New Zealand businessman and preservationist Gareth Morgan has a wild plan and hopes that his fellow countrymen and women will follow him: rid New Zealand of all cats.
In a bid to protect the country's endangered birds, his campaign "Cats to Go" urge cat owners not to replace their beloved felines when they die.
"The fact is that your furry friend is actually the friendly neighborhood serial killer."
For thousands of years, New Zealand's birds flourished with no predators. Some species, such as the kiwi, even became flightless. But the arrival of mankind and its introduction of predators, including cats, dogs and rodents, has wiped out some native species and endangered many others.
Under a picture of a kitten with red devil's horns, the website asserts "cats are the only true sadists of the animal world" and that they "torture their victims slowly and without mercy".
It goes on: "Every year, hundreds of millions of birds are murdered by cats. Some cats will kill over a thousand birds each year."
"I say to Gareth Morgan, butt out of our lives," Bob Kerridge, the president of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, told the current affairs television show Campbell Live. "Don't deprive us of the beautiful companionship that a cat can provide individually and as a family."
A 2011 survey by the New Zealand Companion Animal Council found 48% of households in New Zealand owned at least one cat, a significantly higher proportion than in other developed nations. The poll put the total cat population at 1.4 million.
