Aussie cats immune to catnip?

[zakur]

Story

Not every cat is responsive to catnip, however. And, in fact, according to Karen Overall, MA, VMD, PhD, cats in Australia are missing out entirely. "Cats in Australia don't respond to catnip because it's genetic," she says. "They've had a six-month quarantine forever to get animals into the country, so they've basically had a closed gene pool."

Huh?

 

[Benguin]

Learned genetics from the same website as KumarTroll, obviously

 

[The Don]

I don't think she's suggesting that quarantine cures cats of their catnip addiction just that the original gene pool for Australia's cats was very small and included more of their fair share of catnip haters and that no more cats have been brought into Australia.

This sounds ridiculous, surely someone brought their puddy tats in despite the quarantine restrictions ?

 

[drkitten]

I don't think she's suggesting that quarantine cures cats of their catnip addiction just that the original gene pool for Australia's cats was very small and included more of their fair share of catnip haters and that no more cats have been brought into Australia.

This sounds ridiculous, surely someone brought their puddy tats in despite the quarantine restrictions ?

Very few people are willing to subject their cats to that.

 

[richardm]

This sounds ridiculous, surely someone brought their puddy tats in despite the quarantine restrictions ?

Even with the quarantine restrictions, your moggy's only banged up for 30 days. What effect that's supposed to have on the gene pool I can't imagine.

 

[richardm]

Very few people are willing to subject their cats to that.

It's hardly a punitive regime , most countries have just a 30 day quarantine period. Well worth putting up with, if the alternative is rehoming your cat (or worse).

 

[richardm]

Although, in fairness, I daresay it's only become so short since rabies vaccines have been available.

 

[Rolfe]

If it's only a month now, that's new. It was six months for ages, same as here. And I think the month only applies to cats with pet passports and rabies vaccination and so on.

But anyway, I must have seen ever so many export applications for cats emigrating with their owners to Australia and New Zealand, even back before Pet Passport days. I wouldn't know about total numbers, but there must have been a pretty sizeable addition to the gene pool over the decades. (Unless most of the emigrés were neutered, hmmm.... but some of them were breeding pedigrees....)

Rolfe.