Cats in Australia. Companion and Killer. Woinarski, J. C. Z., S. M. Legge, and C. R. Dickman. 2019. CSIRO Publishing, Clayton South, Victoria 3169, Australia. viii + 333 pp. AUS$59.99 (paperback). ISBN 978-1-4863-0843-9.

Cats and Conservationists. The Debate over Who Owns the Outdoors. Wald, D. M., and A. L. Peterson. 2020. Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, IN, U.S.A.. viii+ 152 pp. US$19.99 (paperback). ISBN 978-1-55753-887-1.

For over 4000 years, the domestic cat (Felis catus) (hereafter cat) has been our companion and live-in rodent catcher. Where we have gone, cats have usually gone too, including the Americas and Australasia. However, pet cats have the capacity to become feral, after which they can increase and spread without further human assistance. And although we have taken the cat out of the wild, we have not taken the wild out of the cat; even pet cats kill millions of small mammals, reptiles, and birds each year. This dual identity as pet and feral predator makes managing cats to protect indigenous wildlife both more difficult and more contentious than managing other introduced predators.

The 2 books that are subject of this review, Cats in Australia and Cats and Conservationists are, respectively, about the effect of cats on Australia's indigenous fauna, and how to resolve, or at least moderate, the debate between cat advocates and wildlife conservationists. I found the first to be a far more important and useful book than the latter. Indeed, Cats in Australia contains so much information on cats and their impact on Australia's indigenous fauna that it should be essential reading for conservationists, wildlife managers, and cat lovers, especially those on that continent.

The book has 12 chapters (plus a conclusion) that cover a comprehensive range of topics, including the origin and natural history of cats; their interactions with other predators; their impacts on biodiversity, both globally, and specifically in Australia; their spread, distribution, and population size in Australia; cat management methods; laws and policies pertaining to cats; ethical considerations about cat management; and community attitudes to cats. I am pleased that the authors did not use text boxes, a device I find does not make books any easier, or quicker, to read or useful information easier to locate. Although a short bullet-point summary at the beginning or end of each chapter would have been useful, key information is effectively summarized in graphs, maps, and tables.

All chapters are well-written and informative but chapter 6, “Impacts of Feral Cats on Australian Wildlife,” and chapter 9, “Management of Cats in Australia,” are perhaps of the most interest for, and benefit to, wildlife managers and ecologists. The stand-out feature of this book is simply the collection in a single volume of a vast amount of information previously only available in disparate publications. Not only have the authors done an excellent job of compiling this information, they have also done an excellent job of organizing and presenting it.

I found no evidence in Cats in Australia of the “Moral Panic over Cats” alluded to by Lynn et al. (2019), who argue that those who oppose the lethal control of cats for conservation have been unjustly labeled “science deniers,” akin to those who deny climate change or the dangers of smoking. The authors of Cats in Australia are well aware that killing cats may not always be necessary, or even desirable, and recommend that it be undertaken only when there is good evidence that it will benefit native species. Indeed, they discuss alternatives to killing cats, such as habitat modification and fencing, in considerable detail and provide some interesting examples of cases when killing cats actually made things worse for native species. The risks associated with controlling just one of a suite of predators, such as mesopredator release, are hardly unknown in ecology and conservation (King et al., 1996). In New Zealand, at least one eminent ecologist has argued that suburban pet cats could actually benefit native bird species by suppressing introduced rodents and mustelids (Flux, 2017) and has not, to the best of my knowledge, been labeled a science denier.

However, just as the authors of Cats in Australia are well aware that controlling cats may not always benefit native species, they are also aware of the risk of assuming that an ecological equilibrium has been reached between cats and native fauna. The authors present strong evidence that this is not the case for many indigenous Australian species.

Cats and Conservationists focuses on the acrimonious debate between cat advocates and conservationists in the United States about the effectiveness of the trap, neuter, and release approach to managing stray and feral cat populations. It is a sociological, rather than ecological, book composed of 4 chapters (plus an introduction and conclusion) entitled “The Cat Problem,” “The Science Problem,” “The Values problem,” and “The Social Problem.” I found this book rather unsatisfying. Although the authors discuss the debate in detail and advocate “philosophical pragmatism,” “…a kind of ethical empiricism in which moral judgement is inseparable from empirical knowledge,” as a means of resolving it, they have not actually implemented this. They stop at merely recommending that both sides employ evidence-based decision-making, listen to the other's point of view, seek common ground, and refrain from name-calling, all of which I would have thought were fairly basic to civilized discourse.

I highly recommend Cats in Australia to anyone interested in the ecological impact of cats on Australia's indigenous fauna and the ethical-philosophical debate over killing cats for conservation purposes. Because of its much narrower focus and sociological, rather than ecological content, Cats and Conservationists will be of more limited appeal, but will still be of interest to those engaged in the cat debate.

Cats in Australia left me with a rather sober appreciation of the scale and scope of the issues, whereas Cats and Conservationists highlights the acrimonious politics that complicate managing cats for conservation. As the human population increases, so does that of our pets. The idea that cats will eventually reach an ecological equilibrium with native species overlooks this continual growth in the global cat population. If the planet can be overpopulated by humans, it can also be overpopulated by cats. Perhaps an indication that this has already happened is the discovery that the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, of which cats are the only known definitive host, is now a significant cause of mortality in New Zealand's endangered Hector's (Cephalorhynchus hectori hectori) and Maui (C. h. maui) dolphins (Roberts et al., 2020). It boggles the mind to think of the amount of cat feces that must be going into the sea to infect these rare marine mammals with toxoplasmosis.

Under these circumstances, I think we should increasingly give the benefit of doubt to endangered species, not cats. After all, as a colleague of mine once observed, “They're still making cats.”

澳大利亚的猫。同伴和杀手。Woinarski、JCZ、SM Legge 和 CR Dickman。2019. CSIRO Publishing, Clayton South, Victoria 3169, Australia。viii + 333 页。 59.99 澳元（平装本）。ISBN 978-1-4863-0843-9。

猫和环保主义者。关于谁拥有户外活动的争论。沃尔德、DM 和 AL 彼得森。2020. 普渡大学出版社，美国印第安纳州西拉斐特。viii+ 152 页。 19.99 美元（平装本）。ISBN 978-1-55753-887-1。

4000 多年来，家猫 ( Felis catus )（以下简称猫）一直是我们的伴侣和住家啮齿动物捕手。我们去过的地方，猫通常也去了，包括美洲和澳大拉西亚。然而，宠物猫有能力变得野性，之后它们可以在没有进一步人类帮助的情况下增加和传播。虽然我们把猫从野外带了出来，但我们并没有从猫身上带出野性；甚至宠物猫每年也会杀死数以百万计的小型哺乳动物、爬行动物和鸟类。这种作为宠物和野生捕食者的双重身份使得管理猫以保护本土野生动物比管理其他引入的捕食者更加困难和更具争议性。

本评论主题的两本书分别是《猫在澳大利亚》和《猫与保护主义者》，它们分别是关于猫对澳大利亚本土动物群的影响，以及如何解决或至少缓和猫倡导者和野生动物保护主义者之间的争论。我发现第一本比后者更重要、更有用。事实上，《澳大利亚的猫》包含了大量关于猫及其对澳大利亚本土动物群的影响的信息，因此它应该是环保主义者、野生动物管理者和爱猫人士，尤其是该大陆的爱猫人士的必备读物。

这本书有 12 章（加上一个结论），涵盖了广泛的主题，包括猫的起源和自然历史；他们与其他捕食者的互动；它们对全球生物多样性的影响，特别是在澳大利亚；他们在澳大利亚的传播、分布和人口规模；猫的管理方法；与猫有关的法律和政策；关于猫管理的伦理考虑；以及社区对猫的态度。我很高兴作者没有使用文本框，我发现这种设备不会使书籍更容易或更快地阅读或更容易找到有用的信息。尽管每章开头或结尾的简短要点总结会很有用，但关键信息已在图表、地图和表格中进行了有效总结。

所有章节都写得很好，内容丰富，但第 6 章“野猫对澳大利亚野生动物的影响”和第 9 章“澳大利亚猫的管理”可能是野生动物管理者和生态学家最感兴趣和最受益的部分. 这本书的突出特点只是将大量信息收集在一个单一的卷中，以前只能在不同的出版物中找到。作者不仅在汇编这些信息方面做得非常出色，而且在组织和展示这些信息方面也做得非常出色。

我在《澳大利亚的猫》中没有发现Lynn 等人提到的“对猫的道德恐慌”的证据。（2019 年），他们认为那些反对对猫进行致命控制以进行保护的人被不公正地贴上了“科学否认者”的标签，类似于那些否认气候变化或吸烟危险的人。《澳大利亚猫》的作者很清楚杀死猫可能并不总是必要的，甚至是不可取的，并建议只有在有充分的证据表明它对本地物种有益时才进行。事实上，他们相当详细地讨论了杀死猫的替代方案，例如栖息地改造和围栏，并提供了一些有趣的案例，说明杀死猫实际上使本地物种的情况变得更糟。在生态学和保护方面，与仅控制一套捕食者中的一种有关的风险，例如中捕食者的释放，几乎是未知的（King等，1996）。）。在新西兰，至少有一位著名的生态学家认为，郊区的宠物猫实际上可以通过抑制引入的啮齿动物和鼬科动物来使本地鸟类受益（Flux，2017 年），据我所知，并没有被贴上科学否认者的标签。

然而，正如《澳大利亚猫》的作者很清楚控制猫可能并不总是有益于本地物种一样，他们也意识到假设猫和本地动物之间已经达到生态平衡的风险。作者提出了强有力的证据，表明许多澳大利亚本土物种并非如此。

猫和环保主义者重点讨论了美国养猫倡导者和保护主义者之间激烈的辩论，涉及使用陷阱，中性和释放方法来管理流浪猫和野猫种群的有效性。这是一本社会学而非生态学的书，由 4 章（加上介绍和结论）组成，标题为“猫问题”、“科学问题”、“价值观问题”和“社会问题”。我觉得这本书不太令人满意。尽管作者详细讨论了辩论并主张“哲学实用主义”，“……一种道德经验主义，其中道德判断与经验知识密不可分”，作为解决它的一种手段，但他们实际上并没有实现这一点。他们止步于只是建议双方采用循证决策，听取对方的观点，

我强烈建议在澳大利亚猫，向有兴趣的猫对澳大利亚本土物种对生态的影响，并在杀死猫为保护目的的伦理，哲学辩论的人。由于它的重点和社会学内容要窄得多，而不是生态内容，猫和自然保护主义者的吸引力将更加有限，但仍然会引起那些参与猫辩论的人的兴趣。

澳大利亚的猫让我对问题的规模和范围有了相当清醒的认识，而猫和自然保护主义者则强调了使管理猫以进行保护变得复杂的激烈政治。随着人口的增加，我们的宠物也在增加。猫最终会与本地物种达到生态平衡的想法忽视了全球猫种群的持续增长。如果地球上的人类可能过多，那么猫也可能过多。也许这已经发生的一个迹象是发现寄生虫弓形虫，其中猫是唯一已知的最终宿主，现在是新西兰濒临灭绝的赫克托氏病的重要死亡原因。Cephalorhynchus hectori hectori ) 和毛伊 ( C. h. maui ) 海豚（罗伯茨等人，2020 年）。想到必须进入海中才能感染这些罕见的海洋哺乳动物弓形虫病的猫粪便的数量令人难以置信。

在这种情况下，我认为我们应该更多地将怀疑的好处赋予濒临灭绝的物种，而不是猫。毕竟，正如我的一位同事曾经观察到的那样，“他们仍在制造猫。”