Feral Cats
No introduced predator in Australia has done more damage to native wildlife. The hard part isn't knowing that — it's knowing what you are actually allowed to do about it, because the cat crossing your paddock at dusk might be feral, or it might be someone's registered pet. Here is what the Victorian rules allow, and what genuinely makes a difference.
Last updated September 2026
Photos: Richard Ali; Nick Walker; FeralCatScan
The introduced predator that got everywhere
A feral cat is the same animal as a house cat — Felis catus, one species. What separates them is not biology but how and where they live. Cats arrived with European settlers in the late 1700s, were deliberately released through the 1800s to control rabbits and mice, and now occupy virtually every habitat on the continent, from desert to alpine to the edge of town.
The scale is difficult to take in. The Australian Government's 2024 Threat Abatement Plan for predation by feral cats puts the annual toll at over 1.5 billion native mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs, plus around 1.1 billion invertebrates. Predation by cats is a recognised threat to more than 200 nationally threatened species and 37 listed migratory species, and cats have contributed to the extinction of more than 20 Australian mammals. Agriculture Victoria puts that extinction figure at 25 small and medium-sized native mammals, with over 100 more native species still under threat.
Estimates of how many feral cats there are vary enormously, because the population rises and falls with rainfall and prey. The 2024 plan gives a working range of roughly 1.4 to 5.6 million across Australia. Numbers are genuinely hard to pin down: cats are cryptic, mostly solitary, and most active around sunrise and sunset, lying up through the day in rabbit burrows, hollow logs and dense scrub.
It is not only feral cats. National research through the Threatened Species Recovery Hub found that roaming pet cats collectively kill around 390 million animals a year in Australia. Each roaming pet cat averages 186 reptiles, birds and mammals annually, about 110 of them native. The figure most owners find hardest to believe is that pet cats bring home only about 15% of what they catch — so "my cat doesn't hunt" is usually a statement about what turns up on the doormat rather than what happens outside.
The two problems also work at different scales. In the bush there is roughly one feral cat for every three to four square kilometres. In a suburb there can be 40 to 70 roaming pet cats per square kilometre. Concentrated in exactly the places where remnant habitat meets housing — which describes a great deal of the Yarra Ranges — that density matters.
Why it compounds. Feral cat populations are self-sustaining — they do not depend on strays wandering out of town to keep their numbers up. Agriculture Victoria records females averaging two litters a year, the first in spring and the second in late summer or early autumn, with litters of anywhere from two to seven kittens, and litters possible in any month when food is plentiful. Young stay with the mother to around seven months, then disperse and live alone.
Fire changes the odds. Agriculture Victoria notes that feral cats move into recently burnt country, where the surviving native animals are far more exposed because the sheltering understorey has gone. The same logic applies on a smaller scale after heavy slashing or clearing: bare ground is hunting ground. In a valley that carried fire in 2009, that is not an abstract point — it is an argument for keeping structure in the understorey while it regrows.
Rabbits are part of the story. Dietary studies in Victoria show wild rabbits are a major food item for feral cats here, alongside mice, small native mammals, reptiles, birds and invertebrates. Cats will also scavenge carrion and food scraps when live prey is scarce. That makes rabbit control on a property indirectly a cat measure too: fewer rabbits means less to support a resident cat.
How the damage actually happens
Agriculture Victoria breaks the impact into three direct mechanisms, plus a fourth that is easy to miss.
Predation
The obvious one, and the largest. Cats hunt live prey by preference and will take almost anything smaller than themselves.
Disease transmission
Cats are the primary host for parasites that infect native mammals, livestock and people. Set out in full on the tab.
Competition for resources
Cats compete directly with native predators — quolls, owls, raptors and goannas — for the same limited prey base.
They amplify other threats
The fourth mechanism, and the one most often left out. Cats increase the impact of bushfire and land clearing, because both strip the ground cover small animals depend on to avoid being caught.
That last mechanism is worth sitting with in a valley that has burnt. Fire does not only kill wildlife directly — it removes the structure that lets survivors stay hidden, and cats move in to exploit exactly that. The same applies on a smaller scale to a paddock that has just been slashed flat.
The annual toll, broken down. Agriculture Victoria's estimate of yearly predation on Australian native wildlife by feral cats comes to 815 million mammals, 470 million reptiles and 272 million birds, with losses of invertebrates and amphibians unquantified on top of that. It is difficult to attach a dollar value to any of it, which is part of why the environmental cost is routinely under-counted next to the agricultural one.
Reproduction, and why populations bounce back
Feral cat populations are self-sustaining, and their reproductive success is driven by one thing above all: how much food is available. On average a female has two litters a year — the first in spring, the second in late summer or early autumn — but litters can be born in any month, with anywhere from two to seven kittens.
Kittens and juveniles are themselves prey for foxes, wild dogs and dingoes, large reptiles and Wedge-tailed Eagles, and natural kitten mortality is high. In favourable conditions the young stay with their mother until around seven months, then gradually leave the family group. Dispersing cats live a more solitary existence from that point on, which is why the animal you see is nearly always alone.
The practical consequence is the one that defeats casual control: take a few cats out of good country and the survivors breed back into the gap. Population modelling suggests that on average around 57% of a feral cat population has to be removed every year just to stop it growing, with the figure ranging from 24% to 93% depending on conditions and birth rates. That is why sustained, coordinated effort across neighbouring properties beats an occasional trap — and why containment and rabbit control matter as much as removal does.
What one breeding pair can become
This is the question everyone asks, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a frightening one. Using Agriculture Victoria's own Victorian figures — two litters a year, four kittens a litter — and assuming a conservative one kitten in four survives to breed, one undesexed pair produces this:
| After | Breeding females | Total cats |
|---|---|---|
| Start | 1 | 2 |
| 1 year | 2 | ~4 |
| 3 years | 8 | ~16 |
| 5 years | 32 | ~64 |
| 10 years | 1,024 | ~2,000 |
Assumes 2 litters a year, 4 kittens a litter, 25% surviving to breeding age, an even sex ratio, and females first breeding at about 12 months. Arithmetic, not a forecast.
There is a useful check on those numbers. The model above has a population doubling every year, which means you would need to remove about half of it annually just to hold it steady. The published modelling figure for stopping feral cat population growth is 57%. The two agree closely, which suggests the assumptions are in the right territory rather than invented.
What actually happens is not that. No population grows like this for a decade. Food runs out, and feral cat reproduction is driven by food above all else. Density-dependent effects take over: cats fight, disease spreads, kittens starve. Foxes, dingoes, large reptiles and Wedge-tailed Eagles take kittens and juveniles. Young cats disperse rather than stack up in one place. The table describes pressure, not a prediction — the reason to act early is that the front of that curve is real even though the far end is not.
Be sceptical of the numbers you'll see elsewhere. Figures circulate claiming a single pair produces 5,000, 370,000 or even 420,000 cats in seven years. They come from advocacy material rather than research, they disagree with each other by two orders of magnitude, and they assume no cat ever dies. Even the widely-quoted “75% of feral kittens die” statistic traces back to a single study of three colonies. Anyone quoting a precise large number for this is guessing. The honest version is the modest one above, with its assumptions written down where you can argue with them.
On lifespan — and why a resident cat is a long-term problem. Agriculture Victoria gives the life expectancy of a feral cat as up to about seven years. Treat that as a typical figure under average conditions rather than a hard ceiling. In productive, well-watered country with reliable food, individual cats are commonly reported persisting a good deal longer, and landholders running trail cameras often recognise the same distinctive animal season after season for a decade or more. Either way the conclusion is the same: a cat that establishes a home range on a property is not a passing visitor. Left alone, it can be killing wildlife there for many years.
Four kinds of cat, one set of impacts
This is the distinction that trips almost everybody up. The law treats these four categories very differently. Native wildlife does not distinguish between them at all.
| Category | How it lives | Who is responsible |
|---|---|---|
| Owned | Has an owner, is fed and housed. May or may not be allowed to roam. | The owner — registration, microchipping and containment all apply |
| Semi-owned | Fed or sheltered by people who do not consider themselves the owner | Nobody, in practice — which is why this category is the hardest to manage |
| Unowned / stray | Lives around houses, farms, sheds and tips, largely off human-derived food | Council, once the cat is handed in |
| Feral | Lives, hunts and breeds entirely in the wild, independent of people | Public land managers on declared Crown land; otherwise nobody by default |
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Victoria's first state-wide Cat Management Strategy 2025–2035 was released in January 2025 and deliberately covers all four. Its seven themes run from responsible ownership and desexing rates, through cat containment and the semi-owned and unowned problem, to managing feral cat populations. The point of that structure is that you cannot fix the wild end while leaving the front gate open at the other.
Semi-owning is where feral cats come from. Feeding a cat you do not own keeps it alive, keeps it breeding, and keeps it hunting in the neighbourhood — without anyone taking responsibility for desexing it or getting it home. Victoria's Code of Practice for the Private Keeping of Cats is blunt about it: feeding wild or feral cats must not be practised, because it promotes their reproduction and increases both wildlife predation and the risk of injury to pet cats.
The part that reaches livestock and people
Cats are the primary host for five pathogens in Australia with known impacts on human health or livestock production. The most significant is Toxoplasma gondii, which reproduces in cats and passes to people and livestock through cat faeces — a major contributor to spontaneous abortion in sheep and goats. Sarcocystis, also spread by cats, forms cysts in sheep muscle that lead to trimming or condemnation at the abattoir.
The cost estimates are large enough to be worth stating plainly: AU$7.67–18.3 million a year in livestock production losses, and a potential AU$2.11–10.7 billion a year in effects on human health. Feral cats would also be a high-risk reservoir if rabies ever reached Australia.
The full picture — which pathogens, what they do to native animals, and what to watch for in stock — is on the tab.
A feral cat looks like a cat
There is no reliable way to look at a cat and know whether it is feral, a stray, or somebody's much-loved pet two paddocks from home. That is the single most important thing on this page, because it is what determines what you are lawfully allowed to do next.
Agriculture Victoria states it plainly: in appearance, feral cats can be difficult to distinguish from domestic cats. There are tendencies — listed below — but no diagnostic feature. So the practical question is not "is this cat feral?" It is "is this cat trespassing on my property, and what does the law require me to do?" Fortunately the answer to that second question is the same either way, and it is covered on the tab.
Often bigger than a pet
Adult males commonly run 3.4–6.4 kg, averaging about 4.5 kg; females 2.4–4.4 kg, averaging about 3.2 kg. It is common for feral cats to be larger than most domestic cats, but plenty of pets are large too.
Plain coats, no fancy breeds
Striped tabby is the most common coat in feral populations, with blotched tabby and black also frequent, and ginger or grey seen. Long coats and flat faces are uncommon; Persians and Siamese are not found living wild.
Solitary, and out at the edges of the day
Mostly alone, most active around dawn and dusk, and lying up by day in rabbit burrows, hollow logs or dense scrub. A cat repeatedly seen mid-morning near houses is more likely to be owned or semi-owned.
Home range tells you something
In Victoria feral cat home ranges run from under 1 km² up to about 10 km² where food is scarce, with males ranging further. Where food is easy — peri-urban edges, sheds, tips — ranges shrink and numbers rise.
Prints: round, and no claws
Cat tracks are round with four toes and normally show no claw marks, because the claws retract. Fox and dog prints are more oval and usually do show claws. Useful for confirming a cat is about, not for telling you which cat.
A camera is worth more than a glimpse
A cheap trail camera on a track or dam edge will tell you far more than an occasional sighting: how many individuals, what times, and whether the same cat is passing through or living there. It is also evidence worth reporting.
The distinction that actually matters
Any cat, feral or owned
Cats are not native and cause enormous harm, but they are not treated like a rabbit or a fox. Under the Domestic Animals Act 1994 and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986, a cat you trap must be handled humanely and handed to council. It is an offence to unlawfully seize or destroy a cat.
Quolls, possums, bandicoots
A cage trap set for a cat will readily catch a brushtail possum, a bandicoot, a goanna or a bird. In the Central Highlands it could also catch a Spot-tailed Quoll — a cat-sized native carnivore. Anything native must be released immediately unless it is injured.
Assume every cat you see could be someone's pet. Roaming pets, semi-owned cats and genuinely feral cats overlap in appearance, in behaviour and often in the same paddock. A microchip scan by a council officer is the only reliable test, and it is exactly why the law routes every trapped cat through the council rather than leaving the decision to the person holding the trap.
Cat, fox or dog?
Worth being able to separate, because the control response is completely different — and because on most properties both cats and foxes are present.
| Cat | Fox | |
|---|---|---|
| Footprint shape | Round, roughly as wide as long | Oval, longer than wide |
| Claw marks | Usually absent — claws retract | Usually visible |
| Relative size | Small and compact | Noticeably larger |
| Scat | Segmented, and usually left uncovered — unlike a pet cat, feral cats generally do not bury their scats | Twisted with a tapered end, often left in the open on a track, rock or tussock |
| Legal status in Victoria | Declared pest only on specified Crown land; a domestic animal everywhere else | Established pest animal on all land — landowners must control it |
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Print and sign comparisons for cats, foxes and dogs, adapted from Barbara Triggs' standard reference, are published by the National Feral Cat and Fox Management Coordination program. If you are trying to work out what is moving through a property, that page and a trail camera together will get you most of the way.
Other things worth recording as cat sign: wildlife kills with the carcass part-eaten and cached; feather piles; signs of illness in wildlife that can point to toxoplasmosis — disorientation, poor coordination, blindness, paralysis or breathing difficulty in a possum, wombat or bandicoot; unexplained losses of poultry or aviary birds; and reported Sarcocystis cysts at the abattoir. All of these can be logged on FeralCatScan — see the tab.
The one measure with the biggest return
Trapping deals with a cat already on the place. Containment stops the supply. In Yarra Ranges this is not a night-time curfew and not a suggestion — Council has a 24/7 cat curfew, meaning cats must be kept within the property boundary at all times.
Yarra Ranges Council's cat curfew page sets out what counts as contained: inside the house, in a front or back yard the cat cannot leave, or in a suitable cat enclosure. If a cat is picked up and cannot be reunited with its owner, it goes to the Animal Aid pound at Coldstream, and release fees apply.
Check your own council before you rely on any of this. There is no state-wide cat curfew in Victoria — containment rules are made by each council individually under sections 25 and 26 of the Domestic Animals Act 1994, so they differ across shire boundaries and change as councils adopt new orders. Yarra Ranges' 24/7 requirement is what applies at Steels Creek. If you are in Murrindindi, Nillumbik or anywhere else, or you are reading this some time after the date at the top of the page, check your own council's current rules. Some run dusk-to-dawn curfews, some are phasing containment in over several years, and some have none at all.
Contain the cat, all day, every day
Indoors, in an escape-proof yard, or in an enclosure. Contained cats also live substantially longer — they avoid cars, dog attacks, cat fights, snake bite and most infectious disease. RSPCA Victoria's Rethink Roaming tool is built around exactly this transition.
Build or buy an enclosure
A run off a window or door, or a fenced yard with a curved or floppy top, gives a cat outdoor time without giving it the district. Agriculture Victoria's cat pages cover confinement, enclosures and fencing options.
Desex
Desexing cuts roaming, fighting and spraying, and stops the unplanned litters that feed the stray and semi-owned population. Increasing desexing rates is one of the seven themes of the state Cat Management Strategy for good reason.
Microchip and register
Registration with Council is a state requirement, and the microchip is what turns a trapped cat into a phone call home instead of an eight-day stay at the pound. It is the difference between an inconvenience and losing the animal.
Don't feed a cat you don't own
It feels kind and it is the single most reliable way to create a long-term problem. Feeding sustains breeding and keeps a hunting cat in the neighbourhood while nobody takes responsibility for it. If you want to help a cat that is hanging around, take it on properly or call Council — those are the two options that end well.
Cut the food supply generally
Feed pets indoors or clear the bowl, secure bins and compost, clean up spilled grain around chook sheds, and don't leave carcasses or offal out. Peri-urban cat densities are highest exactly where food is easiest.
Manage rabbits
Rabbits are a major food item for feral cats in Victoria. Reducing warrens and harbour on a property removes a substantial part of what supports a resident cat — one of the few control measures a private landholder can act on directly and legally without a trap.
Give wildlife somewhere to hide
Cats hunt best over open, bare ground. Retaining fallen timber, rock piles, dense low shrubs and tussock grass gives small mammals, skinks and ground-feeding birds somewhere to break line of sight. This matters most in the years after fire or heavy clearing, when the understorey is still coming back and cats move in.
Containment is the only measure that reliably removes a pet cat from the equation. Bells, bibs and collars are sometimes offered as a compromise, and they may reduce a cat's success rate, but a cat that is outdoors is still outdoors. If the goal is to protect wildlife on and around the property, the boundary is the tool.
Support that already exists locally. Yarra Ranges Council is a supporter of Safe Cat, Safe Wildlife, the Zoos Victoria and RSPCA Victoria program that helps owners keep cats happy and enriched at home rather than simply shut in. It is a much easier conversation to have with a neighbour than a complaint is.
What you're allowed to do, and what you must not
The rules for cats are not the rules for rabbits, foxes or Indian Mynas, and the difference is not a technicality. A cat may be a registered pet, so Victorian law treats every trapped cat as one until a council officer has scanned it.
If you read nothing else on this page, read this. You may cage-trap a cat that trespasses on your own property. You must not release it back into the bush, and you must not put it down yourself. Abandoning a cat is an offence, and Agriculture Victoria is explicit that feral cats must be taken to the local council. Every cat you trap goes to a Council Authorised Officer, a council pound, or a council-contracted shelter, as soon as reasonably possible. Anything else risks a prosecution as well as an animal welfare failure.
The detail sits in the four panels below. Open the first if you only want to know where you stand on your own block.
What you are actually allowed to do Crown land, private land, and the difference between them
On Crown land. Since 26 July 2018 the feral or wild population of the cat has been a declared established pest animal under the Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994 — but only on specified Crown land, being land managed by DEECA, Parks Victoria, Phillip Island Nature Parks and the four Alpine Resort Management Boards. Control there is carried out by department and agency staff and their agents, using habitat manipulation, exclusion fencing, cage trapping, shooting, leg-hold trapping under Ministerial permit, and PAPP baiting. Recreational hunting of feral cats on Crown land is not permitted, other than by accredited volunteers working inside a program run by Parks Victoria or DEECA.
On private land. Feral cats are deliberately not declared on private land, so landholders are not required to control them. What you may do is deal with cats that come onto your place. Under the Domestic Animals Act 1994, an owner or occupier may seize or trap a cat that trespasses — in practice, once it has been on your property more than once without permission, you may lawfully seize it while it is there, by shutting it in a room or a box, or by using a cage trap.
Farmers have one additional and much stronger provision — section 30 of the same Act. It is set out in the next panel, because it is regularly either overlooked or badly overstated.
Farmers — what section 30 actually says, and what it does not Destroying a cat found among confined or tethered livestock
Section 30 of the Domestic Animals Act 1994 is headed Owner of livestock able to destroy dog or cat found at large near livestock. In substance it provides that the owner of any animals or birds kept for farming purposes, any person authorised by that owner, or an authorised officer, may destroy any dog or cat found at large:
- in the place where the animals or birds are confined; or
- if the animals or birds are tethered, in the vicinity of those animals or birds.
A second subsection provides that a person acting under it does not incur civil or criminal liability for doing so. That is a genuinely unusual protection, and it is the reason the section exists — it was written for the situation where something is in among your sheep or your poultry right now.
What it does not do is give a general licence to shoot cats on a farm. The power is tied to a place: where stock are confined, or the immediate vicinity of tethered animals. A cat crossing a back paddock, sitting on a fence line, or moving through bush on the property is not covered, and dealing with that cat falls back to the ordinary rules — cage-trap it and hand it to Council.
Everything else still applies. Section 30 removes liability under the Domestic Animals Act; it does not switch off the rest of the law:
- The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986 still applies. The killing must be humane and must not cause unnecessary pain.
- The Firearms Act 1996 and your licence conditions still apply, along with the usual obligations about a safe line of fire, distance from dwellings and roads, and landholder permission.
- The national standard operating procedures treat a single accurate shot to the brain with an appropriate firearm as the humane method. If you are not confident of a clean kill, do not take the shot.
- It applies to dogs as well as cats, and the same care applies — the animal may well be someone's working dog or pet.
A related provision, section 31, gives an authorised officer a similar power for dogs and cats found at large in areas designated as control zones under a management plan. That one is for agency staff, not landholders.
This is a summary written to be useful, not legal advice. If you are relying on section 30, read the section itself and talk to Council or your own adviser.
Why the answer changes at the state line All eight states and territories compared
Cat law is the most fragmented of any pest animal in Australia. The same action — trapping a cat and dealing with it — is lawful in one state, an offence in another, and permitted only under permit in a third. If you have moved here from interstate, or read advice written elsewhere, this is the table to check.
| State / Territory | Legal status of feral cats | What a private landholder may generally do | Authority to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Victoria | Declared established pest animal on specified Crown land only, under the Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994, since 26 July 2018. Not declared on private land. | Cage-trap a cat trespassing on your own property. Every trapped cat must go to council — you may not release it or euthanise it yourself. Leg-hold traps need Ministerial approval; lethal snares are illegal. Farmers have an extra provision under s30 of the Domestic Animals Act 1994 for cats among confined livestock. | Agriculture Victoria / DEECA |
| NSW | Not a declared pest under the Biosecurity Act 2015. Predation by feral cats is a Key Threatening Process under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, and cats are a priority species in the Regional Strategic Pest Animal Management Plans. Landholders carry a General Biosecurity Duty. | Cage traps and padded-jaw traps are permitted under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979; steel-jaw traps are prohibited. A licence is required to hunt on public land, not on private land. | Local Land Services |
| Queensland | Declared restricted matter under the Biosecurity Act 2014. | Cage trapping with landowner permission, complying with the Animal Care and Protection Act 2001. Shooting with a firearms licence and landowner permission. Baiting under approval. | Your local council |
| South Australia | Declared animal pest under the Landscape South Australia Act 2019. It is illegal to release a cat in SA. | Cage and leg-hold trapping by authorised persons under the Animal Welfare Act 1985. Baiting on public and private land by authorised persons only. | PIRSA / your Landscape Board |
| Western Australia | Declared pest under the Biosecurity and Agriculture Management Act 2007. Pet cats are separately governed by the Cat Act 2011. | Cage trapping under permit, under the Animal Welfare Act 2002. Leg-hold traps are not permitted for cats except under special exemption. Permits are required to set traps in metropolitan areas. Eradicat 1080 baiting is restricted to authorised officers and licensed technicians. | DBCA / DPIRD |
| Tasmania | Not declared an invasive species. Cats of every category are dealt with together under the Cat Management Act 2009, amended in stages through 2021–22. | Considerably broader than Victoria. A landowner, or someone acting for them, may trap, seize or humanely destroy a cat found on rural land used for livestock production, or on any land more than 1 km from the nearest residence. Closer in than that, a trapped cat must go back to its owner or to a cat management facility within 24 hours. Leg-hold traps and snares are prohibited. All cats over four months must be desexed and microchipped. | NRE Tasmania |
| ACT | Not a listed pest under the Pest Plants and Animals Act 2005, but identified as a damage-causing species in the Territory's pest animal strategy. | Cage and padded-jaw trapping under a private or commercial trapping permit issued under the Animal Welfare Act 1992. Steel-jaw traps prohibited. Hunting dogs prohibited. | ACT Environment |
| Northern Territory | Declared feral animal under the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 2006. | Cage trapping permitted subject to Territory animal welfare legislation. Shooting permitted with landowner permission. Baiting requires authorisation. Steel-jaw traps prohibited. | NT Government |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone
Treat this table as orientation, not authority. It is compiled from the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions' Glovebox Guide for Managing Feral Cats, the national standard operating procedures, and each jurisdiction's own agency pages. Cat law is moving faster than almost any other area of pest management right now — states are amending their Acts and councils are adopting containment rules year on year. Check the authority in the last column before you act, and never carry a rule across a border because it worked where you used to live.
Three layers, and which one binds you National guidance, state law, council rules — and why Yarra Ranges is stricter
National — guidance
The threat abatement plan, the National Code of Practice for the humane control of feral cats and the standard operating procedures set best practice across the country. They are what "doing it properly" means — but on their own they are not law for a landholder.
State — the binding rules
This is the layer that creates offences. In Victoria that means the Domestic Animals Act 1994, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986 and the POCTA Regulations 2019: which traps are legal, the 24-hour inspection rule, and the requirement to hand every trapped cat to council.
Council — extra rules, plus the services
Councils can add requirements on top of state law, and they run the practical machinery: trap loans, collection, the pound, and Notices of Objection to a roaming cat's owner.
Councils can be stricter than the state, never more lenient. In Victoria, sections 25 and 26 of the Domestic Animals Act 1994 let a council make an Order for a cat curfew, or declare areas where cats are prohibited altogether. That is the mechanism behind the local rule: Victoria has no state-wide curfew, so Yarra Ranges' 24/7 containment requirement is a Council Order, not state law. A neighbouring shire might run a dusk-to-dawn curfew, be phasing containment in over several years, or have no curfew at all.
What a council cannot do is authorise something state law prohibits. No local rule allows you to keep a cat in a trap longer than 24 hours, use a hook-operated trap, or put a cat down yourself in Victoria. If a piece of advice sounds like a shortcut around one of those, it is wrong.
The practical upshot for a property here: Yarra Ranges' 24/7 curfew is what applies at Steels Creek. If your block runs to a boundary, or you are helping a neighbour in Murrindindi or Nillumbik, check that council's rules separately — they can genuinely differ across a fence line.
Doing it properly, step by step
The steps below follow Agriculture Victoria's guidance on humane cage trapping of cats, which sits under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986 and the POCTA Regulations 2019. Failing to use or monitor a trap correctly, or to treat a trapped cat humanely, carries penalties.
Talk to the cat's owner first, if you can
Council's own advice is to raise it with the owner before trapping. Most roaming-cat problems in a small district are solved this way, and it costs nothing but an awkward five minutes.
Contact Council before you set anything
Yarra Ranges Council provides cat traps at no charge to residents having difficulties with cats on their property. Ask at the same time how collection works, and how to reach the pound if you need to deliver a cat yourself. Council can be reached on 1300 368 333.
Use a legal trap
A confinement (cage) trap operated by a tread plate on the floor. It must not grip or strike the animal, and must have no hooks or protruding parts that could injure it. Hook-operated traps must not be used for cats. Leg-hold traps, snares, nooses and kill traps are illegal for cats except under Ministerial approval.
Free-feed before you trap
Offer food at the chosen spot for two or three nights so the cat is willing to take it. Then place the food inside the trap with the door wired or locked open for another two or three nights, so the cage stops being an unfamiliar object.
Choose the bait carefully
Oily, fish-based baits work best. Avoid meat on the bone — it can injure a cat if swallowed. Bait used in urban areas must not contain poison; poison baiting is tightly regulated and restricted to specified people in limited circumstances.
Set it only when you will be there
You are legally required to inspect the trap every 24 hours, and a cat must never be left in a trap longer than 24 hours. Do not set a trap if you will be away for more than a day. Avoid setting on hot days, in rain, or in extreme weather.
Site it sensibly
Shade, not direct sun. Not on a roof, an embankment or a slippery surface. Not somewhere your own pets or other animals can get at a trapped cat. Check the trap before you go to bed and again first thing in the morning.
Once a cat is in it
Every trapped cat becomes anxious, owned or not. Cover the trap with a blanket, leaving the ends open for ventilation, or move it somewhere sheltered where it will not be harassed. Offer clean, cool water, especially on a hot day. Then deliver it to Council as soon as reasonably possible. If it is injured, tell Council immediately or take it to a vet — pounds and shelters have vets available.
If you catch something else
Release a possum, bird or other native animal immediately, unless it is injured — in which case get veterinary advice before releasing it. Traps must never be used to catch wildlife; penalties apply. A trapped rabbit or fox, both declared pest animals, should be humanely destroyed by someone competent to do it, or ask Council for advice.
Getting a cage trap to actually work
Council will lend you a trap. Whether it catches anything comes down almost entirely to how it is set. Cats are naturally cautious animals and are reluctant to walk into an enclosed space — and if food is easy to find nearby, they may simply never be hungry enough to bother. The national standard operating procedure for cage trapping, NATSOP-CAT002, is the reference the agencies work from, and the points below are drawn from it and from Agriculture Victoria's guidance.
The cost of getting it wrong is not just an empty trap. A cat that gets into a badly-prepared trap and escapes becomes trap-shy, and will be far harder to catch afterwards — sometimes permanently. It is worth spending a week doing this properly rather than a night doing it badly.
Get the trap itself right
A wire mesh cage trap — the SOP gives roughly 740 × 310 × 310 mm in 2.5 mm welded wire with 12.5 × 25 mm mesh as a working example. Tread plate only, never a hook. Hook mechanisms injure cats, they are prohibited for cats in Victoria, and cats normally eat off the ground so they often will not take food off a hook anyway. A cage that is too short or too flimsy lets cats escape, which is exactly how you create a trap-shy cat.
Make it a tunnel, not a cage sitting in the open
Partially enclose the trap in a large hessian bag or shade cloth. This does two jobs: it stops the cat trying to reach the bait through the side or back of the cage, which is a common cause of facial injury and of the cat giving up, and it hides the bait from raptors and crows. The SOP also suggests bending the trap doors upward so the entrance reads as more open. The nuance that matters: enclose the trap body, but keep the ground around it clear of vegetation so the cat can walk right around the trap before deciding to enter. Cover the box, not the approach.
Peg it down, and make sure it doesn't wobble
Set the trap squarely on level ground and peg it, so a cat or anything else cannot tip it over, injure itself, or spring the door. Prepare the site so there is no rock under one corner. Before you set it, work the door and the plate by hand and confirm the moving parts run smoothly.
Put it where cats already go
Under bushes, along fence lines, beside vehicle tracks, near rabbit warrens, at the sort of landscape feature a cat stops to investigate. Set it off to the side of a track rather than on it, so it is not triggered by everything that passes. Keep it away from anywhere stock or people will interfere with it, and away from spots where non-target species are regularly active. Never set a trap where it could tangle in a fence or dense scrub.
Bait it with the local menu
A handful at the back of the cage. Rabbit, chicken (fried chicken is specifically noted as working well), beef, fish, lamb, tinned cat food, sardines or tuna. Agriculture Victoria recommends oily, fish-based baits, and rules out meat on the bone because it can injure a cat if swallowed. Capture rates go up when the bait resembles what cats are already eating in the area rather than something novel — on a property with rabbits, rabbit is the obvious choice.
Rats will rob a baited trap. A cheap fix used in the national program is to put the bait inside a metal tea strainer clipped inside the cage: the cat can still smell it, but rats and smaller scavengers cannot carry it off, so the trap is still baited at 3am when the cat finally comes.
Add a lure as well as the bait
Bait gets a hungry cat in. A lure brings a curious one over. Smell: tuna oil, catnip, or soiled litter from a cattery. Sight: feathers or a wisp of cotton wool moving in the breeze, placed inside and outside the trap. Sound: a calling device that emits a cat meow. Lure effectiveness varies with season and location, so if a week produces nothing, change the lure before you change the site.
Set at dusk, check at dawn
Trapping works best overnight, when cats are active. Set the trap at the end of the day and check it first thing. A trap left open through the day catches magpies and currawongs; the SOP's advice is to close traps during daylight where practical, and if you do leave one open, check it again in the late afternoon as well.
Pick the right time of year
Outside town, the SOP recommends late autumn and early winter: natural food is scarcest then, so a bait is far more attractive, and fewer non-target species are moving about. It also advises against trapping in non-urban habitat between roughly September and March, because a female over six months caught in that window is likely to be pregnant or feeding kittens, and dependent kittens left behind will starve.
Tell the neighbours before you start
The SOP recommends notifying people before a trapping program begins, so cat owners can keep their pets in. In a shire with a 24/7 curfew that should already be happening, but saying so anyway is both neighbourly and the single most effective way to avoid catching somebody's pet.
One warning about reading the SOP itself. NATSOP-CAT002 is written for authorised operators on public land, and its later sections cover euthanising a trapped cat by shooting or barbiturate overdose. That part does not apply to you on private land in Victoria. Use the document for trap design, siting, baiting and welfare — and stop at the point where it starts discussing what to do with the cat, because in Victoria the answer is: hand it to Council.
Cover it, but don't seal it. The hessian or shade cloth is there to shield the trap and hide the bait — not to make it airtight. Once a cat is actually inside, Agriculture Victoria's instruction is to cover the trap but leave the ends exposed for ventilation, or move it somewhere sheltered instead. In hot weather add water; in cold weather add bedding.
Watch it done
There is a lot of cat-trapping video online and much of it is from countries where the law and the accepted methods are completely different. These are the Australian ones worth the time.
- Cage trapping for feral cats and rats — Paul Meek, Invasive Animals CRC. The different cage trap designs, what to look for in a trap, and how they are set. This is the video PestSmart pairs with the standard operating procedure, and the closest thing to an official Australian how-to.
- Feral cats — Australia's native animal annihilators — ABC Australia, Meet the Ferals episode 2. The best single introduction to why cats matter here. Start with this one if you are sending a link to someone who is not yet convinced.
- The Last 200: removing feral cats from part of Kangaroo Island — ABC Landline. What a serious landscape eradication actually involves, on the Dudley Peninsula behind the cat-proof fence.
- Killing Christmas Island's feral cats — ABC Landline. An island program that pairs cat removal with responsible ownership rules, and is unusually frank about the difficulty.
- Supporting reintroduced native species with trap alert technology — part of a Centre for Invasive Species Solutions series. Trap alerts notify you the moment a trap fires, which is how you meet the 24-hour rule without checking an empty cage twice a day.
- PestSmart feral cat video library — a short set covering camera trapping, spotlighting, baiting, Felixer grooming traps and the Kangaroo Island program.
- Centre for Invasive Species Solutions — the full channel, including forum and conference material on cat and fox management.
- Guide for camera trapping wild dogs, foxes and feral cats (PDF) — NSW DPI. Not a video, but the practical companion: where to put a camera and how to set it so you know what is actually moving through before you commit to trapping.
The other tools, and who gets to use them
Cage trapping is the only cat control tool genuinely available to a private landholder in Victoria. It is worth knowing what else exists, partly so you can recognise it when a public land program turns up next door, and partly so you are not sold something you cannot lawfully use.
- PAPP baiting (Curiosity®) — effective at landscape scale, but restricted to permit holders operating on specified Crown land. 1080 is not approved for feral cat control in Victoria at all.
- Felixer grooming traps — a sensor-driven device that sprays toxic gel onto a passing cat, which then ingests it while grooming. Used under research permit only, and unsuitable anywhere a pet cat could trigger it.
- Padded-jaw leg-hold traps — catch a higher proportion of cats than cages because they can be concealed, but in Victoria they need Ministerial approval and are limited to sites where eradication is achievable.
- Exclusion fencing — the only method that reliably keeps cats out of an area, and the reason species like the Eastern Bettong still exist on the mainland. Roughly $40,000–60,000 per kilometre, so it is a program tool rather than a property one.
- Thermal-assisted shooting — on Crown land, by departmental and agency staff and their agents only. Recreational hunting of feral cats on Crown land is not permitted.
- Habitat management and rabbit control — the two that are fully available to you, and the two most often skipped. Both are on the tab.
Conservation detection dogs
Trained detection dogs can confirm that cats are present by finding and indicating on scats, follow a fresh scent trail, and in suitable country support capture or shooting operations. They are far more sensitive than a camera for answering the question "is there actually a cat living here?" — which is exactly the question most properties cannot answer.
The cost of training and keeping a dog and handler has historically limited them to high-value research, island eradication and ecological restoration programs — but they are increasingly used by community organisations rather than only by agencies.
The closest working example is Phillip Island. Phillip Island Nature Parks runs detection dogs for both foxes and feral cats, and in 2025 expanded the team with the Penguin Foundation and $50,000 from DEECA's Nature Fund, including a trainee feral cat detection dog-handler. The island was declared fox-free in 2017 after 25 years of eradication work, and dogs are now part of how that status is monitored — with the cat program running alongside it to protect Little Penguins and Short-tailed Shearwaters. The Northern Yarra Landcare Network has pulled the Phillip Island story together with videos and background reading on one page, which is the easiest introduction to what these dogs actually do.
For the wider picture, the Australasian Conservation Dog Network maintains a practitioner database, published guidelines and a webinar series covering vertebrate predator work.
Where this could go locally. Detection dogs are one of the few tools that scale down sensibly to a Landcare group rather than requiring a government program. If that is something you would be interested in seeing here, say so — interest is what turns an idea into a project.
Transporting a trapped cat in your own vehicle
- Go directly to the council pound or contracted shelter — no detours.
- Carry the trap somewhere well ventilated or air-conditioned: the rear seat of a sedan, or the cargo area of a ute. Never in the boot of a sedan.
- Keep the trap covered to reduce stress, and do not transport a trapped cat alongside other pets.
- Secure the trap so it cannot slide about — a seat belt through the trap works in a back seat.
- Don't slide the trap across a seat or cargo floor; the cat's paws can catch through the mesh in the trap floor.
- Cover upholstery underneath and around the cage, and clean the area afterwards with a non-phenol-based disinfectant to reduce disease transfer.
What happens after you hand a cat over
An Authorised Officer assesses the cat for identification, injuries, temperament and disease, and decides what happens next. Injured cats go to a vet.
Identified cats, and unidentified cats that are tame and healthy, are impounded for a minimum of eight days so the owner has a chance to claim them. Council must contact the owner of an identified cat. If the cat was trapped following a trespass complaint, Council must also issue a Notice of Objection to the owner naming the address the cat is not permitted to enter — and penalties apply to the owner if it comes back.
If nobody collects the cat after eight days, Council may rehome it or humanely destroy it. Unidentified cats that are wild, uncontrollable or diseased may be humanely destroyed straight away, because they are not suitable for rehoming and holding them is poor welfare for them and for the other cats at the pound.
Penalties for getting trapping wrong
Under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Regulations 2019, the maximum penalty for the illegal use or sale of traps is 240 penalty units or two years' imprisonment for an individual, and 1,200 penalty units for a body corporate. Separately, it is an offence under the Domestic Animals Act 1994 to unlawfully seize or destroy a cat, or to abandon one.
None of that is intended to discourage lawful trapping — Council actively lends traps for it. It is a reason to follow the process rather than improvise.
Record feral cat activity in FeralScan
A free national tool for anyone who notices what is happening around them.
FeralScan is a free national recording tool covering feral cats, deer, foxes, rabbits, wild dogs, pigs, mynas and more. FeralCatScan is the cat part of it. It works on a computer, an iPhone or an Android device, and everything you log feeds into a shared picture of where cats are and what they are doing.
You do not need to own land to use it. FeralCatScan describes itself as a resource for anyone — concerned citizens as much as landholders, alongside Landcare and community groups, local councils, professional pest controllers and biosecurity organisations. A cat seen from a walking track, a feather pile noticed on a weekend visit, a camera-trap frame from a rented block: all of it counts, and all of it goes into the same map. Some of the most useful records come from people who are simply out looking at things.
Individual sightings are almost worthless on their own. A hundred of them across a valley, with dates and locations, are something a control program can be built on. That is the whole idea — turning scattered observations into a picture of where the pressure actually is.
What is worth recording
Sightings and evidence
A cat crossing a track, caught in the headlights, or on the dam wall at dusk — note the time, because dawn and dusk records tell a different story from midday ones. Also tracks (round, four toes, no claw marks), scats (usually left uncovered rather than buried), and camera-trap photos, which are the most valuable record of all: timestamped, unambiguous, and often showing the same individual returning.
Damage
Predation on native wildlife, feather piles, part-eaten and cached carcasses, poultry and aviary losses. Also wildlife showing signs of toxoplasmosis — a possum, wombat or bandicoot that is disoriented, poorly coordinated or partly paralysed. This is the evidence that makes the case, and it is the most under-reported category by a distance.
Control activity
Trapping you have carried out, and what came of it. Recording effort that produced nothing is as useful as recording a capture — it is what tells you whether a technique is working, or whether the cats in your area have simply gone trap-shy.
Your details stay private. Your name and contact details are never published. Records are visible to you, to any FeralCatScan group you have chosen to join, and to the government departments involved in pest control and biosecurity — and FeralCatScan manages all control information privately. Sightings feed the national map anonymously: the observation goes into the database, but it is not publicly attributed to you, and your neighbours do not see your property's records unless you join a group with them.
Read this before you record anything. FeralCatScan is for feral cats and their impacts on native wildlife. Problems with domestic or stray cats in town — a neighbour's cat, or a cat you want trapped and collected — go to Yarra Ranges Council instead, on 1300 368 333. Logging those here will not get anyone out to deal with them. The practical difference between the two, and why it matters legally, is on the tab.
What you get out of using it
- Build a map of feral cat activity across your property or local area to guide where control effort goes
- Work with your neighbours on genuinely coordinated control rather than isolated effort
- Create a private group for your neighbours or a community action group
- Notify your local community or landholder group about cat activity as it happens
- Keep local authorities informed about current problems
Creating a private group for your neighbours or a community action group
FeralCatScan lets a group be created to collect records and report on monitoring and control within a defined area. Members see each other's records on a shared map, which is exactly what a neighbourhood needs if it wants to work out whether it is dealing with one cat with a large home range or several separate animals.
That distinction is the whole point here. A male feral cat's home range in Victoria can run to several square kilometres, so a group covering a handful of adjoining properties will tell you far more than any one property can on its own — and it stops four neighbours each independently concluding they have "a cat problem" when they are all watching the same animal.
You can set a group up through the FeralCatScan site. If a Steels Creek group would be useful to you, get in touch — this is the sort of thing that only works if a few neighbours start at once.
The bigger picture: FeralCatScan records are one of the evidence sources used to decide where control programs and funding are directed. Reporting does not guarantee that anyone will act — but under-reporting in an area can make it look like there is no problem there at all.
Three steps to your first record
Install it
Add the FeralScan app to your phone, or just use the FeralCatScan website on a computer. Installation guides: Apple (PDF) · Android (PDF). Log in the first time you open it, so you can find your own records again later.
Record something
Log a sighting, a photo of tracks or a kill, damage, or control work you've done. Register with your name or just an email address — it takes a minute.
Three things worth knowing: it works with no signal, you can attach a photo from the camera, and be accurate with the location.
Join or create a group
Link up with neighbours so you can see the same picture and coordinate. Create a private group
Instructions and support
How to use FeralCatScan
- What FeralCatScan provides
- How to use the website
- How to use the app
- Create a private group for your community
- Connect with support
Related guides
Cats are not the only thing worth logging. The same free app covers DeerScan, FoxScan and FeralFishScan. If you are already out checking a camera or a trap, recording a fox or a deer at the same time costs nothing and builds the same picture for species this group is also working on.
Who's actually losing out
Cats have been recorded preying on at least 400 species of native and introduced vertebrates in Australia — among them 157 reptiles, 123 birds, 58 marsupials, 27 rodents and 21 frogs. In this district the losses are concentrated among ground-dwelling and hollow-dependent animals under about four kilograms.
Four kilograms is the number worth holding onto. Studies in Tasmania have shown feral cats catching and killing wildlife up to that weight, which takes in almost every small and medium native mammal, most reptiles, and the great majority of birds a reader is likely to have on their place. Cats also engage in surplus killing — killing more than they can eat in a single night — which is why a single cat can flatten a colony rather than simply take from it.
Forty-three species, and three that may not make it
Agriculture Victoria puts a number on it that is worth repeating: 43 threatened species listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 are at increased risk of extinction as a direct result of feral cats. Not affected in passing — at increased risk of extinction, directly.
Its warning is blunter still. Unless feral cats are strategically managed, critically endangered native species including the Helmeted Honeyeater, Mountain Pygmy-possum and Plains-wanderer may be pushed into extinction in the wild. When the Victorian Government declared the feral cat a pest animal in 2018, it named the Orange-bellied Parrot in the same breath.
One of those four lives twenty minutes from here. The Helmeted Honeyeater is Victoria's bird emblem and its wild stronghold is at Yellingbo — which is why the section below is not a general conservation story but a local one.
“Strategically managed” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It means sustained, coordinated control at a landscape scale, not a trap here and there. For a private landholder the contribution is containment, rabbit control, habitat structure and reporting — and supporting the agencies that run the baiting and trapping programs on public land, because that is where the species above are actually being defended.
What is at stake in each state
Every jurisdiction has its own short list of species for which feral cats are the limiting threat. Seeing them together makes the scale clearer than a single national total does.
Before the state lists, the national picture. The 2024 Threat Abatement Plan records predation by cats as a recognised threat to over 200 nationally threatened species and 37 listed migratory species, nine of which are also threatened. A separate Threatened Species Recovery Hub review that ranked Australia's worst invasive species by the number of threatened species they affect put cats fourth, affecting 123 species — noting their particularly devastating effect on small to medium-sized mammals.
The extinction record is the starkest measure. Of Australia's documented vertebrate extinctions, feral cats are implicated in 26 of 33 mammal extinctions, all 3 reptile extinctions, and 2 of 9 bird extinctions. No introduced predator anywhere has a comparable record on this continent.
| Jurisdiction | Species named as at risk from cat predation | Where this comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Victoria | 43 species listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 are at increased risk of extinction directly because of feral cats. Named as critically endangered and at risk of being lost from the wild: Helmeted Honeyeater, Mountain Pygmy-possum, Plains-wanderer, Orange-bellied Parrot. Lowland Leadbeater's Possum is also predated by cats at nest boxes. | Agriculture Victoria; Premier of Victoria, 2018 |
| NSW | Predation by feral cats is a Key Threatening Process under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, and cats are a priority species in all 11 Regional Strategic Pest Animal Management Plans. Greater Bilby and other small mammals reintroduced into fenced havens such as the Pilliga depend entirely on cats being kept out. Malleefowl and Plains-wanderer are also affected. | Local Land Services; NSW regional pest plans |
| Queensland | Northern Bettong, Night Parrot and Northern Quoll. Cats are considered a key threat to the Night Parrot in the remote country where it was recently rediscovered — and among the hardest places in Australia to manage them. | NESP Threatened Species Recovery Hub; WWF-Australia |
| South Australia | Kangaroo Island Dunnart above all — critically endangered, with roughly 95% of its known habitat burnt in the 2019–20 fires and cat densities on the island running at about double the mainland average. A landscape eradication program is under way on the 38,000 ha Dudley Peninsula behind a 3 km cat-proof fence. Malleefowl and Glossy Black-Cockatoo are also at risk. | Kangaroo Island Landscape Board; NESP |
| Western Australia | DPIRD reports a DBCA review finding 36 mammal, 22 bird and 11 reptile species in WA vulnerable to cat predation. Named among them: Numbat (the state's faunal emblem), Woylie, Chuditch, Gilbert's Potoroo, Western Ground Parrot, Quokka, Greater Bilby and Black-flanked Rock-wallaby. WA holds the last natural populations of several species gone from the rest of their range, and runs the country's largest predator control program, Western Shield. | DBCA; WA Feral Cat Strategy 2023–2028 |
| Tasmania | Eastern Quoll and Eastern Barred Bandicoot. Tasmania is unusual in that the disease pathway matters as much as the predation one — toxoplasmosis carried by cats is implicated in Eastern Quoll decline. Cats there have been recorded killing wildlife up to about 4 kg. | NRE Tasmania |
| Northern Territory | Brush-tailed Rabbit-rat, Golden Bandicoot, Northern Quoll, Greater Bilby and Mala. In the tropical savannas cat impact is tightly bound up with fire regime, because fire determines how much cover the prey has. | NESP Threatened Species Recovery Hub; WWF-Australia |
| ACT | Eastern Bettong, reintroduced behind predator-proof fencing at Mulligans Flat. It is one of the mammals on the Australian Government's original priority list precisely because cats are the limiting factor on its return to the mainland. | Australian Government Threatened Species Strategy |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone
Why there is no row-by-row species count, and why you cannot add these up. Only two jurisdictions publish a headline number of species threatened by cat predation: Victoria (43 under the FFG Act) and Western Australia (via the DBCA review). No equivalent published count could be found for the other six, so none is given here rather than one being invented.
Even if every state published one, totalling them would be wrong. Species do not stop at borders. The Northern Quoll is counted in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The Greater Bilby spans four jurisdictions, Malleefowl four, the Plains-wanderer two. Adding the state figures would count the same animals several times over and produce a number larger than the real one. The national figure to use is the one above — over 200 nationally threatened species — because it counts each species once.
Illustrative, not exhaustive. Each row lists species that the named jurisdiction's own agencies or national programs identify as at risk from cat predation. There are many more in every state. The pattern across the whole table is the useful part: ground-dwelling and hollow-dependent animals under about four kilograms, in places where cover has been lost to fire, clearing or grazing.
Species being actively defended from cats in the Yarra Ranges
Parks Victoria runs bait and trapping stations for foxes and cats at Yellingbo Nature Conservation Area, Bunyip State Park and Kurth Kiln Regional Park — specifically to protect the species below.
Helmeted Honeyeater
Victoria's bird emblem, and one of the most closely managed birds in the country. Its wild stronghold is at Yellingbo, a short drive from here. Predation by cats and foxes is one of the reasons the population needs active defence to persist at all.
Lowland Leadbeater's Possum
Victoria's faunal emblem. The lowland population at Yellingbo is tiny, isolated and hollow-dependent — and a hollow-dependent animal has to cross open ground to move between trees.
Southern Brown Bandicoot
A ground-dwelling digger of exactly the size cats specialise in. Bandicoots are also among the native mammals most affected by toxoplasmosis, so cats hit them twice over.
Broad-toothed Rat
A native rodent that lives in dense, wet ground cover and runways through tussock. Its entire defence is thick vegetation, which is why fire, slashing and grazing pressure translate so directly into cat predation.
Glossy Grass Skink
A secretive skink of swampy tussock and rotting logs, listed as endangered in Victoria and recorded at Yellingbo. Reptiles make up the largest single share of what cats kill nationally.
The common species that quietly disappear
Lichenostomus melanops cassidix · Victoria's bird emblem and its only endemic bird, surviving in the wild at Yellingbo, twenty minutes from here. Photo: Owen Lishmund. Learn more →
Gymnobelideus leadbeateri · Victoria's faunal emblem. The lowland population at Yellingbo is tiny, isolated and entirely hollow-dependent. Photo: supplied. Learn more →
Isoodon obesulus · A ground-dwelling digger of exactly the size cats specialise in, and among the natives most affected by toxoplasmosis. Photo: Vicki. Learn more →
Mastacomys fuscus · A native rodent whose entire defence is thick, wet ground cover — which is why fire and slashing translate straight into predation. Photo: NatureMapR. Learn more →
Pseudemoia rawlinsoni · A secretive skink of swampy tussock and rotting logs, recorded at Yellingbo. Reptiles are the largest single group cats kill nationally. Photo: Owen Lishmund. Learn more →
And one more, closer to the everyday. The Brush-tailed Phascogale is a small carnivorous marsupial that nests in tree hollows and forages on the ground and up trunks — present through the drier forest of this region and threatened in Victoria. Agriculture Victoria's own feral cat species page illustrates the predation problem with a photograph of a feral cat carrying a freshly killed phascogale.
Threatened species make the headlines, but most of what a cat kills is ordinary. Sugar Gliders and Agile Antechinus moving between trees. Juvenile Ringtail and Brushtail Possums. Blue-tongue lizards and the garden skinks along a north-facing wall. Superb Fairy-wrens, Eastern Yellow Robins, thornbills, silvereyes and every other small bird that feeds on or near the ground. Frogs around a dam. Microbats taken at a roost entrance.
The national research is a useful corrective here, because it documents single pet cats wiping out local populations outright — a Feather-tailed Glider population in south-eastern New South Wales, a skink population in a Perth suburb, an Olive Legless Lizard population in Canberra. These were not landscape-scale programs. They were one cat, in one place, over time.
The Safe Cat, Safe Wildlife program puts the share of Australia's endangered animal species found in and around cities and towns at around 46%, which is why containment in peri-urban districts carries so much more weight than the raw cat numbers suggest.
A complication worth knowing about if you bait foxes. A large Victorian study using 3,667 camera traps in the south-west found feral cats were more abundant, and behaved more boldly, in areas where foxes had been suppressed. Foxes compete with and kill cats, so removing foxes can release cats — and cats then take the smaller mammals foxes were not the main threat to. It is not an argument against fox control, which remains essential and is legally required of landholders. It is an argument for watching what happens afterwards, and for treating cats and foxes as one problem rather than two.
The threat that doesn't need the cat to be present
Predation is what people picture. But cats also shed parasites into soil, pasture and water, and those keep working long after the cat has moved on — on native animals, on livestock, and on people.
There are five pathogens in Australia with known impacts on human health or livestock production for which cats are the primary host. The most significant by a wide margin is Toxoplasma gondii, a protozoan parasite that reproduces in cats and passes to humans and livestock through cat faeces. Infection can cause significant health effects in people, and it is a major contributor to spontaneous abortion in sheep and goats.
Feral cat populations maintain and spread these diseases, particularly through excreting parasite eggs in their faeces. Because the oocysts survive in the environment for months — and survive longer in cool, wet climates than hot dry ones — a paddock can stay infective long after the cat that contaminated it has gone.
Passed to wildlife, stock and people
Toxoplasma gondii. Sarcocystis. And the bacterium that causes cat scratch disease. These are the ones where cats are not just another carrier but the animal the parasite depends on to complete its life cycle.
The usual feline load
Feral cats carry the same parasites and viruses that affect domestic cats: roundworms, tapeworms and feline enteritis, feline leucopaenia, and cat flu. A roaming pet meeting a feral cat is how these move between the two populations.
Toxoplasmosis in marsupials
Bandicoots, wombats and possums are among the natives affected. In Tasmania, toxoplasmosis is implicated in the decline of the Eastern Quoll — a case where cats damage a species without ever needing to catch one.
| What it costs | Estimated annual cost in Australia | Driven by |
|---|---|---|
| Livestock production losses | AU$7.67–18.3 million | Toxoplasmosis and sarcocystosis, with the sheep industry hardest hit |
| Human health | AU$2.11–10.7 billion | Toxoplasmosis and cat scratch disease |
Figures cover cat-dependent disease from both feral and domestic cats. Source: Agriculture Victoria
Worth testing for on a property with stock. If sheep, goats, pigs or poultry are having failed pregnancies, producing fewer young than expected, or delivering weak young, toxoplasmosis is worth ruling in or out with your vet. This district is cool and wet, which is exactly where the parasite persists longest in the environment. Sarcocystis shows up differently — as cysts in sheep muscle that lead to trimming or condemnation of the carcass at the abattoir, so the first you hear of it may be from the processor.
Signs of toxoplasmosis in wildlife are worth knowing, because they are easy to mistake for injury: an underweight, disoriented animal with poor coordination, sometimes blindness, diarrhoea, paralysis or breathing difficulty. Most often noticed in possums, wombats and bandicoots. If you find one, contact a wildlife carer or vet rather than handling it — and wash your hands after any contact with a carcass, since these parasites can affect people too.
Links and further reading
The agencies that set the rules, the guides worth reading before you set a trap, and the places to report what you see.
Browse by category
Local — Yarra Ranges
- Cat curfew — Yarra Ranges Council. The 24/7 containment rule, what counts as contained, and what happens if a cat is trapped
- Cat traps — Yarra Ranges Council. Traps provided at no charge to residents having difficulties with cats on their property
- Safe Cat, Safe Wildlife — Yarra Ranges Council's page on the Zoos Victoria and RSPCA Victoria containment program
- Animals — Yarra Ranges Council. Registration, reporting animal issues, permits. General enquiries 1300 368 333
- Yellingbo Nature Conservation Area — Parks Victoria. Includes notices on the fox and cat bait and trapping stations run to protect Helmeted Honeyeater, Lowland Leadbeater's Possum, Southern Brown Bandicoot, Broad-toothed Rat and Glossy Grass Skink
- Yellingbo: a special place — Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater. Species fact files for the area, including the threats from cats and foxes
Victorian government
- Cat (feral or wild) — Agriculture Victoria. The core Victorian species profile: status, biology, home range, diet, disease and management. Most of the Victoria-specific figures on this page come from here
- Humane cage trapping of cats — Agriculture Victoria. Equipment, baits, the 24-hour inspection rule, transport, what happens after handover, and penalties. Read this before setting a trap
- Feral cat declaration — DEECA. Why the 2018 declaration applies only to specified Crown land, and what that means for private landholders
- Victorian Cat Management Strategy 2025–2035 — Animal Welfare Victoria. The state's ten-year plan across owned, semi-owned, unowned and feral cats
- Cats — Animal Welfare Victoria. Confinement, enclosures and fencing, desexing, registration and the codes of practice
- PAPP bait for feral cat control — Agriculture Victoria. Curiosity bait, and why its use is restricted to permitted public land managers
- Pest animals — Game Management Authority. Confirms recreational hunting of feral cats on Crown land is not permitted
The law and humane standards
- Domestic Animals Act 1994 — registration, containment, seizure of trespassing cats, and the offences of abandoning or unlawfully destroying a cat
- Code of Practice for the Private Keeping of Cats — including the 24-hour limit on holding a cat in a trap, and the instruction not to feed wild or feral cats
- Humane vertebrate pest control — Agriculture Victoria's hub for the welfare obligations that apply to any pest control
- Trapping pest animals — Agriculture Victoria, including the restrictions on leg-hold traps
- Feral cat control methods humaneness matrix — PestSmart. How the available methods compare on welfare grounds
Trapping technique and standards
- NATSOP-CAT002 — Trapping of feral cats using cage traps — PestSmart. The national standard operating procedure: trap specifications, siting, baits and lures, welfare obligations. Note that its euthanasia sections are written for authorised operators and do not apply on private land in Victoria
- NATSOP-CAT002 (PDF) — the printable version, worth having in the ute
- National Code of Practice for the humane control of feral cats — PestSmart. The framework the standard operating procedures sit under
- Trapping — National Feral Cat and Fox Management Coordination. Trap types compared, advantages and drawbacks, and effective placement
- Cage trapping for feral cats and rats (video) — Paul Meek, Invasive Animals CRC. The demonstration PestSmart pairs with the standard operating procedure
- Feral cats — Australia's native animal annihilators (video) — ABC Australia, Meet the Ferals episode 2
- The Last 200: removing feral cats from part of Kangaroo Island (video) — ABC Landline
- Killing Christmas Island's feral cats (video) — ABC Landline
- Supporting reintroduced native species with trap alert technology (video) — Centre for Invasive Species Solutions
- PestSmart feral cat video library — camera trapping, spotlighting, baiting, Felixer grooming traps
- Centre for Invasive Species Solutions (YouTube) — the full channel
- Guide for camera trapping wild dogs, foxes and feral cats (PDF) — NSW DPI. Camera selection and placement, so you know what is moving through before you set a trap
Conservation detection dogs
- Australasian Conservation Dog Network — webinars — a members' webinar series including vertebrate predator control work
- ACDN guidelines — standards for conservation detection dog work in Australia and New Zealand
- ACDN practitioner database — who is working with detection dogs, and where
- Conservation dogs — Northern Yarra Landcare Network. A neighbouring network's page collecting the Phillip Island Nature Parks detection dog story, with videos and background reading on fox and feral cat detection work
- The perils of feral animals — Phillip Island Nature Parks. How detection dogs and camera traps are used to monitor for reinvasion after eradication, and why cats matter more once foxes are gone
Interstate authorities
- NSW — Local Land Services
- Queensland — find your local council, which is the regulating authority there
- South Australia — PIRSA
- Western Australia — DPIRD, the declared-pest listing, control methods and welfare obligations. Also DBCA on Eradicat baiting
- Tasmania — NRE Tasmania
- ACT — Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate
- Northern Territory — NT Government
Guides and fact sheets
- Glovebox Guide for Managing Feral Cats (PDF) — Centre for Invasive Species Solutions. Biology, identifying impacts, building a management plan, techniques, and the legislation state by state
- Planning Guide for Feral Cat Management in Australia (PDF) — PestSmart. For anyone thinking about a coordinated program rather than a single trap
- Overview of feral cats in Australia — PestSmart. Appearance, weight range, hunting behaviour and disease risk
- Feral cats — overview — National Feral Cat and Fox Management Coordination. Source of the removal-rate figure: on average 57% of a population must be removed annually just to stop it growing
- Impact of feral cats in Australia — PestSmart. The prey numbers, broken down by group
- Feral cat toolkit — PestSmart. The full set of resources, including agricultural and human health impacts
- Resources — National Feral Cat and Fox Management Coordination. Includes the track and scat comparisons for cat, fox and dog
National policy
- Feral cats — Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. The national overview and the current prey and threatened-species figures
- Threat abatement plan for predation by feral cats 2024 — DCCEEW. The fourth national plan under the EPBC Act, made in December 2024, with Victoria among the states that joined it
- Threat abatement plan 2024 (PDF) — the plan itself
- Feral cats — National Feral Cat and Fox Management Coordination. Livestock disease costs, what to look for on a property, and how control is regulated in each state
For cat owners
- Rethink Roaming — RSPCA Victoria. An interactive tool covering the risks of roaming, transitioning a cat to containment, and indoor enrichment
- Safe Cat, Safe Wildlife — Zoos Victoria and RSPCA Victoria, via Yarra Ranges Council. Free advice on keeping a cat happy and enriched at home
- One cat, one year, 110 native animals — The Conversation. The researchers behind the national pet cat study explain the numbers, including why most owners never see the prey
Recording and identification
- FeralCatScan — free website and app for recording sightings, evidence, impacts and control activity
- FeralCatScan home — the full site, including case studies, FAQs and regional programs
- How to use the website — step-by-step for placing a record on the map
- How to use the app — including offline recording and saved records
- FeralScan Pest Mapping app — Google Play. Also on the Apple App Store; covers FeralCatScan, DeerScan, FoxScan and FeralFishScan
- Map and monitor with FeralCatScan — PestSmart. What the tool is for, and the important distinction between feral cats and urban stray matters that belong with your council
- Glovebox guide page — FeralCatScan's own resource page
Wildlife identification & recording
- SWIFFT — State-wide Integrated Flora and Fauna Teams. Victorian threatened species profiles and distribution information, used throughout the Under Threat tab
- Atlas of Living Australia — national species records, taxonomy and distribution maps
- iNaturalist — a community app for identifying and recording any species you photograph, not just cats
Research and reporting
- Baiting foxes can make feral cats even more 'brazen' — The Conversation. The 3,667-camera Victorian study on what happens to cats when foxes are suppressed
- Victoria's Otway Ranges are home to a thriving population of feral cats — ABC News. Why cool, wet, productive Victorian forest suits cats so well
- Each roaming pet cat kills 110 native animals per year — Threatened Species Recovery Hub. The national pet cat assessment, drawn from 66 studies
- Feral cats — Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania. Source of the 400-species prey breakdown and the four-kilogram prey ceiling
- Feral cats: impact to action — Landcare Tasmania. A Landcare group's practical take on toxoplasmosis, sarcocystis and planning local action
Other pest animals
- Pest animals — all our species guides
Last reviewed September 2026. The interstate comparison tables in particular are a snapshot — check the linked authority before relying on either of them.
