Feral cats and kittens might appear cute, but they pose a major risk to New Zealand's wildlife.

A Taranaki farmer whose land is crawling with feral and dumped cats is lashing out over authorities' inaction on the issue.

Okoki farmer Deanne Ball said she has found six litters of kittens in her hayshed over the last six months and believed they were being dumped there on purpose.

Ball said a professional possum trapper she hired was catching two felines a week.

ANDY JACKSON/Stuff.co.nz Okoki residents from left, Deanne Ball, Sarah Hart, Steven Henwood & dog Lippy say people are dumping unwanted cats & kittens in the area which are killing native wildlife.

She said the cat dumping was just adding to an already large population of feral cats in the area and action needed to be taken.

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"They are the new possum and they're everywhere," she said. "They're bigger, faster and stronger. Something needs to be done."

ANDY JACKSON/Fairfax NZ Okoki residents Steven Henwood, Sarah Hart & Deanne Ball say people are dumping unwanted cats & kittens in the area which are killing native wildlife.

Ball said possums were viewed as pests but because cats were "close to home" they weren't looked at that way.

Ball's neighbour Sarah Hart said she too had a cat problem on her property.

"I've had about four separate litters come out of the hills," she said.

"We use 'kiwi-safe traps' but we're catching kittens. We've caught about six."

Worried about the rapidly growing population of wild felines and preservation of native birds, Ball recently contacted the Taranaki Regional Council (TRC), Department of Conservation (DOC) and SPCA but said the organisations weren't doing anything about the problem.

"DOC's got their hands tied and council isn't spending money where they should," she said.

Though DOC's website states uncontrolled, wild or abandoned cats are a threat to native birds, spokeswoman Alison Beath said there was no immediate plan to deal with them.

She said it was a national problem they "need to get on to" and were "definitely looking into it".

"It's a research issue. Cats are very difficult to control," Beath said.

"There is an existing population up on our mountain and we do sometimes capture kittens in the kill-traps."

The TRC also has no plans to deal to the population - beyond providing information and advice on the control of wild cats - because they were only classified as 'surveillance' pest animals.

TRC environment services manager Steve Ellis simply asked those who voluntarily caught wild cats to ensure they were feral and if destroyed, to do so humanely.

When Ball rang the SPCA she said she was told to get the licence plate of the person she believed was dumping cats so the police could prosecute them appropriately.

Ball was also unimpressed by Wellington's recent effort to control felines.

The capital city became the first place in the country to require microchipping for cats in an attempt to prevent them from killing native wildlife, but Ball said the adoption of this law would be a waste.

"It would be ineffective in dealing with our population problem," she said.

Hart believed part of the solution would be for the SPCA's desexing caravan to return.

For 10 years, the SPCA offered free desexing of animals, mostly cats, to those who qualified in a travelling caravan.

However, after ten years of the service, the van closed its doors because the SPCA could not afford the needed refurbishment in addition to the running costs of about $250,000 a year.

SPCA spokeswoman Jackie Poles Smith said the desexing caravan was a nationally funded operation and was unsure if it would be back.

Smith said the breeding season was about to begin and the SPCA could not accept feral cats.