Australian Park Ranger and a Seamstress Team Up to Go into Business as Cat-Killers and Fur Traffickers

"It's cool and soft. Just working with it, it's a nice thin skin to sew on the sewing machine or by hand."
-- Robyn Eades

While the rest of the civilized world is actively working to stamp out the trafficking in feline fur, Australians are enthusiastically embracing this odious practice. On King Island, midway between Melbourne and Tasmania in the Bass Strait, Nigel Burgess and Robyn Eades have teamed up not only to slaughter cats en masse but to line their pockets in the process.

Burgess, a park ranger, uses rotten cheese in order to lure more than one-hundred cats per year into traps where they are then executed with rifle shots to the head. Moreover, he is not overly particular whether his victims are ferals or cherished family members.

"If it has got into my trap and it's a domestic cat, it should not be there," he told London's Daily Telegraph on July 9th. (See "The Grandmother Who Turns Cats into Hats.") "Any cat that gets into my trap will be dealt with. I take the rifle and shoot it in the head."

He then freezes the corpses and delivers them to his partner in crime, sixty-year-old Robyn Eades of Naracoopa, who defrosts, skins, and tans the hides before turning them into hats, purses, rugs, and coat hangers. (See photo above of some of their victims.)

The specialty of the house is a Davey Crockett-style cap that comes complete with a detachable cat's tail. "It's part of the gimmick," Eades giggled to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on May 21st. (See "Making Cat Hats on King Island.")

The capitalist media is conspicuously silent as to what Burgess is getting out of this nefarious arrangement other than the sadistic thrill of killing cats but it is highly unlikely that he is serving as Eades' fur supplier and delivery boy out of the generosity of his black heart. It is probably too much to ask of a lawless state like Australia, but there should be regulations put in place that would make it illegal for park rangers to engage in poaching.

For her part, Eades enjoys her end of the business every bit as much as Burgess glories in dispatching defenseless cats to the devil with his trusty rifle. "It's cool and soft. Just working with it, it's a nice thin skin to sew on the sewing machine or by hand," she told ABC. (See photo below of her busy at work.)

In a May 24th interview with Auckland's New Zealand Herald she even went so far as to liken skinning a cat to changing a baby's nappy. Of course, she was forced to concede that she does not "use a knife...when undressing a baby." (See "Problem with Wild Cats? Turn Them into Hats.")

By her own admission, old moneygrubbing Eades has been playing the killing game for a long time. Before turning her knife on cats, she used to prey upon wallabies until her arthritis prompted her to seek out more pliable hides to divest from their owners.

Although she receives orders from as far away as Siberia, most of Eades' hides are peddled by Sally Marsden who operates King Island's Cultural Center. "Oh, it's a fabulous craftsmanship," she cooed to ABC. (See photo of her at the bottom of the page.)

Neither Marsden, Burgess, or Eades see anything the least bit objectionable with either slaughtering cats or trafficking in their pelts. Aside from the joy that he derives from his murderous rampages, Burgess attempts to justify his crimes by arguing that he is saving birds and other endangered species.

Although Marsden has attempted to excuse her complicity in Burgess' and Eades' crimes on the grounds that the cats are ferals, she is every bit as aware as everyone else that some of the hides that she is trafficking in once belonged to beloved family companions. In reality, she is so greedy that she would say and do almost anything for a lousy buck.

Eades, however, is the real head case. "I feel like I am saving them from their fate," she somehow managed to spit out to the Telegraph without laughing. "They are going to live forever in my creations."

Just as Marsden considers the commercial sale of cat hides to be an integral part of the cultural legacy of King Island, Eades claims to have the full support of her neighbors. "There is no opposition to what I do. The cats are a problem on this island. I am turning the skins into something useful," she crowed to the Telegraph.

She likewise has the unequivocal support of the capitalist media both at home and abroad. For instance, Nick Squires of the New Zealand Herald praised her activities in the article cited supra as an "imaginative solution" to the "plague of cats...threatening native wildlife."

Laura Clout of the Telegraph presented Eades' and Burgess' crimes in a matter-of-fact manner without either criticism or input from cat advocates. Only Felicity Ogilvie of ABC seemed to be even mildly appalled by this senseless slaughter and naked exploitation of cats for profit.

The Australians' total unwillingness to consider any alternative to extermination demonstrates not only their intense hatred for cats but also their reliance upon quick fixes that often backfire with disastrous results. (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.")

Moreover, their crimes against the feline species neither begin nor end with fur trafficking. For example, wildlife proponent and children's author Kaye Kessing has now joined the Chinese in eating cats. (See Cat Defender post of September 7, 2007 entitled "Australians Renounce Civilization and Revert to Savages with the Introduction of a Grotesque Plan to Get Rid of Cats by Eating Them.")

Whenever the Aussies tire of tracking down and shooting cats they turn to the scientific community to whip up hideous potions for them to use. (See Cat Defender post of August 11, 2005 entitled "Barbaric Australians Come Up with an Ingenious New Poison in Order to Exterminate Cats.")

Even more disturbing, ailurophobes such as Eades and Burgess are not isolated cases. On Chintah Road in Longford, Tasmania, George Mills gunned down fifty cats in June and then proudly displayed their rotting carcasses on his fence.

He has attempted to justify his crimes by arguing that cats are infecting his sheep with toxoplasmosis. Called in the investigate, the good-for-nothing RSPCA gave its wholehearted approval of the slaughter but nevertheless recommended that the corpses be removed because they constituted a public nuisance. (See The Mercury of Hobart, June 15, 2008, "Feral Cat Cull in Clear.") In other words, killing cats is perfectly all right so long as it is done sub silentio.

When it comes to exploiting and killing animals the Australians' crimes against cats are merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Millions of camels, horses, donkeys, pigs, cane toads, red foxes, and goats that were imported by the imperialists and later cruelly abandoned to fend for themselves once their services were no longer needed are currently being systematically poisoned and gunned down by assassins in helicopters. (See Agence France Presse, September 25, 2005, "Millions of Animals Face Death Sentence in Australia.")

Their record in protecting indigenous species is almost as horrific. For instance, close to four million kangaroos are killed each year for food and to control the population. (See The Daily Telegraph of Surry Hills, New South Wales, June 17, 2008, "PETA Plans New Roo Protest.")

Paul McCartney has labeled this year's cull as a "shameful massacre." (See Gigwise of London, June 23, 2008, "Sir Paul McCartney Calls for 'Meat-Free Mondays'.")

Contrary to their propaganda, the Australians care only for a fast buck and the sadistic thrills that they derive from killing animals. Once they have milked them for all that they are worth they are certain to turn on native species with the same level of vengeance that they have shown domestic animals.

Despite the Aussies' atrocious animal rights record, the cat-haters within the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) want to import their methods for use against feral cats on San Nicolas Island and elsewhere. (See Cat Defender posts of June 27, 2008 and and July 10, 2008 entitled, respectively, "United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Navy Hatch a Diabolical Plan to Gun Down Two-Hundred Cats on San Nicolas Island" and "The Ventura County Star Races to the Defense of the Cat-Killers on San Nicolas Island.")

Through the diligent work of Alley Cat Allies and other groups, sustained progress has been made over the years in protecting not only the lives of cats but other animals as well. This is only the beginning, however, and much more work remains to be done.

In particular, feline and canine fur is still being sold in both America and Europe despite concerted efforts by animal rights groups to bring those responsible to justice. (See Cat Defender posts of March 1, 2007 and December 15, 2005 entitled, respectively, "Top Retailers and Fashion Designers Are Caught Again Selling Dog Fur but U.S. Officials Continue to Look the Other Way" and "Heather Mills Asks EU to Ban Sale of Cat and Dog Fur; Paul McCartney Calls for Boycott of Chinese Goods and Olympics.")

The American public therefore needs to ruminate long and hard over whether it wants to go forward or to slide backwards into the abyss of animal cruelty by allowing the importation of the thinking and tactics of the barbaric Australians and South Africans. Should the answer to that important question be a resounding no, then the USFWS and all individuals and groups that share its ideology must be strenuously opposed.

Photos: Bancroft Media (pelts and Eades) and Australia Council (Marsden).