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Extinction emergency

Cats are one of Australia’s most devastating environmental threats, responsible for the deaths of an estimated >2 billion animals per year. To protect our unique and precious wildlife, we must take action to reduce the impact of feral cats and roaming pet cats.

How to help  |  Take action

By this time tomorrow, an estimated 8 million animals would have been killed by the millions of feral and roaming pet cats in Australia. And the vast majority are our native Aussie battlers, some on the path to extinction.

To win government action, we need to show governments pet cat containment and effective action on feral cats is popular.

How does your state rate?

To win government action, we need to show governments pet cat containment and effective action on feral cats is popular. Put your paw on the map by taking the pledge!

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We want to ensure every state allows the full suite of feral cat control tools, so that land managers have the best chance of driving down feral cat numbers. Roaming pet cats are also diminishing local populations of birds, small mammals and reptiles. We need to ensure Australia’s 4.9 million pet cats are kept safe at home and not allowed to roam.

Please show your support by taking the pledge today. Your pledge will be one of many that shows widespread support for action on cats to protect our wildlife.

Cats have already driven 27 native animals to extinction since colonisation and now threaten at least 124 more native species at risk of extinction.

To save the surviving bilbies, numbats, night parrots, and all of the other native animals we love in this country, we must act urgently. We must ensure governments strengthen their efforts to protect wildlife from cats and we must build more support across Australia. Put your paw on the map by taking the pledge.

Let's end Australia's cat-driven extinction emergency! 🐾

6722 people have taken the pledge! Help us get to 10,000.
Signed so far 68%
To protect native wildlife and prevent further cat-driven extinctions in Australia, I pledge my support for:

1. Modernising state laws to enable responsible pet ownership, including:

  • mandatory microchipping,
  • mandatory desexing for all pet cats by 4 months of age, and
  • 24/7 pet cat containment.
2. Councils being required to produce companion animal management plans that include pet cats.

3. Stronger action on feral cats, including targeted on-ground control and allowing land managers to use the full suite of control tools.

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We want to ensure every state allows the full suite of feral cat control tools, so that land managers have the best chance of driving down feral cat numbers. Roaming pet cats are also diminishing local populations of birds, small mammals and reptiles. We need to ensure Australia’s 4.9 million pet cats are kept safe at home and not allowed to roam.

Please show your support by taking the pledge today. Your pledge will be one of many that shows widespread support for action on cats to protect our wildlife.

Hear from us when it matters

Your support to protect critically endangered and vulnerable species from extinction is vital. Together, we can ensure governments prioritise action on invasive species and protect our wildlife and iconic places.

The Invasive Species Council was formed in 2002 to seek stronger laws, policies and programs to protect nature from harmful pests, weeds and diseases.

The Invasive Species Council acknowledges the Traditional Custodians throughout Australia and their connections to land and sea. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

Our Work

About Us

Your gift is a lifeline for nature.

Our protected areas are being trashed, trampled, choked and polluted by an onslaught of invaders. Invasive species are already the overwhelming driver of our animal extinction rate, and are expected to cause 75 of the next 100 extinctions.

But you can help to turn this around and create a wildlife revival in Australia. 

From numbats to night parrots, a tax-deductible donation today can help defend our wildlife against the threat of invasive weeds, predators, and diseases.

As the only national advocacy environment group dedicated to stopping this mega threat, your gift will make a big difference.

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Accordion Content

A silent crisis is unfolding across Australia. Every year, billions of native animals are hunted and killed by cats and foxes. Fire ants continue to spread and threaten human health. And the deadly strain of bird flu looms on the horizon. Your donation today will be used to put the invasive species threat in the media, make invasive species a government priority, ensure governments take rapid action to protect nature and our remarkable native wildlife from invasives-led extinction, death and destruction.

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    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]


    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]