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Nevermind cats what about the carbon footprint of children and all the new houses required to house them? That must kill loads of birds. Actually let's all just commit suicide as we obviously can't possibly all exist together without someone getting upset.
Wind turbines. 😉 wiping them out by the flock.
Right? Isn't it windy enough already?
The RSPB have asked that cat owners keep their pets inside during dawn and dusk, for the breeding season. This is a polite request.
Cats kill around 27 million birds per year.
Oh and cats don't always bury their poo. I find it in my veg patches and flower beds, in the 'no mow May' long grass.
Cats fight with hedgehogs, foxes and badgers.
Our wildlife population is falling rapidly but cat ownership is increasing.
OP - I'm completely with you, that a cat getting in through a window at night and dropping a bird onto your child's bed is not acceptable.
Signed bunnyhop cat and horse lover.
So this is a cat photo thread now, right?
Check out Oliver,
https://imgur.com/a/3sDnQPN
I once (accidentally) ran over a magpie so I'm fairly sure I've killed more birds then he has*, but then he normally looks like this
https://imgur.com/a/iq0i0Fm
This was him after being rescued by the RSPCA and then after being with us for a while
https://imgur.com/a/1O7C8fL
Pretty sure he's happy with the morals of pet 'ownership'.
*Although he is partial to a bit of roast duck.
Cats fight with hedgehogs, foxes and badgers.
Sounds like a tough neighborhood.
Kitty McGee waiting for innocent birds to land on the feeding table and fly into her mouth.
The monster.
Eddie baby: an optimist, I like it.
The UK ecosystem is utterly buggered anyway so I don't mind my cats reducing the mice / rat / squirrel / rabbit population somewhat (very rarely get a bird). If you're worried about cats impact on ecology for god's sake don't go for a walk in the lakes.
It's fair to say I'm on the fence on the whole Cats vs Dogs thing...
I've never had to kick a cat that's chasing my on my bike. I've had to kick a dog. I enjoyed it.
Pointless noisy crapping dirty creatures. A bit like children. Ship them all off to Korea to be eaten I say.
Children ownership. Contributing to overpopulation, offensively noisy in cafés, pubs and restaurants, continually having sticky faces etc etc
What other type of mammal would behave so inconsiderately and disgracefully.
Dolphins are utter cee you next Tuesday's
It takes them about 20mim a day to catch sufficient fish to eat for food, the rest of their behaviour is purely for the sake of it.
Ohh look, that pod of dolphins is playing with the babby orca, ohh look they've seperated it from its pod with lots of noise, bullied it, and now pinning it underwater untill it's drowned.
Ohh look, the dolphins are being cute with the pregnant lady trying to encourage her out to sea to a safe place to give birth. Wait, no, they're ramming her stomach and pinning her under water.
Dolphins will use their echo location to find the soft organs of other mammals to attack, not for food, just for shits and giggles.
Dolphins will gang rape females, splitting them from pods and pushing/corralling them for weeks at a time. They also have prehensile penises, just to give you nightmares.
Dolphins will use live animals as a toy, once babyshark is dead they'll get bored of using it as a volleyball.
They also have prehensile penises
Prehensile is a weird word isn't it. Do we also have hensile? Posthensile?
just to give you nightmares.
From what (very) little I know, the sex lives of animals is not something most sane people should be digging at. I'd like to think that I'm pretty broad-minded, but I once accidentally read a story about a monkey using a frog as a Fleshlight and I'm out of here.
I’m completely with you, that a cat getting in through a window at night and dropping a bird onto your child’s bed is not acceptable.
Absolutely irresponsible adult owner of the child leaving a window open.
Won't someone think of the children.
Responsible owners are the answer, any animal.
I never ever want to deal with what I did have to do a couple of nights ago.
****in shit owners. I possibly could have lost my face what I did but we do to save both animals. Unfortunately the cat died but the dog didn't get its eye balls burst as I couldn't find them. It let go after my thumbs went in its throat.
Total shit dog owners. I am still traumatised as i was close to killing the dog. Despite it being smallish, between my legs, fark me this was an evil animal. A child would have been killed the same. Still shook up as I could have lost my face as I was trying to calm the bastard down.
I can probably guess how replies to that are going to go, but you just react.
I gained a cat for the couple of years he lasted, after one morning coming downstairs to find two big dogs playing tug-o-war with him. I ran out screaming and they took boggarts, it was only after I'd got back from the vet and the hospital that it really dawned on me how badly that could have gone.
Astroturf makes loads of sense if you want to avoid cat shit. They won’t go near it.
Quick, tell this cat.
Astroturf makes loads of sense if you want to avoid cat shit. They won’t go near it.
Please can you have a word with one of the 7 cats the various neighbours have around us, because one is happy crapping on our astroturf (And all the others elsewhere in the garden).
Cats kill around 27 million birds per year.
Sounds like a lot but - serious question - how many birds would have been taken by the other native predators we've killed or seriously depleted? Are cat hunting patterns equivalent to polecats, weasels, pine martens and so on?
One of our killer's is following this thread with interest,, well as much interest as she ever does to stuff she can't chase, eat, drop on a bed etc.
Cat's are great, dogs are great but let's all accept they are great in different ways?
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We have a cat and a dog.
Consideration is key as in every thing.
Cat doesn’t catch birds or animals of any kind. Does go into the back garden - when we are outside with her. Doesn’t defecate outside - let alone in other gardens.
Dog goes on regular walks - even where cyclists are present. Always walked on a short lead, doesn’t jump up at people. Always pick up his poo and put it in a biodegradable bag and carry it home.
It’s not hard.
Molgrips - 27,000,000 birds taken and killed by cats is a huge amount. Yes birds are predated by raptors, and other mammals, but we humans can't do much about that. All the RSPB are asking is to keep a cat inside - dawn and dusk for a few months of the year. We managed it with our much loved cat, but other entitled pet owners don't seem to want to.
As a lover of all wildlife, it has to be looked after.
fossy - what you've been through is horrendous, did it happen in Marple?
Cats are great, dogs are great but let’s all accept they are great in different ways?
Compromise? On STW? Are you new here? 😂
All the RSPB are asking is to keep a cat inside – dawn and dusk for a few months of the year.
As far as I can see the RSPB aren't asking all cat owners to keep their cats inside, just the ones that are prolific hunters. According to the RSPB website:
"Cats are individuals - their behaviour varies widely. Some will be prolific hunters, some may catch nothing at all".
I have had approximately 10 cats throughout my life and only one or two could have been described as hunters, and none at all hunted beyond middle age. Although moths and large houseflies did often provide an enduring fascination.
Our 2 indoor cats catch a mouse pretty much weekly....which is quite the reflection on our house!
Having read some stuff about humane traps not been all that humane when you take into account the long term prospects of the little critters when you turf them out far away from their usual home, I'm in two minds what's the worst fait.
We have 2 cats. One is a lazy, fat moggy who barely moves, one is a all 4 horsemen of the apocalypse if you're small and furry. You can tell he's a hunter just from looking at him. He looks like a mini-panther.
Its not really surprising as he was found feral and had to fend for himself, so I suppose its just instinctive to him
To my knowledge though, he's never hunted birds. He decimates the local rodent population (our house has open woodland behind it so theres plenty to decimate). We know this because he leaves their dismembered remains by the back door as gifts for us in the morning. On his most prolific night there were 4 dead rats lined up waiting for me on the step. Thanks for that Nelson. Theres never been any birds though.
Like booze and many other things that have been the norm for centuries, if we didn't have them and their introduction to society was proposed, it would likely not be justifiable in current times. But the cat is out of the bag and there is probably no going back.
RSPB do seem to have changed their stance on cats recently. Not long ago they were saying that cats mostly take the old and sick birds not making much of an effect on the general population, certainly not as much as habitat loss etc
27 million is about 2.5 per cat.
As Ernie says though, I doubt that this is an even distribution. My experience matches his, I've had (outdoors-going) cats on and off for 25 years or more and I'm struggling to recall any avian presents. Something got mullered in our yard a couple of months back by someone else's cat though.
My old girl couldn't catch a cold, she's sit in the window chirruping with a tail like a bog brush, "ooh, if I could just get out there..." so I'd let her out and she'd jump up on the other side of the window with complete bravado failure screaming "LET ME IN, THERE'S BIRDS OUT HERE!!"
Having read some stuff about humane traps not been all that humane when you take into account the long term prospects of the little critters when you turf them out far away from their usual home, I’m in two minds what’s the worst fait.
Yeah, this has been discussed a few times before on STW's pest control threads. I'm a massive wuss yet I'm unconvinced about the wisdom in humane traps. You catch a mouse alive and, well, congratulations, you have a live mouse, now what? They can apparently 'home' over considerable distances and as you say they're potentially more vulnerable to predators.
At least cat's aren't killing people on a regular basis (unless it's a proper big one).
Our 2 indoor cats catch a mouse pretty much weekly…
That must be one hell of a mouse.
When our cat died (was run over which was an absolutely horrible experience finding her lying in the gutter) the bird life in our family garden doubled.
The same with next door's cat, when it got put down the bird life more than doubled in our own garden.
I'm an RSPB volunteer and 'most' cats will kill birds, many of these are fledglings, at this time of the year.
Our old family cat caught and killed mostly mice but she did bring home the odd bird.
Did the bird life double because of the absence of killing or the absence of them being frightened off?
I’m an RSPB volunteer and ‘most’ cats will kill birds,
So have you got a link to the RSPB appeal asking for all cat owners to keep their cats indoors dusk and dawn?
And also a link where the RSPB claim that 'most' cats will kill birds please, other than if a cat is locked in a small room with a bird obviously.
My quick search could find nothing other than the RSPB claiming that not all cats hunt.
Sorry to hear the devastating affect your cat had on the local bird population until its early death btw.
Were you not aware until your cat got run over?
I knew they were murdering little buggers but never knew to what extent.
Millions!!! 🤯
Best humane prevention we have found is to spray the local cats with a water whenever we see them in the garden.
They tend to give us a wide berth these days.
We should be thanking them! Alfred Hitchcock gave us ample warning of what would happen without all the cats...
The RSPB lists the main reasons for the decline in bird populations in the UK here, it doesn't seem to mention cat predation :
Why are they declining?
Extensive research has shown that these declines are caused primarily by changes in agriculture.
1. Increased efficiency
This has led to:
grubbing up of hedgerows to create larger fields
ploughing up closer to the edge of the field to increase the planted area
drainage to dry out damper areas and remove wet flushes from others, all to increase production
2. Changes in cropping practices
This had led to:
shift from spring to autumn sown cereals
as soon as one crop is harvested, next one goes in - the land has no time to rest and lie fallow
3. Specialisation of farms and regions to either arable or livestock production
This has resulted in loss of the habitat diversity that many birds need to survive.
4. Increase in the use of farm chemicals – fertilisers and pesticides
5. Increased efficiency in grain and animal feed storage - exclusion of wild birds from cattle feeding stations
6. Changes in farm buildings
Replacing old buildings with modern ones excludes nesting birds and bats.
very long running study on bird decline: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2216573120
(tldr, intensive agricuture)
Cats primarily take “the doomed surplus”: weak or injured birds likely to die anyway. In 2008, Baker led a study in Bristol showing that birds killed by cats on average had less fat and muscle than birds killed by collisions with windows. link to study here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2008.00836.x
Cats primarily take “the doomed surplus”: weak or injured birds likely to die anyway.
So cat predation plays an important role in keeping bird populations healthy and strong then?
When our cat died...the bird life in our family garden doubled.
That could easily be the presence of the cat making the birds go elsewhere, rather than it killing them.
Ernie - you are welcome anytime to come to our local RSPB group meetings and /or outings. We have experts from all walks of life. These experts speak on behalf of nature, wildlife and mostly bird life. This is where I get my information from and also what I have witnessed in my long life. Cats not only kill old, infirm or knackered birds, they kill fledglings.
I love cats, but at the moment there are too many of them and not enough wildlife imo.