bush heritage australia
Robots, lasers, poison: the high-tech bid to cull wild cats in the outback
Robotic killers that detect feral cats, spray their fur with poison and rely on them to essentially lick themselves to death have been deployed in the Australian desert for the first time. Feral cats are one of the biggest threats to many of Australia's endangered species, killing millions of animals every day throughout the country – and controlling them has proved difficult. It took John Read, an ecologist seven years to invent and produce four of the "grooming traps". After extensive testing, he has switched on the first one in a nature reserve in south-west Queensland. "Cats are hard-wired to hunt," Read said.
Country:
- Oceania > Australia > Queensland (0.26)
- Oceania > Australia > South Australia (0.17)