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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Killer At Home: House Cats Have More Impact On Local Wildlife Than Wild Predators
What does an outdoor cat do all day? According to new research, it could be taking a heavy toll on local wildlife. A tracking study of more than 900 house cats shows when they kill small birds and mammals, their impact is concentrated in a small area, having a bigger effect than wild predators do.
...Kays and colleagues collected GPS data from cats in six countries and found most cats aren't venturing very far from home.
..."It actually ends up being a really intense rate of predation on any unfortunate prey species that's going to live near that cat's house," he said. ..."The big concern is where we have an overlap of people and cats with native species that are small and vulnerable," Kays said.
One study estimates that house cats, both domestic and feral, kill billions of birds every year.
"The simplest thing to do is to keep your cat indoors," he said.
The Small Home Ranges Of Pet Cats
Outdoor housecats tend to stick close to home, as three cats in Durham, N.C., showed over a few weeks of GPS tracking:
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/18/820953617/the-killer-at-home-house-cats-have-more-impact-on-local-wildlife-than-wild-preda
Codeine
(25,586 posts)Better for the birds, and they dont get squished by cars.
GreenPartyVoter
(72,377 posts)is important since we live in a very Lyme-y area where deer come up to our porch.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)he was absolutely covered in fleas; it took weeks to completely eradicate them. I cant imagine subjecting him to the possibility of that kind of infestation again.
Luckily Lyme isnt an issue here that I know of, but cars and coyotes definitely are.
logosoco
(3,208 posts)He is not quite one year old. He is the first cat I have ever had where I decided "no outside". He can watch the birds and squirrels from the window but he is not going out there to get them.
JudyM
(29,248 posts)It may take a while, but they get used to it.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,345 posts)Botany
(70,504 posts)Last edited Tue Apr 21, 2020, 06:11 AM - Edit history (1)
They are an ecological hammer.
SharonAnn
(13,773 posts)My neighbors loved it!
No mice in the house, no tunnels in the lawn.
BGBD
(3,282 posts)cats that go or even live outside and kill some things in the yard that are the problem. It's more that feral cats band together into colonies and as a large group can decimate species in the area.
Cats are invasive in that role, and they become one of the top predators in lots of ecosystems.
https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/info/invasive-species-profiles/feral-cats/
Botany
(70,504 posts)Many of the critters that cats kill are key components of the ecosystem.
They are one of the reasons you almost never see a wood thrush or a garter snake
anymore.
HAB911
(8,891 posts)about keeping cats inside. It was a portent of things to come like the current battle over social distancing and masks. That is to say, an all out war.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)Everyone is so angry there; a lost dog post can erupt into a days-long flamewar.
HAB911
(8,891 posts)Horse with no Name
(33,956 posts)Lol
Horse with no Name
(33,956 posts)Its a bit frightening. And they know where you live. Lol
Shanti Mama
(1,288 posts)Bells don't work, but I've read that the colorful large collars do.
GreenPartyVoter
(72,377 posts)from making them their lunch.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)Then I started seeing coyotes running around and lots of missing cat posters on telephone poles.
Must admit it made me smile. Im a hunter and angler and spend lots of time in nature. As much as I can. The idea that humans introduced a predator against which our native wildlife has no evolutionary defense against being eaten by a native animal they have no ingrained defenses against seems like a karma I really dont believe in.
My wife has 2 cats. They kill birds and squirrels every day. In their imagination. Looking out of the windows of our Florida room. Because they will never go outside in reality.
I hate House cats running free. Hope coyotes eat them all.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)so I know when hes hiding under a couch ready to ambush someones ankles!
leftyladyfrommo
(18,868 posts)MissB
(15,808 posts)I create/maintain habitat for them. I dont feed them, though I can see my neighbors three feeders from my veggie garden at the back of my property.
I live in a wooded urban area, right at the edge of a large city. Im surrounded by trees and forests, which is quite lovely.
I also have mice. I prefer mice not make my home their own. I also have moles in my yard.
So far the count of mice/moles this spring is about 20. Birds? Zero.
My cats have free range of the inside and the outside. My youngest cat hangs out on the porch in the afternoon sun and in the backyard when Im gardening. She may leave the property but Ive never seen her wander off the half acre here. She mostly hangs with me, and she prefers to sleep on our bed all night.
My oldest cat sleeps all day inside, hanging out in the late afternoon on the porch chair in the sun. He starts hunting when we go to bed, and generally snags a mouse before we are asleep. After hes done with his snack, he sleeps on his bed on the porch. Hes approaching 14 years of age and has slowed down quite a bit. Hes on a thyroid medicine twice a day.
If I lived in the city proper, Id feel differently about inside vs outside cats. But I dont live in the city. My cats are adorable little killers of mice (and the occasional bunny). Im ok with all that. If they only aimed for birds, Id feel differently. I specifically adopted my youngest cat because I knew shed be a good mouser. Its their job.
Ive seen these wars before. There is a strong city/rural divide. I dont have barn cats but they serve the same purpose, just with way more human interaction.
womanofthehills
(8,706 posts)I think he has seen so many birds that they are of no interest to him. He loves to lie in the sun. He also is an older cat.
The mouse catcher is my half husky 2 yr old dog. My dogs will also occasionally get a bunny or a dove. Usually the bunnies can outrun them. I also have a 100 ft by 50 ft run with lots of trees for all my animals. It has a six foot fence and a doggie door. I have had a raccoon and some squirrels come in my doggie door at night. My dogs and cat are not running around outside the run unless Im around.
JudyM
(29,248 posts)Works well and smells great. Just dab some on cotton balls and place them around.
MissB
(15,808 posts)The only way they make their way inside is thru the cat door in my oldest cats mouth right before it becomes a snack.
In the early years in this house we had issues with mice inside. Weve since redone the foundation in the area they were pouring in.
Marrah_Goodman
(1,586 posts)We used to have a cat that could go in and out of the house at will, before one of the kids moved away with her. We still had and have huge amounts of birds in the yard, tons of types of small rodents, etc. I can see the impact of cats maybe being more of an issue in populated areas.
Alex4Martinez
(2,193 posts)Pet and feral cats free to breed create kittens, which are precious and kept or given away when found.
It's not that anyone wants more cats, it's not like there's a market for cats like there is for puppies, it's just that they reproduce so profoundly.
It's absolutely irresponsible for any human to take on a pet and not neuter that pet and then let it outdoors to reproduce.
Period.
Thank you for shedding light on the consequences.
mokawanis
(4,440 posts)and I always make a point of going outside and chasing them away whenever they enter my yard. I have an elevated deck and several bird-feeders and I hate seeing cats coming around to prey on the birds. Of course I can't be on watch most of the time so they do occasionally kill a mourning dove or blue jay.
Wounded Bear
(58,656 posts)"wild" animals are part of the ecosystem, which kind of self regulates most of the time. Predators and prey tend to balance out.
Pet cats are added into the ecosystem by humans and are largely protected themselves while attacking local wild prey. In a suburban setting, they skew the balance much more so than on a farm, say, or rural residence.
LakeArenal
(28,817 posts)That cats arent so bad on birds.
This person kept on me all morning.
Lots of proud folks feeding feral cats. To be fair a couple people say they try to save them take them to be neutered, then plunk them back in the environment to kill.
Friends have told me their outside cat does not kill birds. Thats bs.
yardwork
(61,608 posts)I never worry about them anymore. When I was growing up we had cats that went in and out. I was constantly worried about them, for good reason. They got into fights and got infected wounds. They were hit by cars. Sometimes they never came home and I never knew what happened to them.
Betty88
(717 posts)Our once peaceful city cats have become, well no better put than as to say, mass killers. When the weather turned cold a few mice decided to try and best the city cats and sneak into the place. Oh the blood curdling fun that has been had by my two old house cats. Heads popping in the middle of the night, I did not know mouse brains were so tasty. They work together like nothing I have ever seen. Like a SWAT team set on catching a nice snack and eating it raw on the bedroom rug. YUMMY
Codeine
(25,586 posts)for hours at a time; turns out a mouse had taken up residence under there. I pulled off the face plate to the bottom of the dishwasher and it was Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom in my kitchen.
Years ago in Brooklyn, before our current crew, we had a girl cat that sat by a wall for two days after hearing some scratching behind it. What ever it was never came out, she was a good kitty.
StarryNite
(9,445 posts)It's a win for the wildlife and the cats.
JudyM
(29,248 posts)Lots of time spent walking around the neighborhood calling her name. My indoor cat scooted out once when company was over and we spent way too long looking for her around the neighborhood... it was hours before she deigned to poke her head out of the bushes and meow at me. Better result than one of my friends, though, who never found out what happened to her beloved cat.
Not to mention there are seriously disturbed people who do depraved stuff to cats, would never want to have to think about that first hand.
madville
(7,410 posts)And our county only has a part-time animal control person. The animal control guy gave my neighbor several cage traps and he would get a few every night and then either drop them off at the animal control building or the guy would pick them up if he was working that day. They got over 50 in a few weeks and have only seen a few randomly in the last couple of years.
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)just the ones that came in our yard.
Poor dog, RIP, wish she was around now as the neighbors new cats are crapping in our garden again
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)And they can come in all sizes. Ive seen a Jack Russell that would kill any cat it caught.
And seen bulldogs that would cuddle up to them. The worst(or best depending on you position) I saw was a Blue Leopard Catahoula cur that would hunt them. A very good natured dog, but something about cats made him want to kill them. Which he did very efficiently.
Personally, and Ill win no friends here, I dont care about any free roaming cat being killed. Because their owners dont give a shit about all the native wildlife they kill. Wildlife not evolved with small cats. House Cats are really Arabian Wildcats released on American wildlife. And we have 2 of them living in our house. In our house. Not outdoors to kill the songbirds, reptiles and other native wildlife I love.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)I figure if I feed them, they will hunt less.
Very rarely do I see wildlife carcasses around my lawn from them.
Both are TNR cats.
Xolodno
(6,395 posts)...nothing in the house lives. Haven't had to buy a fly swatter in ages, one mouse made a mistake, a fatal mistake by going inside. We saved a couple of lizards....before they finished them. And saved a garden snake our alpha cat was toying with...I wasn't home and my wife has a great fear of snakes, thankfully a neighbor was home and rescued the poor guy.
Bottom line, cats are great social animals that provide much love, stress relief, entertainment, etc. But they are still predators. Add to that, where I live they can be preyed upon by coyotes, owls, mountain lions, bears, etc. So if your pet means anything to you...keep it indoors.
Raine
(30,540 posts)and never goes outside for his sake, other critters sake and so I don't have to worry about him something awful happening to him.
KG
(28,751 posts)shitting, pissing, fucking & fighting. if ya let cats run around, don't call it a pet.