Cat is a Killer

Ms Doubtfire1

I must open a thread on crows.They are fascinating.

Zillah

Human civilisation has decimated birds' natural habitats while simultaneously bloating the cat population far beyond what would be naturally possible. I'd do everything in my power to stop my cat from successfully hunting.

Wild birds are being wiped out by their billions all over the world because of our predilection for keeping cats as pets. There is nothing natural about it.

Ms Doubtfire1

Zillah wrote: »

Human civilisation has decimated birds' natural habitats while simultaneously bloating the cat population far beyond what would be naturally possible. I'd do everything in my power to stop my cat from successfully hunting.

Wild birds are being wiped out by their billions all over the world because of our predilection for keeping cats as pets. There is nothing natural about it.

That' basically blaming the cat for her natural behavior - whilst our un - natural behavior of destroying habitats needed for birds is excused.Latest example? The wildfires all over the country. You can be sure 50% of the were lit on purpose to get grazing grants from the government with a fine disregard to the nesting season.So blaming cats? Nope. don't fly with me.

PMBC

Had two cats similar to this over the years. Smokie used to disembowel baby rabbits and leave at the door. She met her unDarwinian end courtesy of a passing car. Buzz was adopted from a cat sanctuary, beautiful colouring of brown and caramel. She killed pygmy shrews, birds and rodents. Eventually we 'belled her' and she was less successful, I recall.

Zillah

Ms Doubtfire1 wrote: »

That' basically blaming the cat for her natural behavior - whilst our un - natural behavior of destroying habitats needed for birds is excused.Latest example? The wildfires all over the country. You can be sure 50% of the were lit on purpose to get grazing grants from the government with a fine disregard to the nesting season.So blaming cats? Nope. don't fly with me.

Do you imagine I'm going to go around spanking cats? Giving them a telling off and making them feel bad? What a bizarre desire to white knight the poor kitties you have. I also didn't excuse our destruction of habitats; in fact I did literally the opposite and blamed it for the problem.

Regardless, I'm blaming cat-ownership as a whole, and cat-owners more specifically. Give them a bell. Spay your cats. I'd love if we could declaw them without maiming but I understand that's not possible.

I'd also like if we had about a tenth as many cats kept as pets but there's no accounting for taste.

Ms Doubtfire1

all my cats are neutered and I spay/castrate anything on 4 legs that walks into the yard with my own money.
I agree there are too many cats. But WHO caused that? People who don't spay/neuter. People who moved away from the house leaving their cats behind. Humans created the problem.Humans need to fix it. And not by blaming the cat for natural behavior.

Kristopherus

Ms Doubtfire1 wrote: »

Latest example? The wildfires all over the country. You can be sure 50% of the were lit on purpose to get grazing grants from the government with a fine disregard to the nesting season.So blaming cats? Nope. don't fly with me.

Have you got evidence for that allegation?

Ms Doubtfire1

Kristopherus wrote: »

Ms Doubtfire1 wrote: »

Latest example? The wildfires all over the country. You can be sure 50% of the were lit on purpose to get grazing grants from the government with a fine disregard to the nesting season.So blaming cats? Nope. don't fly with me.

Have you got evidence for that allegation?

plenty on the various reports of the gorsefires. Google is your friend

Alcoheda

kathleen37 wrote: »

They are not my pets. They are feral. We can't touch them.

And whilst I'm very open to debate on the issue of bells on cats - I really don't understand how a bell on a cat could help in relation to cats climbing trees and getting into nests?

Well that's hardly the point, I'm talking about damage limitation.
I commend you for neutering the cats, especially seeing as their not your responsibility, that can't have been cheep or easy.

Zillah

Ms Doubtfire1 wrote: »

And not by blaming the cat for natural behavior.

No one telling your cat he has been a naughty naughty boy. What an unusual point to get fixated on.

Shivi111

This is an interesting thread... and I do wonder, is anyone aware of any studies that actually demonstrate that cats are having a negative impact on bird populations over time in Ireland?

I've done some googling and I can find the usual headline type conjecture but no actual data to demonstrate that a real issue exists... would be interesting to see some figures.

Don't get me wrong, I know cats do kill birds but I'm not sure that they are actually impacting on the numbers - lots of birds also die for lots of reasons and I wonder if the weaker/ ill birds are the more likely to be caught (ie - those that would die anyway...). I don't know that taking cats out of the equation would change anything.

Zillah

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/science/report-finds-north-american-skies-quieter-by-15-billion-fewer-birds/article31876053/

Human activity kills billions of birds a year, the report notes. Collisions with power lines, buildings and vehicles account for about 900 million bird deaths annually in Canada and the United States, while domesticated and feral cats kill another 2.6 billion – or about a quarter of the landbird population.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cats-kill-more-one-billion-birds-each-year

America’s cats, including housecats that adventure outdoors and feral cats, kill between 1.3 billion and 4.0 billion birds in a year, says Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C., who led the team that performed the analysis.

Whatever the exact number, amongst the other things we do to destroy bird populations, having hundreds of millions of cats is certainly contributing.

Shivi111

Zillah wrote: »

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/science/report-finds-north-american-skies-quieter-by-15-billion-fewer-birds/article31876053/


https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cats-kill-more-one-billion-birds-each-year


Whatever the exact number, amongst the other things we do to destroy bird populations, having hundreds of millions of cats is certainly contributing.

But that's all America, different to Ireland really.
I'm not saying cats don't kill birds... but imagine the following scenario:

Tomorrow, there are no cats outside in Ireland and not a single bird is killed by a cat. Imagine, we then see an upsurge in the bird populations, and we agree, yes, cats were the issue.

But... suddenly our expanded bird population are all vying for the same (already limited) resources. The birds starve, disease spreads more rapidly due to denser populations, not all surviving birds are well nourished enough or have suitable places to nest and breed.

The surge is population rights itself and we are back to our pre-cat ban bird population levels.

We let our cats back outside, and life goes on....

Possible, right?

Zillah

There is no reason to assume the bird population would drop back to current levels, no. Going by the US numbers (fully a quarter of all birds killed by cats per year), it's pretty safe to say the stable cat-free bird population would be a lot higher.

Shivi111

Zillah wrote: »

There is no reason to assume the bird population would drop back to current levels, no. Going by the US numbers (fully a quarter of all birds killed by cats per year), it's pretty safe to say the stable cat-free bird population would be a lot higher.

But we have a different situation here, it's wrong to go by US numbers because the situation here is different. You can't take that set of data and apply it here, that's not how research works.

I'm not saying it's not possible that cats in Ireland are an issue, they very well might be, but i won't jump on a conjecture bandwagon without any actual evidence available to back it up.

Ragnar Lothbrok

My cat just sits and stares at the starlings who swoop down to feed out of his food bowl. Occasionally he makes a very half-hearted attempt to catch one, but generally gives up after they have escaped him a few times.

He's never brought any dead bird, mouse, rat, etc to my door, either, and he's 8 years old now. My guess is that he's far too lazy and well-fed to bother actually going to the trouble of hunting for his own dinner

ED E

Shivi111 wrote: »

But we have a different situation here, it's wrong to go by US numbers because the situation here is different. You can't take that set of data and apply it here, that's not how research works.

I'm not saying it's not possible that cats in Ireland are an issue, they very well might be, but i won't jump on a conjecture bandwagon without any actual evidence available to back it up.

By the fact that of the small number of bird ringers (catch, tag, release) I know quite a few also own outdoor cats I'd be very sceptical that anyone of merit thinks its a problem.

mardybumbum

CeNedra wrote: »

Hi!

Over a year ago I was away on business for a week and when I returned a very young cat had moved in with my dog. He is a very placid outdoor dog, 14 years old, who was happy enough with the cat to move into this house by the looks of it.

While I wasn't delighted to see the new family member (I've never had a cat, am more a dog person really) my husband and kids were delighted and had already started feeding the cat and taking him to vet etc etc. I guess I kind of got to like this cat as he absolutely doesn't give a sh1t about anybody or anything except himself and it is hard not to admire him for that.

I went with the flow but am really struggling at the moment with this cat as he is an awful killer. This morning, myself and the kids were sitting looking out at the cat pulling a crow out of a tree and taking about 20 minutes of 'playing' with him before eventually killing him, put me right off my breakfast I can tell you. This cat kills mice, a rat (a huge one), pigeons (feathers scattered all over the front lawn recently), now crows etc etc. I get the nature thing but he always plays with them for ages before killing him. It is unbelievably cruel what he does to his prey. He doesn't even eat them tbh.

He still gets on with the dog (elderly dog), but would often take a swipe at him and try to get a rise out of the dog, but that dog is not for moving.

Is this normal for cats? Are they all cold blooded killers? I think I'll stick with dogs in the future but this cat is still young so will be around for a while.

Anyway interested in thoughts on this situation.
Orla

From wikipedia

Perhaps the best known element of cats' hunting behavior, which is commonly misunderstood and often appalls cat owners because it looks like torture, is that cats often appear to "play" with prey by releasing it after capture. This behavior is due to an instinctive imperative to ensure that the prey is weak enough to be killed without endangering the cat.[168] This behavior is referred to in the idiom "cat-and-mouse game" or simply "cat and mouse".

Zillah

Shivi111 wrote: »

But we have a different situation here, it's wrong to go by US numbers because the situation here is different. You can't take that set of data and apply it here, that's not how research works.

It is reasonable to conclude that the US data would be comparable to our own, unless you can think of anything that would render us fundamentally different. Cats are the same everywhere; urban environments are largely the same.

I'm not saying it's not possible that cats in Ireland are an issue, they very well might be, but i won't jump on a conjecture bandwagon without any actual evidence available to back it up.

Yet you're happy to engage in wild conjecture in the opposite direction, suggesting that the bird population would magically be unchanged with or without cats, because you like cats. You casually dismiss data for an entire continent showing cats decimating the bird population because you're happy to assume that we're somehow an exception.

kathleen37

Zillah wrote: »

You casually dismiss data for an entire continent showing cats decimating the bird population because you're happy to assume that we're somehow an exception.

The point is that there is no Irish data to dismiss.

The US is such a huge country, with such differing land mass types, that trying to compare the whole of the US to Ireland is just null.

kathleen37

kathleen37 wrote: »

The point is that there is no Irish data to dismiss.

The US is such a huge country, with such differing land mass types, that trying to compare the whole of the US to Ireland is just null.

There was also a paper from an american suburb which wouldn't be so radically different to Ireland, 50% of young birds were killed by cats

In 2011, he published a paper in the Journal of Ornithology that followed the fate of young gray catbirds in the Maryland suburbs. Soon after leaving the nest, 79 percent of birds were killed by predators, primarily cats, which leave the telltale sign of decapitated victims with just the bodies uneaten. (Ironically, this bird gets its name not because it commonly ends up in the jaws of cats, but from its vaguely catlike yowl).

link to article containing quote

Shivi111

Zillah wrote: »

It is reasonable to conclude that the US data would be comparable to our own, unless you can think of anything that would render us fundamentally different. Cats are the same everywhere; urban environments are largely the same.



Yet you're happy to engage in wild conjecture in the opposite direction, suggesting that the bird population would magically be unchanged with or without cats, because you like cats. You casually dismiss data for an entire continent showing cats decimating the bird population because you're happy to assume that we're somehow an exception.

No, the US is much more biodiverse - the two are just not comparable! Large sections of the USA are classified as 'megadiverse' and bird populations there have different additional contributing issues (as do cats there!) - it's like reviewing rents in Dublin and assuming that data can be applied to Kerry, you won't get the right answer.

My example was not wild conjecture, nor did it suggest 'magic', but was a resource based hypothetical used to demonstrate an equally plausible alternative.
(Admittedly, not data based... but I can't evidence it unless I can find a very big house to put all the cats in for a year...)

I like cats, I also like birds and other animals - and I really like evidence.

If it's proven that cats are a serious contributing factor to a decline in bird populations in Ireland, then I would be at the top of the queue looking for ways to address that, but until there is relevant data, there is no proven issue to be addressed.

B0jangles

Hang on, cats are a hugely successful non-native predator with zero natural enemies in this country, what do you think was predating on the irish wild bird population to a comparable extent before cats?

Btw the US is a much MORE cat hostile environment because there are multiple species which prey on them - coyote, Eagles etc
I'm attempting to link to a UK study from 1997 which concluded that Britain's 9 million cats likely killed between 85 and 100 million birds and animals over the period covered by the study (April to August 1997)

On phone, so it might not work...

https://www.google.ie/url?q=http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url%3Furl%3Dhttp://www.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/102393/541392-1-Foal-Hurst-Wood-Matter-A.pdf%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26scisig%3DAAGBfm2fpKsGMWypAwiDvyeCX7gN_dtapg%26nossl%3D1%26oi%3Dscholarr&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiPuZfKnObTAhViJ8AKHYSBDt8QgAMICygA&usg=AFQjCNEhiNlh5U3wPWp8i1guSJr5jkCq7Q

Teyla Emmagan

CeNedra wrote:

Over a year ago I was away on business for a week and when I returned a very young cat had moved in with my dog. He is a very placid outdoor dog, 14 years old, who was happy enough with the cat to move into this house by the looks of it.

Aw, I just got your username! Big fan

Shivi111

B0jangles wrote: »

Hang on, cats are a hugely successful non-native predator with zero natural enemies in this country, what do you think was predating on the irish wild bird population to a comparable extent before cats?

Btw the US is a much MORE cat hostile environment because there are multiple species which prey on them - coyote, Eagles etc
I'm attempting to link to a UK study from 1997 which concluded that Britain's 9 million cats likely killed between 85 and 100 million birds and animals over the period covered by the study (April to August 1997)

On phone, so it might not work...

https://www.google.ie/url?q=http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url%3Furl%3Dhttp://www.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/102393/541392-1-Foal-Hurst-Wood-Matter-A.pdf%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26scisig%3DAAGBfm2fpKsGMWypAwiDvyeCX7gN_dtapg%26nossl%3D1%26oi%3Dscholarr&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiPuZfKnObTAhViJ8AKHYSBDt8QgAMICygA&usg=AFQjCNEhiNlh5U3wPWp8i1guSJr5jkCq7Q

That is an interesting study, and I definitely agree- it demonstrates that cats do kill birds (which I don't argue with). But, by its own admission, it does not demonstrate if those kills adversely affect population:
'This descriptive survey was not intended to gauge the impact of predation by cats on the population dynamics of their prey, and so no data on prey populations were collected.'

It demonstrates that cats are killing birds, but not what impact, if any, those kills are having long term on populations.

Look, I'm clearly a cat person (see almost all my comments on this site) & I accept I have some bias, but my point that I can't find actually evidence that bird populations would improve without cats stands, there are so many other factors that still come into play.

JuanGreen

Seems to be pretty normal behavior for cats, in my opinion. I had a cat a few years ago, luckily it was a lot more social than yours, but it still had the same predatory tendencies. It was fine by me, I just had to clean up stray feathers every now and then, but it's a part of their life cycle, not everything is as pretty as us people would like to make it.

JuanGreen

JuanGreen wrote: »

Seems to be pretty normal behavior for cats, in my opinion. I had a cat a few years ago, luckily it was a lot more social than yours, but it still had the same predatory tendencies. It was fine by me, I just had to clean up stray feathers every now and then, but it's a part of their life cycle, not everything is as pretty as us people would like to make it.

The thing is it doesn't have to be part of their life cycle, it's a lot of needless killing.

kylith

Zillah wrote: »

Do you imagine I'm going to go around spanking cats? Giving them a telling off and making them feel bad? What a bizarre desire to white knight the poor kitties you have. I also didn't excuse our destruction of habitats; in fact I did literally the opposite and blamed it for the problem.

Regardless, I'm blaming cat-ownership as a whole, and cat-owners more specifically. Give them a bell. Spay your cats. I'd love if we could declaw them without maiming but I understand that's not possible.

I'd also like if we had about a tenth as many cats kept as pets but there's no accounting for taste.

I'd settle for people just keeping them in their own gardens.

JuanGreen

riffmongous wrote: »

JuanGreen wrote: »

Seems to be pretty normal behavior for cats, in my opinion. I had a cat a few years ago, luckily it was a lot more social than yours, but it still had the same predatory tendencies. It was fine by me, I just had to clean up stray feathers every now and then, but it's a part of their life cycle, not everything is as pretty as us people would like to make it.

The thing is it doesn't have to be part of their life cycle, it's a lot of needless killing.

I completely understand that, but I believe that some of those natural processes exist for a reason. For instance, if cats didn't cull the rat population every once in a while there would be rats everywhere. The same thing applies to frogs and flies. If you remove frogs eating flies from the equation, there will be a lot more flies to deal with. I am not sure if my point makes sense, but I hope you get the gist of what I'm trying to say. Then again, I could be completely wrong

JuanGreen

JuanGreen wrote: »

I completely understand that, but I believe that some of those natural processes exist for a reason. For instance, if cats didn't cull the rat population every once in a while there would be rats everywhere. The same thing applies to frogs and flies. If you remove frogs eating flies from the equation, there will be a lot more flies to deal with. I am not sure if my point makes sense, but I hope you get the gist of what I'm trying to say. Then again, I could be completely wrong

No, it makes a lot of sense alright, it's a good point. Our ecosystems are so messed up it could certainly happen like that.