Quick Answer
Australia has no native cat species. Every wild cat on the continent is the feral domestic cat, Felis catus, descended from animals brought in by people. The federal environment department states it plainly: feral cats are the same species as domestic cats, they just live and breed in the wild.
- Feral cats occur across 99.9% of Australia’s land area and 92% of its island area, at an average mainland density of about 0.27 cats per square kilometre in the bush.
- The bush population is estimated at 2.1 million, swinging between roughly 1.4 million in dry years and 5.6 million after widespread rain.
- Cats kill about 1.5 billion native mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs a year, plus 1.1 billion invertebrates, and predation by cats is a recognised threat to more than 200 nationally threatened species.
Which Wild Cats Live in Australia?
None that evolved here. Australia’s native predators are marsupials and reptiles — quolls, Tasmanian devils, monitors — and the quoll’s old colonial name, “native cat”, is the source of a lot of the confusion. A quoll is a marsupial with a pouch, five toes on the hind foot and a spotted coat; a feral cat is a placental carnivore with four toes and retractable claws.
| What people call it | What it actually is | Status | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Wild cat” in the bush | Feral cat, Felis catus — same species as the domestic cat | Invasive predator; a listed key threatening process | All habitats, from alpine country to arid desert |
| Feral cat in a town | Unowned cat living on rubbish, farms or feeding sites | Same species, different lifestyle | Urban and peri-urban Australia |
| Stray or semi-owned cat | Domestic cat without a functioning owner | Managed by councils and rescue groups | Towns, suburbs, caravan parks |
| “Native cat” | Quoll (marsupial), not a cat at all | Native; several species are threatened | Forest, woodland and rocky country |
The history is short and well documented. Domestic cats arrived with the First Fleet in 1788, with many later introductions around the mainland and onto islands. Historical records and genetic analysis show cats colonised the entire 7.7 million square kilometres of the continent within about 70 years, and they now occupy more of Australia, and more habitats, than any other introduced mammal.
How Many Feral Cats Are There?
The national numbers come from the Threatened Species Recovery Hub’s synthesis of cat-density studies at about 100 sites across the country. The important feature of the estimate is how much it moves: arid-zone cat populations boom after rain, because prey populations boom first.
| Measure | Published estimate |
|---|---|
| Pet cats | 3.8 million |
| Feral cats in towns and cities | 0.7 million, possibly as high as 2.5 million |
| Feral cats in the bush | 2.1 million on average; 1.4 million in dry conditions, up to 5.6 million after widespread rain |
| Average mainland bush density | 0.27 cats per km², fluctuating between about 0.2 and 0.7 |
| Area occupied | 99.9% of the land area; 92% of the combined island area; cats on nearly 100 islands |
| Cat-free mainland area | About 8,000 km², roughly 0.1% of the continent |
| Cat-free islands | More than 590 known cat-free islands covering 5,539 km², plus 25 islands where cats were eradicated |
| Fenced mainland exclosures | 28 areas covering 594 km² from which cats have been removed |
Read those last three rows together and the conservation problem becomes geometric. The places in Australia where a small mammal can live without cats amount to about a tenth of one per cent of the country, and almost all of it is islands or purpose-built fences.
What Cats Kill, in Numbers
This is the part of the Australian cat story that is genuinely hard to absorb, because the totals are per day, not per year. The figures below are the published national estimates for all cats — feral, stray and pet. The photo below is an unowned cat hunting in cover, which is the behaviour the numbers describe.
| Prey group | Killed every day in Australia | Notes from the source |
|---|---|---|
| Mammals | 3.2 million | Mostly native species in the bush; mostly introduced species in towns |
| Birds | 1.2 million | Almost all native species |
| Reptiles | 1.9 million | Almost all native species |
| Frogs | 0.25 million | All native species |
| Invertebrates | 3 million | Beetles, insects and other invertebrates |
On an annual basis the source puts a single feral cat in the bush at about 791 mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs plus 371 invertebrates; an urban feral cat at about 449 vertebrates; and a pet cat that is allowed to roam and hunt at about 186. That last figure is the reason the pet-ownership advice exists at all: it is not a rounding error.
The federal department’s summary adds the population-level consequence. Predation by cats is a recognised threat to more than 200 nationally threatened species and 37 listed migratory species, and cats have contributed to the extinction of more than 20 Australian mammal species, including the pig-footed bandicoot, the lesser bilby and the broad-faced potoroo.
Policy and Management: Who Does What
Australia treats predation by feral cats as a national environmental problem with a formal legal structure, not a local nuisance issue. The structure is worth knowing because it determines which body actually acts on a report.
| Layer | What it does |
|---|---|
| EPBC Act 1999 | Lists predation by feral cats as a key threatening process, which is the trigger for a national threat abatement plan |
| Threat abatement plan | The 2024 plan for predation by feral cats is the fourth under the Act; it was informed by a review of the 2015 plan and by 1,628 public consultation responses |
| Joint making | The Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania, New South Wales, the ACT, Western Australia and Victoria joined the Commonwealth to make the 2024 plan — the first time a threat abatement plan has been made jointly |
| On-ground responsibility | Landholders and state and territory governments hold primary responsibility for managing established invasive species, including feral cats |
| Tools in use | Trapping and shooting programs, grooming traps such as the Felixer, island and fenced-area eradications, and community reporting through FeralCatScan |
If you see a cat in remote country and want the record to count, FeralCatScan is the federal department’s free reporting app for feral cat sightings and management activity. It is the civilian end of a national dataset, and it is a more useful place to log a sighting than a social-media group.
What the Evidence Says to Pet Owners
Australian conservation advice to cat owners is blunter than in most countries, and it is based on the same data as the feral-cat figures. The core findings: virtually all cats, even well-fed pets, will hunt and kill wildlife given the opportunity; bells do little to limit it; and keeping a cat in at night only shifts the predation into daylight.
The published recommendations are containment, desexing, and not feeding stray cats at fixed outdoor sites. Containment is framed as a benefit to the cat as well — contained cats are described as healthier, longer-lived and cheaper in vet bills, because they are not hit by cars, in fights or lost.
For the indoor side of that, this site’s indoor enrichment basics guide covers what a contained cat needs, the indoor enrichment planner builds it into a week, and cat-proofing your home covers the escape routes. The prey sequence entry explains why a cat hunts in the order it does, which is the reason a bell on the collar changes so little.
If You Saw a “Wild Cat” in Australia
The practical identification question is not which species — there is only one — but whether the animal is feral, a stray, or somebody’s pet. That determines who is responsible for it and whether it can be managed at all.
- Condition and location: a cat in good condition near housing is likely owned or semi-owned; a thin, scarred or heavily parasitised cat well away from settlement is behaving as a feral animal.
- Response to people: feral cats avoid humans; a cat that approaches, vocalises or waits by a door is socialised to people and is not a feral cat in the management sense.
- Reporting: sightings in remote or conservation areas go to the state or territory agency or to FeralCatScan; a cat in a town is a council matter.
- Do not relocate it: moving a cat into bushland is both a welfare problem and a conservation one, and it is illegal in most jurisdictions.
The sites covering other countries on this site run the opposite way: Missouri has a resident bobcat and a dispersing mountain lion, Florida has a resident panther population, and Mexico has six native felids. Australia is the one place on the list where the wild cat is the domestic cat.
Trusted Sources
Every figure above comes from Australian government or publicly funded research publications, fetched live for this guide:
- Australian Government DCCEEW — Feral cats (the 1.5 billion native animals and 1.1 billion invertebrates killed each year, the 200-plus threatened species, the 20-plus mammal extinctions, the EPBC Act listing and the 2024 jointly made threat abatement plan).
- Threatened Species Recovery Hub — The impact of cats in Australia (the population estimates, densities, 99.9% land-area occupancy, cat-free islands and exclosures, and the daily and per-cat kill figures; the source document is the project’s findings fact sheet).
- Threatened Species Recovery Hub — feral cat distribution and abundance project (the study behind the density model and the rain-driven population swings).
The wild cats hub collects every country and state guide on the site.
Related Guides and Tools
Wild Cats in Missouri: Bobcat and Mountain Lion
Missouri has one resident wild cat, the bobcat. Mountain lions are presumed extirpated despite about eight confirmed a year — with MDC sizes, season and tracks.
Most Common Wild Cats in Mexico: The Six Felids
Mexico has six wild cats: jaguar, puma, ocelot, margay, jaguarundi and bobcat. Which one you actually see, and their NOM-059 status.
Indoor Cat Enrichment Basics: Play, Climbing, Scratching, and Choice
A practical enrichment guide for indoor cats, including play routines, food puzzles, scratchers, windows, and rest.
Related glossary: Prey Sequence, Enrichment.