Native Cats and Ships' Rats

The ‘native cat’ (or quoll) was one of the many unfamiliar creatures which captured the imagination of European visitors in the early years of the colony. The First Fleet contractor, William Richards had a preserved specimen at his home in south London, and a number of live animals were brought back in this period. The following account from a London paper in 1797 warned that there were risks associated with owning such an animal:

‘A person at Hammersmith who lately brought over a very beautiful cat from Botany Bay, was offered thirty guineas for it, but he refused that sum. The cat was very wild, and making an attack a few days ago on some poultry, it was shot by a drayman.’ [1]

As early as the Third Fleet, visiting mariners knew that these animals were tenacious hunters, and highly effective at tracking down and eliminating the ships’ rats. From 1791, and possibly as early as the Second Fleet (1790), convicts and emancipists were making money by capturing quolls and selling them to the ships' officers. David Brown, the surgeon on the Britannia, Captain Melvill, wrote:

‘Nothing can be so advantageous for a Ship. . . than one of these Creatures for it will destroy more Rats in a week, than ten Cats will do in a Month.

‘Whilst at Port Jackson 1791, our Ship was so infested with Rats, that they destroy’d every thing – A Wild Cat was purchas’d, and accidentally thrown into the Hold. We were greatly surpris’d, at the quick diminution of the Rats, as in a few weeks, not one was to be seen; when the Wild Cat appear’d, It for want of food, began to grow familiar, It was unfortunately killed in our passage to Hallifax.’ [2]

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[1] Morning Chronicle, 6 February 1797

[2] [David Brown], ‘Whaling Voyages Round the World in the Britannia and Speedy Transports, 1791-1796’, SLNSW DLMSQ 36, pp. 56-57.