Around 440 feral cats have been culled as part of Canterbury's annual — and controversial — hunting event held over the weekend.
In 2023 the North Canterbury Hunting Competition made global headlines when it created a feral cat hunting category for children, and the competition has once again drawn criticism from animal rights advocates.
Anne Batley-Burton from NZ Cat Foundation told Breakfast she was "absolutely horrified" by the event.
"Children should not be exposed to violence and cruelty to animals, particularly at such a young age, because it's well known that it desensitises them to violence, and they lose empathy for animals, which is not a good thing," she said.
Asked why people were allowed to kill other wild animals and pests, but not cats, Batley-Burton said all cats had been lumped into a "demonised" group due to a lack of education.
"It's totally wrong because these are the same species of cats that are our normal little moggies on the bed, the only issue is because of lack of responsibility from their owners, these cats have ended up becoming stray. Later on, they become feral, having to fend for themselves. But they're the same cats," she explained.
She said there had been a "total lack of education in our country between companion, stray, and feral".
Around 440 feral cats killed in 'horrific' competition as organisers praise result - watch on TVNZ+
"When you've got little children, even at school these days, being told 'look at this cat, you've got to go out and kill them'. And backyard conservationists as well out there killing all the pests."
"We're getting a lot of cruelty to cats and killing, even of neighbours' cats, people disposing of the neighbours' cats, dumping them over the place, killing them, trapping them. It's all come about because people don't know the difference between companion, stray, and feral.
North Canterbury Hunting Comp Organiser Mat Bailey told Breakfast that responsible cat owners who desex, register and look after their cats were not the problem - it was the ones who don't and allow feral cats to become a widespread problem.
He said every cat shot and killed in the weekend's event was scanned for a microchip, and none were found.
"If your cat's 10km out on someone's farm and you haven't taken responsibility for it, well, unfortunately, it's probably going to go down," he said.
Asked how hunters were supposed to identify a feral cat as opposed to a domestic one, he described the feral cats as "like the devil on methamphetamine".
"They'll bite you. They'll have a go at you. Yeah, it's pretty obvious that they're not the domestic cat. So yeah, unfortunately, if it's been lost and ended up in the middle of nowhere, it becomes feral."
Asked about whether the killing was potentially desensitising children to violence, Bailey said rural children in New Zealand likely go hunting with their parents anyway, and that Batley-Burton had "no idea".
"But I think the the big problem is they just don't understand rural New Zealand, and our kids have grown up hunting, fishing. You know, they've been out there with dad killing dog tucker, and lambing ewes, and calving, and all that sort of stuff."
He said it was "deranged" that the argument was only about feral cats, with no uproar about "the rest of the animals".
Earlier this year, feral cats were added to the Predator Free 2050 list.
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