April 19, 2023 – 7:46 PM
A cat-hunting competition was to be held in New Zealand, but it was canceled shortly after the announcement due to public outcry, he wrote. BBC.
An annual fund-raising hunting event announced a new category for under-14s, and young men were encouraged, though not outright, to kill as many wildcats as possible for the set prize of NZ$250.
The competition, which was scheduled to start in mid-April, was supposed to run until the end of June, but in the end it was canceled due to protests from animal protection organizations. A member of the New Zealand Society Against Cruelty to Animals argued in favor of the ban that children, unlike adults, would not be able to distinguish between “a stray cat, a stray cat and a frightened house cat”.
“Our children must be taught to have compassion for animals, and not to give them tools to kill them.”
– said the organization Safe Animal Protection to one of the local media.
At the annual competition in North Canterbury, located in the South Island, hundreds of children take part in hunting wild boar, deer and rabbits. The organizers are disappointed that they had to cancel the wildebeest hunt because of the “vile and accusatory” emails. “We apologize to those who were interested in an event related to the protection of our native birds and other endangered species,” the organizers wrote on Facebook.
Incidentally, wild cats are considered invasive in New Zealand and threaten the country’s fauna. The island nation is home to 1.2 million domestic cats and more than twice as many feral cats, and there is intense social debate about what conservationists should do with them. According to the Royal Forestry and Bird Protection Society, feral cats are responsible for the deaths of approximately 1.1 million domestic birds each year.
