines and extinctions over the past 200 years. These are known as “critical weight range” mammals, and weigh between 0.35 and 5.5 kilograms. Unfortunately, these mammals make suitable sized prey for many predatory species such as the feral cat and the introduced red fox.

What cats eat also depends on the amount of rainfall an area receives. Cats fed on reptiles most frequently in the central deserts, where rainfall is lowest. These deserts are also the most reptile-rich part of Australia (and the world).

Cats commonly feed on another widespread pest species: rabbits. Where cats ate fewer rabbits, the frequency of small mammals (rodents and dasyurids) in their diet increased. In Australia’s tropical north where rabbits are mostly absent, cats ate the highest frequency of rodents and dasyurids of anywhere in the country.

Rabbits are a major food source for feral cats.
Eddy Van 3000, CC BY-SA

This has important implications for how we manage pest animals. If rabbits are culled from an area, but cats aren’t controlled at the same time, then cats might switch prey and eat more small native mammals.

Past experience tells us how these programs can go awry. For example, when feral cats were eradicated from Macquarie Island in 2000, rabbit numbers exploded because the cats had kept the rabbits in check. Rabbits caused severe damage to the island’s native vegetation before being eradicated themselves in 2014. This suggests that a multi-species approach should be adopted for pest animal control.

Cat control

Large-scale control of feral cats is very difficult, particularly on the mainland, although some programs have been successful on islands. The use of poison baits can reduce cat density, but even low levels of cat predation can exterminate threatened mammal populations, such as when cats killed at least seven bilbies reintroduced outside the Arid Recovery reserve in South Australia.

Predator-free islands and fenced reserves on the mainland are the most effective short-term protection for our threatened mammals. However, fences that exclude predators are very expensive to build, and they require constant monitoring, maintenance and funding.

Non-lethal methods have traditionally been overlooked in the fight against invasive predators, such as the feral cat. However, new research suggests that smart fire and grazing management can help preserve the natural shelters that provide native animals with refuge from predators.

Reducing the impact of feral cats on our native animals is a challenging endeavour, but it is essential in the fight to conserve our unique fauna.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission). Read the original article.

Pretty kitties: feline ‘friendly’ genes mapped in study

By Bryonie Scott, The Conversation
House cats are a great source of companionship for many people – 3 million cats are kept as pets in Australia. Now thanks to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science today, we understand the genetics behind some of the traits that make them such good pets, such as docility and affection.

While it seems cats have been in close contact with humans for around 9,000 years, it is only in the past 200 years or so that we have produced the domesticated breed we know today.

The research team behind today’s study, who were from various organisations including The Genome Institute, created the first complete domestic cat genome reference. To do this, they not only compared genomes of different mammals, such as cats, humans, cows and dogs, but they also compared the genomes of wild and domestic cats, and found the genes that make our household pets so friendly.

Domestication: it’s in their genes

Don Newgreen, head of the embryology laboratory at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, explained that when an animal is bred to affect its behaviour, other physical attributes also change. This is known as domestication syndrome.

“Even though you are choosing for pleasant-natured animals, you get other traits as well,” Dr Newgreen said. “These include a lot of changes in pigmentation, set up of the face and head, length of the nose or teeth as well as behavioural changes like becoming placid and unaggressive.”

The wildcat is more aggressive than its docile, domestic relatives.
Brian Scott/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

The study found the main factor in changing the feline genome was originally food rewards. By supplying cats with food, the cats became more docile, and due to domestication syndrome, these changes in their behaviour affected other traits, such as hair colour, texture and pattern.

Bianca Haase, research fellow at The University of Sydney, said one of the main signs of cat domestication is the presence of fur patterns not found on wild cats.

“From other species, we know that white-spotting is a disadvantage [for wild cats],” Dr Haase explained. “There is no need for the [pet] animal to be camouflaged because they are protected, so an increase of white-spotting is a sign of domestication.”

White markings are a sign of domestication.
Netzanette/Flickr, CC BY-NC

When comparing the feline genome sequence to other mammals, the team found traits specific to carnivores. These included heightened sensory development, such as excellent night vision and a keen sense of smell.

Cats are different from other carnivores in that they are hyper-carnivorous. While humans would be in danger of heart disease from a rich diet of fatty foods, wild and domestic cats have evolved to be able to process saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Breeding cats for domestication is a relatively new practice, and there’s not been much time for new traits to evolve.

On top of this, humans don’t entirely control most cats’ eating or breeding habits, meaning pet cats are really only semi-domesticated. In Dr Newgreen’s opinion: “cats are not really domesticated, just tame.”

So while cat domestication is modest compared to domestic dogs, today’s study showed that genetic changes in feline behaviour and appearance will be retained as long as cats are kept as pets.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged with permission). Read the original article.

Ten Animal Welfare Myths

by Tim Harding, B.Sc.

(An edited version of this essay was published in The Skeptic magazine, June 2014, Vol 34 No 2, under the title ‘Creature Features’. The essay is based on a talk presented to the Mordi Skeptics in February 2012).

The term ‘animal welfare’ is not easy to define, but it usually includes the mental and physical aspects of an animal’s well-being, as well as people’s subjective ethical preferences as to how animals should be treated.  These preferences can give rise to a range of opinions about animal welfare; but as we skeptics are fond of saying: ‘people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts’.

I realise that this article may be controversial, even amongst my fellow skeptics.  Nevertheless, I would like to focus on some common factual misunderstandings about animal welfare; and try to dispel a few myths.

There appear to be two extreme polarised positions in the community regarding animal welfare.  An outdated view, often attributed to Rene Descartes (1596 –1650 CE), is that animals are not consciously aware, and are therefore unable to experience pain and suffering.  At the opposite pole are those who believe that animals have rights like humans do; and that hunting, farming and other uses of animals for human purposes are morally unacceptable.  Between these two extremes are various other views, including evidence-based or scientific approaches versus the so-called ‘organic’ or free-range farming industries.

Animal welfare science is a relatively new field of study; but some good research is now being done – including in Australia.  The two main experimental approaches are firstly, animal physiological and biochemical testing (e.g. blood tests) to objectively measure stress in animals under different conditions; and secondly, animal behavioural and preference studies (such as testing whether animals prefer more food or better surroundings).

Myth #1: Animals are best treated like humans

The attribution of human characteristics to non-human animals is known as anthropomorphism.  It is sometimes used to appeal to human emotions in campaign slogans about animal welfare (e.g. ‘Meat is murder!’ and ‘How would YOU like to be kept in a cage?’).

There are two main problems with an anthropomorphic approach to animal welfare. Firstly, it is emotional rather than evidence-based – and is therefore unscientific or lacking in objectivity.  Secondly, treating animals like humans is often a projection of human preferences rather than a consideration of the real needs of the animal.  Apart from the obvious differences in intelligence, anatomy and physiology, animals have different instincts to humans and they express a much more limited range of emotions than humans do.

Most of us love our pets and regard them as members of the family.  But treating them like little humans may not actually be in their best interests.  For instance, most of us are aware that chocolate is poisonous to dogs, but we may not be as aware that onions, garlic, grapes, avocados and macadamia nuts are also toxic to canine animals.[1]  Many dogs are also lactose intolerant, so dairy products are not a good idea for them either.[2]  So we should be careful about feeding human leftovers to dogs.

Myth #2: Dogs are tame wolves

Our treatment of dogs has been shaped by a historical view that they are basically wolves with nicer table manners. This is the concept behind much of traditional dog training – that dogs are pack animals competing with humans for dominance over the family.  This outdated view is now being challenged by modern canine science.[3]

All dogs are different varieties of one species descended from wolves.  Archaeological evidence now shows that dogs were first domesticated over 20,000 years ago – long before the first human settlements (around 9000BCE) and while we were still hunter-gatherers.  Dogs used to follow human hunters and scavenge from our leftovers.  We may have even used dogs to assist in our hunting.

Over this quite long period, dogs have been selected by humans for their mental temperaments as much as their physical characteristics.  As a result, modern pet dog breeds often bond more closely with humans than with other dogs.  It can therefore be bad welfare to deprive pet dogs (not farm dogs) of human contact for extended periods.

Myth #3: Some dog breeds bite humans more than others

Statistical research by the Victorian Bureau of Animal Welfare (BAW) has shown that the major contributing factor to dog attacks in urban public places is the inadequate confinement of dogs to their property, rather than the breed of dog.  Most incidents occur on the footpath or road bordering the dog owner’s property, as a result of dogs displaying territorial aggression toward people passing by or attempting to access the front door.  If owners ensured their dogs were adequately confined to the house or back yard, over 80% of dog attack incidents in public places could be prevented.[4]

The BAW studies have not shown that ‘restricted breed dogs’ (i.e. dogs bred for fighting) are excessively represented in the incidence of dog attacks on humans.  Any dog can bite if sufficiently provoked.  However, because of the relative strength of fighting dogs and their habit of tenaciously gripping their victims with their teeth and shaking them, anecdotal evidence suggests that the risks of injury and death may be greater from these types of dogs if and when they do attack humans.

Myth #4: Feeding stray cats is being kind

A survey by Monash University in 2005 found that 22 per cent of people said they sometimes fed a cat that did not belong to them.[5]  People may feel they are being kind because they know that stray cats suffer from starvation, disease and injuries from fights with other cats. But because they are ‘unowned’, stray cats are deprived of the regular meals, shelter, grooming and veterinary care that owned cats receive.  Feeding stray cats provides people with a short-term ‘feel good factor’ that acts against the long-term welfare of the cats.  It is a form of preference failure. Being a stray cat is not a sustainable lifestyle, with an average life-expectancy of only 3 years.  So feeding them actually perpetuates the misery of these poor animals (and their kittens), which on a rational basis should either be adopted as pets or euthanased.

An adverse side-effect is that stray cats are also more likely to kill birds, possums and other native animals than owned cats, at least some of which are kept indoors overnight.  The kindest thing to do for a stray cat would be to ‘adopt’ it (but have it checked for a microchip by a vet first).  If this is not possible, contact an animal welfare organisation such as the RSPCA or the Cat Protection Society.

Myth #5: Livestock are slaughtered inhumanely in Australia

Slaughter standards in Australian abattoirs are dictated by the Australian Standard for the Hygienic Production of Meat and Meat Products for Human Consumption (AS 4696 — 2007), which requires that:

1. Animals are slaughtered in a way that prevents unnecessary injury, pain and suffering to them and causes them the least practicable disturbance; and.

2. Before killing commences, animals are stunned in a way that ensures that the animals are unconscious and insensible to pain beforehand, and do not regain consciousness or sensibility before dying.[6]

There is provision for a religious exemption under an approved arrangement that allows ritual slaughter involving the commencement of killing without prior stunning.  However, such animals must then be stunned without delay to ensure that they are rendered unconscious whilst dying.  Personally, I am opposed to such religious exemptions, on the grounds of cruelty.

Myth #6: Meat chickens are kept in cages

Many people are surprised to learn that no meat chickens (also known as broilers) are kept in cages, at least in Australia.  They are farmed in large ventilated barns or sheds where they are free to roam large distances, albeit under crowded conditions, as shown in the photograph below.  Traditionally, this has not been done for welfare reasons but to allow faster and easier collection for processing, which is usually done at night.

An RSPCA approved Australian meat chicken shed

In Australia, feed lines and pans run the length of the shed and are supplied automatically by silos from outside. Water lines run the length of the shed, with drinkers at regular intervals. Water and feed are placed so that chickens are never more than about 2 metres from food and water.

Myth #7: Free range chooks live mainly outdoors

Chickens naturally prefer to live under cover from predators and bad weather. In the wild, they forage for insects and other food beneath shrubs and undergrowth, only venturing out into the open for short periods of time.

Free range chickens preferring shade (source: Wikimedia Commons)

There are no government regulations about free-range farming practices – this is left to industry self-regulation.  Australian industry standards specify that free-range chickens only need free access to the outdoors – they don’t actually need to spend any time outside a shed to qualify as free-range.  As a result, free-range chickens don’t usually spend the bulk of their time in the open, as illustrated by the photograph above. Some free-range farms have sheds on wheels or other movable housing structures.

Myth #8: Pigs are permanently kept in sow stalls

This claim is often made by animal rights activists but is untrue.  The reason for confinement in sow stalls (gestation stalls) is to minimise early abortions as a result of stress from aggressive behaviour between adult female pigs (sows).[7]

The endorsed Australian national standards for pig farming specify a maximum confinement period of 6 weeks during the initial stages of pregnancy.  Parts of the pork industry are voluntarily introducing shorter periods, but these will require more supervision (and thus higher labour costs) to separate sows that fight.

There is also some public confusion between gestation stalls and farrowing crates, especially when photographs of the latter (see below) are described as the former.

Sow farrowing crate (source: Wikimedia Commons)

Sows are moved in groups to farrowing sheds approximately one week prior to giving birth.  In Australia, a farrowing crate is only used for piglet feeding purposes.  It allows the sow less movement than a gestation stall, but provides creep areas along either side for the piglets. Adjustable rails alongside the sow slow her movement when she is lying down, thus protecting piglets from being crushed.  As soon as the piglets are weaned, the sow is moved to either a much larger pen or outdoors.

Myth #9: Sheep mulesing is cruel and unnecessary

Mulesing is the removal of wrinkled skin from the breech or breech and tail of a sheep using mulesing shears.  Until accepted alternatives are developed and the current practice can be phased out, mulesing of lambs remains an important husbandry practice in Australia for animal health, welfare and management reasons.  The principal reason is to reduce urine and faecal soiling or dag formation in the breech and tail wool; and thus minimise susceptibility to even more painful breech and tail flystrike.

Currently, cost effective chemical, management and breeding solutions are not available for all types of production systems in Australia and mulesing is a valuable tool for the prevention of breech flystrike for certain production environments and sheep types.  Although potentially painful, mulesing can be a net welfare benefit.

Available scientific research suggests that it is possible to achieve pain relief in conjunction with mulesing. Pain relief is most effectively achieved through a combination of approaches such as the pre-mulesing administration of a systemic pain relief drug, followed by a post-mulesing application of topical anaesthetic to deal with the ensuing period of pain associated with the inflammatory phase.  That is to say, a combination of short and long-acting pain relief drugs may be needed to provide more complete pain relief.[8]

Myth #10: Fish can’t feel pain

The International Association for the Study of Pain’s widely used definition states: ‘Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage’.[9]  Unlike in humans, pain is difficult to observe and measure in fish, especially in the absence of tissue damage.

Even when pain avoidance is observed experimentally in fish, a possible explanation is that it is a conditioned response to stimuli without the adverse emotional experience necessary for suffering.  Because of these observational difficulties, the conclusion that fish experience pain is often inferred on the basis of comparative neural anatomy and physiology. Some scientists are currently of the view that all higher vertebrates feel pain; and that certain invertebrates, like the lobster and octopus, might too.

The current approach in Australian animal welfare regulation is to give the fish the benefit of the doubt, and to presume until further research that fish can feel pain.  Whilst painless fishing may be almost impossible to achieve, banning fishing would also be politically impossible in a democracy.  The current regulatory approach is to minimise pain by requiring fish to be either killed or released as soon as possible after capture.

Conclusion

It may come as no surprise that I support the current scientific approach to animal welfare rather than an anthropomorphic or animal rights approach.  My main reasons for this view are:

• Evidence-based animal welfare standards are being progressively adopted by Australian governments.
• Such standards are more likely to be enforced and complied with than other approaches.
• As a result, animal welfare is steadily improving in Australia.
• This approach maintains the competitiveness of Australian agriculture.

Tim Harding B.Sc. has worked for the last 13 years as a regulatory consultant, amongst other things evaluating state and national animal welfare regulations for both domestic animals and livestock.  

References: 

[1] Warren, Katrina.  DrKatrina.com web site.

[2] Pet MD web site. Dietary Reactions in Dogs.

[3] Bradshaw, John (2011) In Defence of Dogs. Penguin Books, London.

[4] Harding, Tim (2005)  Proposed Domestic (Feral And Nuisance) Animals Regulations 2005 – Regulatory Impact Statement. Department of Primary Industries, Attwood.

[5]  http://www.theage.com.au/environment/animals/citys-stray-cat-problem-has-melbourne-throwing-a-hissy-fit-20130610-2o07j.html

[6] Browne, Gavin  (2007)  Australian Standard for the Hygienic Production of Meat and Meat Products for Human Consumption (AS 4696 — 2007). Food Regulation Standing Committee Technical Report Series 3.  CSIRO PUBLISHING / Food Regulation Standing Committee, Collingwood.

[7] Harding, Tim and Rivers, George (2006) Proposed Model Code Of Practice For The Welfare Of Animals – Pigs: Regulatory Impact Statement. CSIRO PUBLISHING, Collingwood.

[8] Harding, Tim and Rivers, George (2013) Proposed Australian Animal Welfare Standards And Guidelines – Sheep: Consultation Regulation Impact Statement. Animal Health Australia, Canberra.

[9] Bonica, John (1979) The need of a taxonomy. Pain. 1979; 6(3): 247–8.

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