Media release – Invasive Species Council, 5 May 2023

Arrival of Felixers puts lungtalanana feral cats on notice

Efforts to restore lost wildlife and eradicate feral cats from the Bass Strait island lungtalanana have been given a boost with the arrival of four cat grooming traps.

‘This is an important moment for our healthy Country program,’ said Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre land and heritage coordinator Andry Sculthorpe.

‘The arrival of four Felixers on lungtalanana marks the next phase of the restoration program,’ he said.

The Felixers are highly targeted cat grooming traps that use artificial intelligence to distinguish feral cats from other wildlife and humans. Once detected, toxin is then sprayed on the fur of a passing cat, which is consumed when the cat grooms itself.

The Felixers were delivered to the island in recent weeks. They have been set up in testing mode to confirm the recognition of cats before they are fully activated.

The Felixers will complement other methods used for cat control such as baiting and trapping.

‘We’re grateful for the support of the Invasive Species Council who subsidised two Felixers for two years and the in-kind support from Thylation Foundation,’ said Mr Sculthorpe.

‘We are also aiming to repatriate cultural species that belong on the island, so removing cats will assist in this process. Lungtalanana has suffered from a history of invasion that brought feral animals and a persecution of native species. A project like this will offer important training and land learning opportunities for our rangers and community.

‘These efforts by our rangers with the support of scientists will ultimately see the reintroduction of species like the Bass Strait Island wombat, the long-nosed potoroo and the Bennetts wallaby,’ he said.

‘We are extremely pleased to support this important restoration program,’ said Invasive Species Council CEO Andrew Cox.

‘The provision of two Felixers to lungtalanana is part of a program to deploy 10 Felixers across five locations across Australia determined by an expert panel. Other Felixers will be supplied to sites in South Australia and Western Australia,’ he said.

Featured image above: Andry Sculthorpe, Land and Heritage and rangers Baden Maynard, Kulai Sculthorpe and Jesse Williams. Image courtesy The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre.

Media release – Cradle Coast NRM, 3 May 2023

High-tech cat control devices used for the first time in Tasmania to protect Hooded Plovers

Three Hummock Island in the Cradle Coast region is the first place in Tasmania where the high-tech ‘Felixer’ cat grooming traps are being used.

In May 2021, five Felixer traps were sent to the island by the Office of the Threatened Species Commissioner for a longitudinal trial of the device in ‘non-lethal’ mode. The devices were installed as part of the Hooded Plover Stronghold project, delivered by Cradle Coast Authority (CCA), in partnership with Biosecurity Tasmania, with funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program and support from Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service.

After six months of testing, the Felixer devices were ready to start work in lethal mode, and then over the next twelve months, they detected and humanely killed eight feral cats.

Feral cats on Three Hummock Island are thought to be in low numbers and spread across the densely vegetated island. The island is difficult to access and very difficult to traverse, meaning that conventional feral cat control techniques are less effective and much more expensive than in other places. This is where the Felixers come in.

Iona Flett from CCA explained that the Felixers can operate automatically with minimal maintenance, “Felixers are a very exciting addition to feral cat control. The devices are installed along tracks and powered by solar panels. When a cat walks past, the Felixer automatically identifies it as a cat, and ejects a squirt of a poison gel at the animal’s flank. Cats naturally groom themselves, ingest the poison and are killed.”

“Felixers have an extremely low rate of off-target firing so the island’s many possums, pademelons and forester kangaroos are safe. Humans and vehicles can also move easily past the machines and are never sprayed with the gel,” said Iona.

Beach-nesting birds like hooded plovers are vulnerable to feral cat predation, as are short-tailed shearwaters and little penguins that breed all around Three Hummock Island’s coastline. BirdLife Australia ecologists, Dr Sonia Sanchez and Dr Dan Lees, visited the island in December 2022 to assess the hooded plover population.

“Hooded plovers are one of the Australian Government’s priority threatened species because they have been so badly impacted by human activities around southern Australia. Numbers of birds on Three Hummock were similar to 2019, with breeding activity detected on many of the suitable beaches,” said Dr Dan Lees.

The Three Hummock Island Felixers have recently been upgraded to Version 3.2 which includes artificial intelligence in the detection system. This means that the on-board program is constantly ‘learning’ from all the photos taken by Felixers in operation around Australia.

Biosecurity Tasmania’s Vertebrate Biologist, Matthew Pauza, is trialling Felixers in other locations around Tasmania. “Felixers have great potential for cost-effective feral cat control, especially in remote and hard-to-access locations. Their accuracy will get better and better with each program update. Each feral cat in Tasmania kills approximately 740 animals per year, so reducing feral cat numbers, and eradicating cats from high conservation-value off-shore islands is something Biosecurity Tasmania supports and is working towards.”

Feral cat in a shearwater colony on Three Hummock Island.