The Australians Renounce Civilization and Revert to Savages with the Introduction of a Grotesque Plan to Get Rid of Cats by Eating Them

Kaye Kessing Prepares to Chow Down on Her Cat Stew

"The Asians have been eating cat and dog for centuries, so why can't we in Australia, where it would be really helpful if we started eating feral cats, camels, and rabbits?"
-- Kaye Kessing

Throughout the millennia the world has known many cat haters who have devised all sorts of diabolical schemes in order to exterminate the species. Nothing however can quite compare with the recently revealed plans of the Australians to eradicate cats by eating them into extinction.

This sinister plan is the brainchild of wildlife proponent and children's author Kaye Kessing who has adopted the culinary habits of the Chinese and aborigines as her moral guide. "The Asians have been eating cat and dog for centuries, so why can't we in Australia, where it would be really helpful if we started eating feral cats, camels, and rabbits?" she told Melbourne's The Age on August 30th. (See "Wild Cat Is Potluck for Hunters and Collectors.")

Although it is true that the Chinese and aborigines do eat cats, their motivation is rather different from that of the white Australians. Whereas the former are motivated by a perverse taste in food and folk superstition, the Australians' behavior is being driven by a deep-seated hatred of cats. (See Cat Defender post of February 8, 2006 entitled "Stray Cats Rounded Up in Shanghai, Butchered, and Sold as Mutton in Restaurants and on the Street.")

The Australians' dirty little secret was revealed writ large for the entire world to see when Kessing entered a stew made from feline flesh and quandongs (wild peaches) during the opening round of the Bushfoods-Wildfoods Recipe Competition in Alice Springs on August 25th. 

"The judges all just bit the bullet and ate the cat," competition coordinator Linda Chellew told the Sydney Morning Herald on September 2nd. (See "Xenophilia: Feral Feline in a Stew" as reported in David Dale and Clara Iaccarino's blog, Stay in Touch.) "I had to very politely go and spit it out in the back room, because I just couldn't break it down. It was pretty tough."

A self-proclaimed ailurophobe, the fifty-seven-year-old Kessing began trapping and killing cats more than fifteen years ago on her ninety-nine acre estate in Alice Springs. Although she claims to have been motivated initially by a desire to protect native wildlife, this has never deterred her from divesting her victims of their valuable pelts which furthermore suggests that she is also a fur trafficker. In fact, some of the fur coats on display in showrooms in Manhattan, Beverly Hills, and elsewhere may have been made from her hides.

"When I started to skin and gut it, I thought the meat looked quite nice, and I knew the aboriginal mob roast them on the fire and like them," she told the Sydney Morning Herald in the article cited supra. "I thought I'd have a go too, so I made a cat-erole."

Besides cat stew, she makes a cat roast and has a friend who cooks cat sausages. She says that cat meat tastes something like a cross between rabbit, chicken, and goanna.

"It's white meat, they vary a lot. The first cat I cooked didn't have a strong flavor and I put a lot of ingredients with it and that made a beautiful stew," Kessing elaborated for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on August 27th. (See "Feral Cats on Bush Tucker Menu.") As for the concoction that made Chellew gag, Kessing described it as having been made from a "slightly larger cat" with a "slightly stronger flavor but...not as strong as rabbit."

The second round in the cooking contest was held on September 1st and two more rounds are planned for September 8th and 15th. Other than sickening Chellew, it is not known how Kessing's cat stew fared in the competition.

Kessing claims that she only kills and eats feral cats but even if she is telling the truth it is extremely difficult to tell the difference between them and domestic felines. A cat that finds itself homeless today, yesterday could have been a treasured family member. The distinction is superfluous anyway because in the moral realm there is absolutely no difference between murdering feral and domestic cats.

Once she discovered that she could save some shekels by eating cats, Kessing saw no reason to limit her appetite and is now recommending that all sorts of animals be consumed. As with the peddling of feline pelts, there are no doubt beaucoup bucks to be made from the hides, hair, bones, feathers, and other parts of the camels, horses, donkeys, rabbits, and pigeons that she wants to add to her fellow Australians' daily diet.

Kaye Kessing Preening in Her Kitchen

Although Australians have been eating kangaroos for a long time, Kessing conspicuously omits them from her revamped dinner menu. This is probably due to the fact that kangaroos are worth more in tourist dollars than they are at the butcher's shop.

Kessing and her fellow colonialists have no doubt stumbled upon a jackpot at the animals' expense. More importantly, they can always cloak their heinous crimes by claiming that they are protecting native wildlife and birds.

Since she speaks so approvingly of the aborigines' fondness for cat meat, it would be interesting to know just how far Kessing would be willing to go in emulating them. For example, would she be willing to give cannibalism a go if the authorities permitted it? After all, it would be another way for her not only to save a few shekels on her grocery bill but human flesh is said to be a good source of cheap protein. Moreover, she could cash in again by carefully extracting the gold and silver fillings from the teeth of her victims.

In addition to the complicity of Chellew and the other organizers of the cooking contest, Australian politicians have been quick to jump on board the cat-eating bandwagon. For example, Xavier Schobben, director of Environmental Health for the Northern Territory, told ABC in another August 27th report that although feasting on feral cats was perfectly legal the meat might contain toxins. (See "Cat Stew Legal, May Not Be Safe: Health Department.")

"It's not just the bacteria or the microbial organisms actually inside the animal; it's also the toxins they produce," he explained. "Even though (bacteria) die, they can still release toxins into the cavity et cetera..."

He went on to state that feral cat meat could not be legally sold unless it was certified to be safe. This admission in and of itself implies that some of the colonialists, possibly even Kessing, are killing cats and selling their flesh for profit.

The killing and eating of cats has also received the tacit approval of New South Wales politician Verity Firth who on September 2nd released a report blaming, inter alia, cats, dogs, foxes, rabbits, goats, carp, and redfin perch for preying upon native species. (See Sydney Morning Herald, September 2, 2007, "Feral Peril: Cats on the Rampage.")

Conveniently omitted from Firth's self-serving anti-cat screed is the petit fait that during the nineteenth century the parolees from London's High Gate and other penal institutions who colonized Australia shanghaied several hundred species of animals into coming with them to their new homeland. In addition to the animals singled out by Firth for demonization, camels, horses, donkeys, mules, hinnies, cane toads, and other species were also unwitting pawns in the colonialists' massive land grab.

Once they had outlived their usefulness, these animals were abandoned to fend for themselves on the outback. The fact that they are killing native species should not surprise anyone because they, like man and all other animals, must eat in order to survive.

Now, the Australians have begun to systematically exterminate them through en masse poisonings and aerial shootings from helicopters and airplanes. In addition to countless cats, rabbits, goats, red foxes, and cane toads, they are planning on killing five-hundred-thousand camels, three-hundred-thousand horses, five-million donkeys, and twenty-three-million pigs. (See Agence France Presse, September 25, 2005, "Millions of Animals Face Death Sentence in Australia" and Cat Defender posts of August 11, 2005 and January 6, 2006 entitled, respectively, "Barbaric Australians Come Up with an Ingenious New Poison in Order to Exterminate Cats" and "DNA Tests Confirm That 'Big Cat' Killed in Australia Was a Feral Tabby and Not a Puma.")

In addition to ailurophobia and a general disdain for all animals that do not put shekels in their pockets, these mass killings are being undertaken because developers want the animals' habitat and the Aussies have discovered that tourists will shell out big bucks in order to come and observe exotic fauna and flora. The liability that cats, dogs, horses, and other domestic animals are operating under is that no one will travel Down Under to see them.

All of their talk about protecting native wildlife and plants is an elaborate smokescreen that the Aussies trot out in order to mask their greed and crimes. It is important in this context to remember that in his Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defined politics as "a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles."

Furthermore, not only are the Australians cruel and barbaric in their treatment of non-native species, but they have completely mismanaged their feline extermination plan on Macquarie. (See Cat Defender post of September 21, 2006 entitled "Aussies' Mass Extermination of Cats Opens the Door for Mice and Rabbits to Wreak Havoc on Macquarie.")

Nohl Rosen of Cat Galaxy with "Program Director" Icarus

Most important of all, the unequivocal right of all of these maligned animals to go on living is completely absent from public discourse in Australia. The Aussies will not admit it, but they have just as much of a right to life and liberty as do the native species.

Above all, it is the duty of the colonialists to protect and safeguard their fragile lives. If they must be removed from the wild, this should be done humanely. Sanctuaries should be established for them, food provided, and birth control and sterilization initiatives could be introduced. Some of these animals could be donated to agrarian communities in the Third World where their assistance in checking the rodent population, tilling the fields, pulling wagons, et cetera would be much appreciated.

True to form, Australians are only willing to spend their precious dollars on guns, ammunition, traps, helicopters, and poisons. Sans doute, the manufacturers of these various killing devices own quite a few politicians. For example, the National Parks and Wildlife Service doles out A$19 million a year to individuals and companies that exterminate unwanted animals.

Plus, there is the revenue generated by the sale of hunting licenses to be factored into the equation as well as the money to be made from trafficking in animal flesh and pelts. Nor must the adrenaline rush that bloodthirsty Australians get from slaughtering defenseless animals be discounted.

Alice Springs' disgusting promotion of the eating of cat flesh was matched by the glowing endorsements this barbaric practice received from the Sydney Morning Herald in the article cited supra and Phil Mercer of the BBC on September 2nd. (See "Australians Cook Up Wild Cat Stew.") In fact, both news outlets published Kessing's cat stew recipe as an added inducement for their readers to go out and kill cats for the pot.

While Australia can justifiably lay claim to the undisputed title of being the most ailurophobic nation in the world, the cats have at least one supporter in the form of a Melbourne web site known as Flippy's Cat Page. Unwilling to remain silent in the face of Kessing's crimes, the web site's Rachel Lorenz is circulating an online petition calling for a boycott of Kessing's books. The petition is also being forwarded to the RSPCA, the Cat Protection Society and, for what it is worth, various politicians.

"Her recent barbaric slaughter of stray and homeless cats to use them as food is inhumane and morally reprehensible," Lorenz told London's Newswire on August 30th. (See "Cooking Feral Cat Draws Outrage from Cat Lovers.") "Shame on you, Kaye Kessing! You are now being officially and very publicly boycotted."

Lorenz's co-worker, Georgina Phillips, called Kessing's crimes "disgusting." She went on to add, "People sicken me sometimes. No wonder I prefer animals than people."

Do not expect Kristina Vesk of the Cat Protection Society of New South Wales to be breaking bread with Kessing anytime soon either. "To have people out there trivializing the treatment of animals as though it is some kind of joke is a bit depressing," she told The Age. "This is not taking a rational or humane response to the problems of feral animals in wildlife areas and I certainly wouldn't want to have dinner with her."

Flippy's boycott has been endorsed by Nohl Rosen, founder of Cat Galaxy, an Internet radio station based in Phoenix that has a format geared toward cats and their guardians. "This is absolutely a despicable crime against cats," he told the Sydney Morning Herald. "Our station finds this completely disgusting and the killing of feral cats for any reason is wrong."

Rosen went on to castigate Kessing not only for killing and eating cats, but also for setting an atrocious example for her juvenile readers. In fact, some of her works amount to little more than hate-filled diatribes directed against cats and other imported species which is just the opposite of what young minds should be reading.

Rosen, who also criticized Chellew and the other judges for sampling Kessing's cat stew, concluded by declaring, "Cats are wonderful, intelligent creatures and by doing them harm, Kessing has shown herself to be inconsiderate and a poor example of a human being!"

From forced relocation to exploitation, vivisection, abandonment, demonization, and finally mass exterminations, Australians have now graduated to eating their former companions and mousers and to peddling their flesh and fur. It does not appear that they have overlooked any opportunity to abuse and exploit cats.

Perhaps more poignantly, whenever a supposedly civilized people start to imitate primitive tribes it is a sure sign that they have lost their moral compasses and are now descending, as opposed to ascending, the evolutionary ladder. Perhaps in a few years Kessing and her fellow wildlife and bird advocates will be dressing in hides, living in caves, and grunting in pidgin.

Photos: Wayne Taylor of The Age (Kessing) and Cat Galaxy (Rosen and Icarus).