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The all-powerful cat lobby
Well that's a new one...
climate change:
use less fossil fuel, turn your car off when stationary, every little helps!
pollution and waste:
avoid plastics, reduce reuse recycle, every little helps!
energy use:
turn your lights off every time you leave the room, use energy saving bulbs, every little helps!
pets killing wildlife:
they probably would have died anyway, cats don't like being locked up, what about all the other things done by everyone else!
Consistency isn't everything but it's really obvious when its absent.
Could birds stay away from freshly cleaned cars? Asking for a friend.
my cats approve the OP's message
Round here its the all houses being built on green field sites plus the loss of existing garden hedges/trees that's really shafting the bird population (and deer, and hedge hog etc.)
@somafunk - I too have a dog very much like Toby, his name is Frank and he loves birds but seems to hate cats ("good boy Frank, good boy...")
We rarely see neighbourhood cats in our garden anymore as, for a little bundle of fur (he is a Cavachon), he can move pretty fast.
climate change:
use less fossil fuel, turn your car off when stationary, every little helps!
pollution and waste:
avoid plastics, reduce reuse recycle, every little helps!
energy use:
turn your lights off every time you leave the room, use energy saving bulbs, every little helps!
pets killing wildlife:
they probably would have died anyway, cats don’t like being locked up, what about all the other things done by everyone else!Consistency isn’t everything but it’s really obvious when its absent.
While it is definitely good to live by the first three points, they really are utter drops in the ocean compared to the commercial and industrial causes sooo you kind of proved the opposite point with this post.
Someone wants to selectively breed a strain of cat that only catches magpies.
Those monochrome arseholes have wiped out most of the other nesting birds in my garden.
My dog doesn't even shut the door, let alone turn the lights off.
tetrode,
That was my point. Even if it makes a small difference, do it anyway.
Personally i think that cats make a big difference.
Natural predator populations increase and decrease according to the availability of their prey. "Domestic" cats are always there.
Are there more domestic cats now the 30 or 40 years ago? I don't think so. So any decline in the bird population unlikely to be due to cats.
Just put a bell on the cat. Problem solved
Well that’s a new one…
Exactly.
Are there more domestic cats now the 30 or 40 years ago? I don’t think so. So any decline in the bird population unlikely to be due to cats.
A very good point and well presented. I'm wondering what the response will be?
Where I grew up in a grim northern town, everyone kept cats primarily for vermin control. They were hardly considered "pets" back then.
General human activity/consumption (other than pet cat ownership) is a far more likely explanation for any dramatic decline in the bird population.
But a good thread for outing all the cat haters!
"Just put a bell on the cat. Problem solved"
For about 24hrs.
Number of collars with bells bought for my daughters cat = 6
Number of collars with bells deposited in as yet undiscovered locations around the neighbourhood = 6
Are there more domestic cats now the 30 or 40 years ago? I don’t think so. So any decline in the bird population unlikely to be due to cats.
A good argument but it really only holds up if birds are the only prey that domestic cats hunt.
There could be the same amount of cats but the mouse / rat / vole / squirrel / other small squeaky animal populations could have massively declined over that period meaning the cats are more likely to hunt birds instead.
When was the last time you heard of any one with a mouse problem?
My cat did a great job on city pigeons, rats, mice and squirrels - I wanted to get a rebate from Bury council for his pest control services. He's old now and doesn't move quick enough/bother. Never saw him get anything wild bird like.
I'm lobbying very hard for no more cats as replacement for him when he goes, we'll probably end up with a rabbit
+1 Winston - Smokey has a bell, it made him a better hunter because he had to be even more stealth to kill without setting it off!
My cat caught a massive dragonfly. Picked it out of the air. Very proud. Dragonflies are very good at hunting (90% success rate), not so good at being hunted.
Otherwise he only catches the odd mouse. Not bothered about birds other than ones that have fallen out of nests. He lost a chunk out of his ear recently, I suspect a run-in with the squirrel family that live in the big old oak tree.
There could be the same amount of cats but the mouse / rat / vole / squirrel / other small squeaky animal populations could have massively declined over that period meaning the cats are more likely to hunt birds instead.
When was the last time you heard of any one with a mouse problem?
Where I live (in the countryside), there are certainly no shortage of rodents. Two years ago the little furries managed to chew through our water pipes (yes plural) causing a major leak. Now we have mouse traps and poison boxes everywhere to keep them under control. A quick ride in the local woods is also enough to see that grey squirrels and rabbits are abundant. Maybe there are less in more urban areas, but I seriously doubt it. I've seen plenty of rats lurking in our town centre.
Maybe there are less in more urban areas
I'd wager that, compared to the countryside, in more urban areas, there is a much, much higher population density of cats, a much lower density of small rodents and that wild birds are a much easier target for cats to predate due to the handy feeding stations that proliferate in peoples gardens.
The cats, being cats, will hunt the prey that's available, which in urban areas is increasingly likely to be birds. This, coupled with the increased urbanisation of the country has most likely had a long term effect in the overall decline of the bird population.
Because cats.....and people and magpies and habitat loss and pollution and pesticides and loads of other factors.
It's probably disingenuous to suggest that cats aren't a factor though.
It’s probably disingenuous to suggest that cats aren’t a factor though.
as previously said, mine aren't close to being a factor in declining bird populations.
Of more concern is the environmental impact of the clay cat litter I use - which is probably strip mined in the USA and then shipped over here, and then swells up loads when they pee in it so is a big, heavy mass to dump in the landfill - and the source of the meat they eat - which used to be venison (before they caught TB) and will probably be rabbit (from France I think) and ox, and maybe venison again from a better supplier.
People seem to have chickened out of using traps and use poison resulting in the ubiquitous unmistakable stench of rotting rodent. About 7 cats (one or two real tasty geezers) roam through my garden and I've only ever seen one bird get a bashing in 6 years and I think that was already injured.
If the cats keep the rodents down, I'm all for it and the birds do have a super power to escape.
Cats can be a bit more of a problem in the antipodes though.
Ours brought either a big budgie or small parakeet back once. Got that off the doorstep pretty smartish.
“We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually.”
which makes for an arresting headline, but is meaningless without knowing how many of those birds and mammals are at reproducing age when killed by predation, or are sick or injured and won't mate naturally anyway. Most birds/small mammals have 4-5 offspring, all it takes is a 50% rate of success to get to maturity to keep the population steady, plus then add weather, lack of food, loss of habitat, disease, injury...which all take a toll.
Some estimates put the numbers of birds in the world at 200-400 billion, there are something like 20 billion birds in the USA at Autumn migration peak, so cats killing 1.3- 4.0 billion of them (mostly sick and injured) aren't making any significant difference to those numbers annually
Junk science.
Some estimates put the numbers of birds in the world at 200-400 billion, there are something like 20 billion birds in the USA at Autumn migration peak, so cats killing 1.3- 4.0 billion of them (mostly sick and injured) aren’t making any significant difference to those numbers annually
I would read the rest of the article - what is junk science is dismissing a paper because 4 billion birds MIGHT be sick or injured. Do you know the percentage of birds sick and injured at any single point in time? Do you know the rate at which cats preferentially predate sick or injured birds? What percentage of those would be predated by other birds were cats not in the picture?
There is no doubt at all that domestic cats kill large numbers of small birds
Do you know the rate at which cats preferentially predate sick or injured birds?
How do you think predation of this sort works, given the normal hunting methods of cats?
There is no doubt at all that domestic cats kill large numbers of small birds
Yep, I think that's probably as good a statement as can be made
There's no doubt that my cats don't kill any birds 🙂
British Shorthairs are the most popular pedigree cat breed in the UK and they are an 'indoor' cat, even if they are let out they don't normally roam - mainly as their owners don't trust their 'street smarts' enough, plus they are quite nickable.
The percentage of the bird population that suffer from BSHs must be close to 0%.
Yep, I think that’s probably as good a statement as can be made
Agreed - but I’d categorise the work as “requires urgent further investigation” considering the scale.
It places the blame mainly with un-owned cats, so feral cats - really, I don’t think that the cat lovers here should be too worried. The U.K. obviously has different numbers and percentage share of feral domestic cats as well.
Chased a cat off my path last week that was torturing an injured pigeon to death. The cat jumped over next doors fence to be met by two very excited Patterdales. Last we’ll see of that cat. Pigeon got bagged and binned.
So, thanks to your intervention, a cat got ripped to pieces by two dogs, and the pigeon died anyway.
Bravo.