The head of the Predator Free NZ Trust says there is "some complexity" in using sound to keep cats away from nesting native birds.
Jessi Morgan says it is important to keep the country's native wildlife safe, while recognising the role cats play as companions.
A project from the Bioeconomy Science Institute has discovered a way to use sound as a harmless deterrent.
The research found feral cats were most averse to the sound of human voices, and domestic cats were most averse to the sound of other cats.
Feral cats were recently added to the Predator Free 2050 target species list, but domestic cats are still part of many New Zealand households.
There was no official estimate of how many feral cats live in New Zealand. While 2.4 million is often cited, some believe the true number is far higher.
Morgan said New Zealand has the highest rate of cat ownership in the world, with about 1.2 million owned cats.
She said the research could be applied to other animals.
New research project uses sound to protect native birds from cats. Photo: Supplied / Patrick Garvey
"Research that we do on protecting native birds from cats is also transferable to other species, which is really important," Morgan said.
"The key is removing cats from those environments where the native birds are, that's the ultimate."
She said there needed to be a way of keeping the cats that were in the area away in the meantime.
The sound technology could be costly to establish, Morgan said.
"It's quite an expensive application at the moment, in terms of you need the speaker to play the sound out loud, and it needs to be weather proof.
"There's some complexity around it," she said.
Morgan said sound could also be used to lure pests into traps.
"I think sound does have a role to play for cats but also for other predators, could we use sound lures to attract animals towards a trap or towards a cage so we were able to catch them.
"It's really important that we explore all these different options because at the moment most of our lures for trapping are food lures, so it's kind of smell and taste, and so if we can have sound lure as another option then it actually just makes our trapping more effective in time - it just give us different options."
Exploring different strategies like sound, light or pheromones was important, Morgan said.
"It's not going to be a cookie cutter approach, there's not a one size fits all here.
"Obviously, the best thing cat owners can do is actually keep their cats safe and happy at home, so contained on their own property, and that means it minimises their impact on wildlife but also keeps the cats safe which is really important, especially when they're important companions or members of the family."
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