Roger Rabbits with Jim Bunny

 He would have arrived home wide-eyed, soggy, and smelling like marmalade.

That’s because he just about got sconed with an overripe grapefruit.

Herbert. The ginger tabby – he would have made a nice tangy citrus preserve.

Herbert lords it over the neighbourhood. Self-anointed territorial rights. Everyone’s place is his place. And there’s the problem.

Because on our side of the hedge we embrace the birdlife – there’s a small, raised bird loft with a bottle of nectar mix for the tui. The orchestra birds reward with song and aerial gymnastics, as do the energetic wee wax-eyes. I chuck out wild bird seed for the finches et al – even the sparrows. It’s appreciated. They dart and scramble and get their fill.

But Herbert thinks we’re laying on a smorgasbord for him. He comes slinking under the hedge. Rust red, vertical stripes. Pure stealth. Like a hired gun. All menace.

Blood thrill 

Crouched, head thrust forward, amber eyes wide and fixed, calculating the strike range, when to pounce. When to kill. But Herbert’s also trespassing, straying across the demilitarised zone into sovereign territory where he’s not welcome. Our place. Cats have their place as long as owners take responsibility, take control. And right now Herbert’s out of control.

He was about 2m, and a split second from making a kill. Two stunning native birds could die, needlessly. Only to satisfy Herbert’s hunting instincts, for an afternoon blood thrill. “Natural born serial killers,” economist Garth Morgan once labelled cats. He didn’t much care for moggies because “they devastate NZ’s unique native bird population”. He had a point.

Fluffing your feathers

The two birds Herbert is slavering over are royalty – elegant, graceful, battleship-blue grey herons perched on a 2m high raised garden frame above the creek at the top of our drive. On the sanctuary side of the hedge. It should be safe. The herons are some sight because you may see one heron, rarely two.

They’re loners, self-reliant. Perhaps it’s the season. Perhaps they’re fluffing their feathers for love, there’s intimacy afoot. But first they’re playing the patience game – waiting for the tide to wash a titbit into the creek before heading up into the arms of the pōhutukawa to roost, to snuggle against the night cold.

But there’s Herbert shuffling on his haunches, primed to leap. No concern for the biological cycle of the heron. If I don’t intervene, launch a broadside offensive, there will be heron on Herbert’s breath tonight, blood on his claws and no conscience. But not today, Herbert. Not today.

All pips and peel

I blast him with my bazooka, a windfall grapefruit, a bitter 250g missile, with Herbert’s name on it. It exploded on a fence post beside him, showering him with pips and peel and juice. Gotcha! Herbert performed an impressive, vertical, standing launch in fright and scrambled back under the hedge. I didn’t want to hurt him. Just wanted to remind him there were more grapefruit, should he wander where he wasn’t welcome. Besides I had gifted a night of love to two grey herons. Herbert won’t go hungry – tonight he’ll choose from a selection of single-serve, pouched recipes of wet or dry, high protein, meat-first, cat food. Then he will lick his chops, have his ears scratched by owners making exaggerated baby talk noises, and curl up beneath the heat pump.

Cats like Herbert, rightly or wrongly, have carte blanche – can wander, roam, trespass on other people’s property and kill with impunity. Unlike dogs, of course.

I am not against cats – Timmy, Cindy, Ginge the loveable, drooling and rutting Manx tom with a torn ear, Demelza and Tilly gave us decades of pleasure. As well as a substantial heap of rat, mouse and bird corpses. But we didn’t try to contain them, because there was no compulsion to do so.

Wishy-washy 

Probably still not an appetite for it considering the hullabaloo when Morgan launched “Cats to Go” – his campaign urging against cat ownership to protect native wildlife. Keep them inside he suggested, neuter them, don’t replace them when they die. “Heartless and a zealot,” they called him, and his scheme “harebrained and offensive”.

Brisbane’s not so wishy-washy about cats. In the Sunshine State, cats, by law, must be microchipped and confined to their own property at all times, by whatever means – fencing, outdoor enclosures – to prevent roaming. You could cop a fine and your furball be impounded. There are curfews in some places.

There are proven upsides they say – fewer pets get injured or killed by cars, less exposure to disease, lower care costs, fewer cat fights, fewer dog attacks, fewer lost pets or strays. So longer, healthier lifespans.

It was suggested I build barriers under the hedge to keep Herbert out. Ultra-sonic devices to upset Herbert’s sensitive ears, sprinklers, cat repellent plants and cover for exposed soils. So, the neighbours get a cute wee fluffball, and I pay for the pleasure. Great.

Hey Herbert – how about a Memorandum of Understanding? You stay at home and I will lean over the fence, scratch your ears and flick you some Whiskas. No marmalade.