High-profile businessman Gareth Morgan has joined the fray in the Paihia cat debate with a claim that keeping stray cat colonies is ''environmental banditry''.
Commenting on a story on the Advocate's website about 86-year-old Betty Chapman's battle to continue feeding stray cats on a Paihia reserve, Mr Morgan said feeding stray cats so they were free to assault wildlife was offensive.
''Wandering cats do not kill just because they're hungry, they kill for the pleasure of it. If Betty Chapman is so concerned about these cats she needs to take them in, enclose them. Otherwise she's simply an environmental bandit, as is [RNZSPCA president] Bob Kerridge.''
"If she cares for these cats so much, she should take them all into her home and enclose them,'' he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Kerridge described last month's Bay of Islands-Whangaroa Community Board decision to remove the cat feeding station as ''one of the most inhumane and irrational decisions ever made by a local authority''.
Most of the cats were past hunting age and would be unable to catch their own food if left to fend for themselves, he said.
Mrs Chapman said the cats were well-fed and most did did not hunt.
''There are only ten of them, and they are no more of a threat to wildlife than the domestic cats in backyards down the road,'' she said.
That is disputed, however, by environmental group Bay Bush Action, which has documented an ''elderly'' cat stalking a native pigeon near the Parnell cat colony supported by Mr Kerridge.
Trustee Craig Salmon said the simple solution was for the SPCA to pick the cats up and re-home them, as they had done with hundreds of others.
''If they cannot be re-homed, they should not be then returned to the environment. We believe the cats should be in living rooms lying around hot fires and getting cuddles this winter, not living in the drains around Paihia.''
''We stand by our view that this feral cat colony poses a risk to our precious native wildlife on the Village Green. We have the support of the New Zealand Kiwi Foundation, Forest and Bird and many other local conservation groups,'' he said.
Birds seen around Paihia included the kukupa (native pigeon), which played a vital role in forests' survival, and the endangered New Zealand dotterel. Only 1700 remained but up to 50 visited Paihia, including a few spotted on the beach on Sunday.
The deadline for the volunteers to stop feeding cats on the reserve passed on Monday. Bay of Islands SPCA manager John Logie met Far North District Council in-house lawyer John Verry on Friday in a bid to allow the feeding station to remain. The outcome is not known.
Mr Morgan has been blamed by some for a wave of anti-cat sentiment and even attacks on cats.
Bay Bush Action was not the first group to raise concerns about the cat colony, Mr Salmon said. Nor was the practice of trapping, neutering and releasing strays, as practiced in Paihia, supported by all animal welfare groups.
The Nelson SPCA, for example, did not support trap-neuter-return programmes because it believed releasing companion animals back to the wild or to marginal care was contrary to the Animal Welfare Act.