The Tasmanian federal government have announced a ten year plan to eradicate feral cats which are affecting sheep farmers in Tasmania.
Ginny Stein, ABC News Australia reports that toxoplasmosis carried by feral cats is being passed on to flocks, with fatal consequences for livestock.
Chris Johnson from the University of Tasmania told ABC News that 80-90% of the feral cat population in Tasmania carry the parasite, due to the climate and the large number of cats passing it from one to another.
Funding has been promised to help community groups trap and eradicate feral cats, with Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt saying that funding will increase to $90m over four years.
Toxoplasmosis not only causes sheep to abort, but can kill and blind many small animals native to tasmania and other parts of Australia, such as bandicoots, wallabies, wombats and pademelons. The parasite reproduces in cats and its eggs then get spread in cat faeces which can be eaten by other animals.
Bruce Young breeds fat lambs and grows crops such as poppies, potatoes and grass seed in Tasmania's agriculturally-rich north. He is running about 2,300 ewes and will have about 2,400 lambs this year. Last year, from the same ewes, he got about 3,000 lambs, he told ABC News.
The difference is down to a lot of his ewes aborting from about mid-pregnancy up to lambing. He told ABC News he believes it was toxoplasmosis that's to blame.
Farmers are being advised to keep cats out of their grain stores and try preventing the cats from contaminating your hay, your grain and things that you're going to feed to sheep. Many farmers, such as Bruce are trapping and exterminating feral cats caught on their farms.
Stein reports that the Victorian Government is considering releasing Tasmanian Devils into Wilsons Promontory National Park in a bid to restore an ecological balance between feral cats and wildlife, as they hunt their young. However Minister Hunt said scientific research is needed first to see whether releasing them back into controlled areas is good for both the devils and other native animals.