Australia to impose cat curfew

Australian cat owners could have to keep their pets indoors permanently under a '24-hour cat curfew' proposed by the government. The proposal has been made by Australia's first 'threatened species commissioner', Gregory Andrews, in a bid to protect native animals facing extinction due to cat attacks, according to the The Sydney Morning Herald. The country is currently facing a cat crisis as it struggles to cope with huge numbers of the animals. According to one estimate, the approximately 20 million cats in Australia kill around 75 million native animals a day. Australia is thought to have one of the worst extinction records in the world, losing about 29 native mammal species since the European arrival. It now lists some 1,800 species as under threat.