Cats kill a million reptiles every day in Australia

Wild cats eat a lot of reptiles and are the culprits that make some Australian creatures extinct.

New research shows that wild cats get more than a million reptiles every day in Australia, Phys said on June 25. They have wiped out some of the country's animals since being brought to Europe two centuries ago. The efforts to sterilize or kill humanity so far have yet to show significant effectiveness.

Wild cats kill large numbers of birds and reptiles.(Photo: Reuters).

The results are based on more than 10,000 samples of cat food provided by Australian environmental scientists. Accordingly, a total of about 650 million lizards and snakes become prey of wild cats and domestic cats every year.

"On average, each wild cat kills 225 reptiles a year," said researcher John Woinarski at Charles Darwin University. Wild cats in Australia eat more reptile meat than in the US or Europe. "We encountered many cases where they ate a large number of lizards, a record of up to 40 individuals in a cat's belly , " Woinarski added.

The study also found that cats are attacking 250 reptiles, including the Liopholis kintorei lizard, Australian bearded dragon and gecko. 11 of these species belong to the group of threatened organisms . The number of wild cats in Australia is up to millions. They are considered to be the main culprits for the country to have a high proportion of extinct mammals.

Large numbers of reptiles become cat food.(Photo: AFP).

According to another study conducted by the same group of scientists last year, cats kill more than a million birds a day in Australia, including endangered species such as Cinclosoma punctatum, Geopheria scripta and neck cavity. green.

It is difficult to pinpoint the cat's impact on reptiles, according to Sally Box, Australia's threatened biologist. The reason is that they do not know the population size of many reptiles. The government has spent about $ 23 million on projects to reduce the impact of wild cats on wildlife.