If the maintenance of natural biodiversity is the key to a sustainable, healthy environment, then wildlife conservation is as important in the urban and peri-urban environment as it is anywhere else. Whilst "wildlife" in its best meaning includes all life forms in both the plant and animal kingdoms, in reality it is the vertebrates which attract the most attention. Recently there has been a greatly increased concern about the threat to vertebrate wildlife from domestic pets, in particular predation by domestic cats and dogs. Whilst predation by cats and dogs is shown here to be reasonably widespread both in terms of species and numbers, this study tends to indicate that, from a strictly conservation point of view, the predatory effect of cats and dogs is of less significance than has previously been portrayed.

It has been shown that domestic cats in the urban environment take a wide variety of native and introduced wildlife species, and in large numbers (Paton 1991), but whether predation by domestic cats, of itself, constitutes a significant threat to species survival is somewhat unclear. Data presented here tend to suggest that cat predation in the urban environment is probably of little consequence to wildlife conservation when compared with other more serious negative influences.

So far as the predatory effects of domestic dogs is concerned, it can be shown that, in the case of the koala (Phascolarctus cinereus), larger breeds of dogs are in fact a major contributor to premature mortality in koalas. Again, however it will be shown that the taking of koalas by domestic dogs is by no means the major cause of koala loss.

New suburbs being developed adjacent to significant woodlands are often coupled with calls for a ban on cats to protect native wildlife. An alternative approach exists, where a housing development can be both ecologically friendly and pet friendly.  Managing pets near environmentally sensitive areas requires well thought through policy