Do We Really Know That Cats Kill By The Billions? Not So Fast

[Kelvin Mace]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast

On NBC Nightly News on Thursday evening, Brian Williams there's a backlash underway to all the of this past week.

Cats are hunters and other creatures do fall prey to them in significant numbers.

And yet there are serious reasons to suspect the reliability of the new, extreme cat-killer statistics.

The study at issue is a meta-analysis, an overarching review that aggregates data from previously published sources. The accuracy of meta-studies in health and medicine raises some , and it's easy to see why: for a meta-analysis to be solid, wise choices must be made among the available sources of information, and results that may vary wildly must be weighed fairly.

In the Nature Communications study, authors Scott R. Loss, Tom Will, and Peter P. Marra needed to incorporate into their model the number of "un-owned cats" (such as stray, feral, and barn cats) in the U.S. As they note in to the article, "no empirically driven estimate of un-owned cat abundance exists for the contiguous U.S." Estimates that are available range from 20-120 million, with 60-100 million being the most commonly cited. In response to this huge uncertainty in the numbers, they performed mathematical calculations using what they feel to be a conservative figure (specifically, they "defined a uniform distribution with minimum and maximum of 30 and 80 million, respectively.&quot

At this juncture, the authors note that local analyses of cat numbers are "often conducted in areas with above average density." That is an obvious problem, yet when they estimated the proportion of owned cats with access to the outdoors (and thus to hunting), of eight sources of information, "three [were] based on nationwide pet-owner surveys and five based on research in individual study areas." Are the local studies representative of the national situation? For that matter, are the different owner surveys administered in a consistent enough manner to allow them to be aggregated?

Of course, the authors make statistical perturbations designed to increase the reliability of their conclusions, but it seems to me there's an unsettling degree of uncertainty in the study's key numbers.

Demonizing cats with shaky statistics, however, won't help us build the pillar of understanding required to strike a satisfying balance between the needs of cats and their supporters with the needs of wildlife facing a feline threat.

See also:

http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/wildlife/4-reasons-cats-bird-kills-dont-excuse-wind-turbine-bird-kills.html
http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/gardening/unwantedvisitors/cats/birddeclines.aspx
http://www.chicagonow.com/steve-dales-pet-world/2013/05/without-cats-birds-would-suffer-so-would-we/
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/pets/Cat-defenders-protest-Smithsonian-backing-of-controversial-study.html

Call me when the cat killer study is peer-reviewed. A meta-analysis can be easily skewed based on what studies you decide to include.

Yes, I own a cat, and dogs, and have rescued other injured creatures such as rabbits, possums, and geese for rehabilitation and release. My cats have always been kept indoors which is why I have had a number of cats who lived 20+ years.

[Agschmid]

1. This is a thing?

Kylie (my cat) has never brought me anything as tribute...

She just makes me clean up her barf on a regular basis.

[Kelvin Mace]

22. Can't see why cats would want to go outside

when they have is house apes to cater to their every whim.

[brooklynite]

35. Simple answer...there's a door, see?

And the cat wants to go to the other side of the door.

Even when we give our cats a pet door to get outside, thay sit at the door to the back yard and wait for it to be opened.

[Kelvin Mace]

76. I have owned nine cats since I was 12

Two lived 3 and 7 years. They were my first and I let them come and go as they pleased outside.

The other seven were all kept indoors and had no interest in going outside as I did not let them go outside. All of them lived 12+ years. Two who lived the least of that group were 12 and 15 when they died, but hey had been outdoor rescues who then were kept indoors. Of the other five, the youngest died at 19, the oldest at 23.

Keeping a cat indoors requires more work (cleaning litter boxes and such), but the cat lives longer.

[MADem]

81. I have had similar results. The last two cats that have lived with me as INDOOR cats

lived twenty and twenty two years, respectively.

The twenty two year old knew how to use the toilet.

Smart frigging cat!

[Kelvin Mace]

91. As Mr. Spock said

"Constant exposure does lead to a certain degree of contamination".

Cats learn more hanging with humans than hanging out door. At the moment, we have two new rescue dogs, and the cat is trying to put up with the one Boston Terrier who is IN LOVE with her and desperately wants the cat to play with her. The cat wants nothing to do with the Boston, but seems to get along with the Chihuahua mix who just nods in her direction when they pass each other in the hall.

[MADem]

93. Sounds like a fun house to me! nt

[brooklynite]

86. Both of our former cats died of internal complications having nothing to do with going outdoors.

[Kelvin Mace]

90. That may well be

but every time a cat goes outdoors it risks injury and death due to the various dangers listed. That is reality. The fact that your cats may not have suffered such injuries do far, not withstanding.

It is like people who tell me that don't wear seat belts and they are fine. or that they got injured in another fashion. This can be perfectly true, but it in now way changes the fact that failing to wearing seat belts greatly increases your chance of injury/death if you have an accident.

[raccoon]

2. k&R. nt

[warrior1]

3. I think birds kill smaller birds.

I witnessed this just the other day in my back yard. Not the only time this has happened. A larger bird, perhaps a Cooper hawk snatch a mourning dove, it happened so fast. Circle of life.

[Cleita]

6. I see this all the time. Red Tails go after the doves and pigeons, which

is why I think you see them more in cities than in the country.

[Kelvin Mace]

23. Hell, didn't we just see

that when the Pope let loose a couple of doves a few weeks back and they were set upon immediately by others bigger birds?

[Rumold]

84. Birds kill cats too

there are a number of live eagle cameras on the net, very interesting to watch what they bring back to the nests.

[mike_c]

4. I fully admit to extreme bias in this regard....

I'm a quintessential "cat person." We have dogs too, but they're "the girlfriend's dogs." Most of my adult life I've lived with cats, usually more than, um, a few. I receive a great deal of emotional support from my relationships with cats. My cats' welfare and happiness is WAY more important to me than that of their prey. I'll cop to that without regret. On the other side of that, my cats are well fed and do not hunt much. Most are middle aged or older (currently), and a few have infirmities that make hunting success unlikely. None can reproduce.

Nonetheless, cats are meso-predators. That's just the way it is. They're far more efficient single predators than most dogs, with some exceptions of course, e.g. terriers and small mammalian prey. Most dogs are pretty hapless single predators, so they're relegated to omnivory to survive.

The argument that cats are introduced meso-predators simply doesn't hold much water with me (and I'm an ecologist by trade). Human activities cause way more disruption to bird and small mammal populations than cats ever will, although one might also argue that cat impacts are part of the human footprint as well, since we keep them as pets and allow them to breed beyond the numbers we can directly control.

edit-- I wanted to add that I think cat abandonment should be a serious ecological crime, as well as an animal welfare issue. However, the punishment should be directed toward humans who create feral cat populations, rather than toward the cats themselves. Feral populations of introduced pet species deserve care and attention, and should not be victimized further by people.

[navarth]

12. righteous post. +1000. nt

[Logical]

14. It is possible people are a issue and cats also. No one says it is only cats. n-t

[Kurovski]

83. Hmmmm. Do cats kill billionaires? Something about that just doesn't seem right.

[alarimer]

63. Yes, cats are an introduced species and the DO have an impact.

Think about this for a minute. There are millions of pet cats out there and many, many more millions of strays. If each one only killed one animal a year (which may be true for house cats, but not for strays), that's still millions of animals being killed. And that is a low-ball estimate. Logic would dictate that it would actually be much larger. Even excluding cats with homes from the picture because they are probably less likely to hunt frequently because they have a reliable food source, that still leaves an impact of millions of animals killed by strays or feral cats.

Now, the impact of such a loss is hard to evaluate. It probably depends on which species are being impacted the most. After all, there are probably BILLIONS of house sparrows out there. A few million less is probably no big deal. And house sparrows are an introduced species anyway. They have other predators and other pressures. But imagine a species that is in trouble or has declined. In that event, any predation by cats or other animals may well be the difference between survival of the population and extinction.

If cats are introduced into a more fragile ecosystem rather than one that has already been disturbed (like your backyard), it may have more dire consequences on populations in those kinds of places. Especially places like the Galapagos (which, to my knowledge, does not have an issue with cats, but possibly other introduced species) or similarly unique habitats. You can see that those birds would be sitting ducks (so to speak) for predators such as cats.

Feral cats can also be a problem because of disease. Not only could they spread disease to pets, they could also spread diseases to wild animals. The same goes for dogs and any other domesticated animals.

[truedelphi]

82. Having witnesses countless numbers of my human friends whose windows 'do in' birds every

Day during the warmer months, I am inclined to say "humanity" is far too responsible for the decline in bird numbers. Often my friend)s) will remark that they like their view and don't want to hang ribbons, banners or curtains to stop the mortality.

And each year since the Big Explosion in terms of Pear Orchards being converted to vineyards, I notice fewer birds in our back yard feeding station.

Vineyards are perhaps the most onerous of mega crops - overly pesticided. And these days rarely are there rarely any hedgerows (as there were in the older vineyards).

With their habitat destroyed, not only do the birds get pushed out and die, but so too do many various animal species, including the bobcat, hare and rabbits, skinks, possum, skunks, snakes, squirrels, coyote, fox and deer.

[Cleita]

5. Coyotes and raptors in my neighborhood do a far more efficient job than any cat.

Just saying. If you remove one predator, another one moves in to fill the void.

[Arugula Latte]

19. Yes, we have coyotes galore -- and we live within city limits.

They live in nearby parks. I don't hear people squawking about their bird/squirrel carnage toll.

[Texasgal]

69. We have lots of urban coyotes

here as well. In the evening I am very careful and watch when my smallish dogs go out in the backyard.

My neighbors porch cat was just killed by one a few weeks ago. I hear you!

[world wide wally]

7. Never trust a cat named Doc

[progressoid]

8. It's almost like animals eat other animals.

One of the largest factory farms I've seen in recent years made...

wait for it...

cat food.

[LuvNewcastle]

9. I don't have a problem with cats killing things.

All sorts of animals kill things, including us. I do have a problem with all the feral cats around, however. A lot of them have diseases, and a lot of the feral cats around here are deranged and deformed because they've inbred. Cats like that should be destroyed. Like any other animals, if feral cats make a nuisance of themselves, they need to be gotten rid of. They have people on the news here all the time who are arrested because they have too many animals and they keep them in places that are disgustingly unsanitary and are vectors for disease. There's no sense in that shit. It's crazy and stupid.

[Kelvin Mace]

24. Feral cats AND dogs are a menace

but to be honest, feral dogs are more of a menace than cats. My co-worker and his wife (both in their 60s) are currently getting a rabies series because they were both attacked by a pair of dogs who attacked their cat. The cat is an indoor cat, but sometimes accompanies them outside to eat grass and enjoy the sun while the garden. Two large dogs came out of the blue, and tore the cat to shreds, and repeatedly bit both of them while they tried to fend off the dogs.

The dogs have not been caught yet, two weeks later.

[LuvNewcastle]

40. That's terrible.

I hope they catch those dogs. I haven't heard about any feral dog attacks around here, although there are pet dogs that attack people all the time. You're right, feral dogs are much worse than feral cats. I see feral dogs and cats the same way as I see any wild animals. They shouldn't be where humans live unless the humans choose to live in the woods.

[seveneyes]

58. Perhaps a bounty would expedite removing the feral dogs

Maybe baiting them with a protective cage around a domestic pet so the pet is safe, but the feral critters get removed.

[roody]

33. The cats will benefit from a trap,

neuter, release program.

[LuvNewcastle]

38. Yes, at the very least they need to be neutered.

Our humane society is better funded than many, but they would still need a lot more money to accomplish that. Maybe if we can convince the local governments to see the need for it, we can help them do that. I don't know if our animal control is even equipped to do it.

[BrotherIvan]

42. +++++ Yes!

And there are usually community resources for people to use to help. A TNR feral colony is stable and will chase off new cats from entering the area so it actually keeps the feral population to a minimum. Thanks for bringing up the topic. I have a feral colony that my neighbors objected to at first, but when I printed up a little info card for them and explained what I was doing, they were more supportive. Now our little colony is very small and manageable where before we had lots of strange, aggressive toms coming through and causing trouble.

[tabbycat31]

46. The proper way to take care of feral cats is not killing them

But instead, a method called TNR (trap, neuter, return) that way the next generation is not bred.

[Aerows]

10. Mine used to hunt because she was starving.

Now, after I took her in and fed her properly, she still goes outside. She wears a bell, stays out for about 45 minutes at a time about twice a day, then crashes out waiting to come back in.

Did she hunt? Absolutely she did. There probably isn't a mouse or a rat around for a square mile. Does she now? Well, she does eat lizards. She's far too lazy to hunt like she did when she was hunting for survival. Now it's just entertainment, and she isn't as invested in doing so. Bells on well fed cats that come inside produce entirely different "hunters" than a feral cat fighting for its own survival.

[AgingAmerican]

13. Mine just tortures them to death

...then leaves the spent carcasses laying around, minus the liver or some other delicacy.

[Aerows]

15. Mine is six years old

She pretty much sleeps like it is an Olympic sport and she's going for the gold, amidst bursts of energy that usually end up with her futilely chasing something that heard her coming from a mile away because of her loud bell.

[TeeYiYi]

17. Made me laugh...

re: sleeps like it is an Olympic sport

I've got two of them, competing for the gold. They have a cat door and unlimited access to two+ acres of farmland... but they can nap like nobody's business.

TYY

[Kelvin Mace]

26. I would think that lizards and mice are more likely

to be prey than birds, since neither of them can fly.

[Aerows]

31. The amount of shrews she killed and brought home to feast on ...

Ick. They were ... flattened. I can't describe it any other way. There was just a sack of hair. I know for a fact she has caught two rats, one half as big as she is because I heard a muffled meow in the dark and she approached me and I reached down to stroke her head. Only to realize there was a humongous rat in her jaws. That was just a wonderful surprise. I never reached down to pet her if she had a muffled meow in the dark EVER again.

[JCMach1]

11. Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics...

Of course cats kill...

How much???


Have they even corrected for laziness? LOL

[Cassidy]

16. Disagreements with scientific studies should be based on better science.

Nature Communications, the journal in which the Loss et al. study was published, is one of several Nature Group journals. Nature Group articles are peer reviewed.

http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/peer_review.html

When npr's B. King accuses Loss et al. of using "statistical perturbations," I can't help wondering if she also opposes the use of statistics and models by climate scientists. Math is the language of science and statistics is the mathematical language of the real world.

If more data about the cat/bird is useful, you might find this of interest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_in_New_Zealand

Science moves forward by improved hypotheses and analyses being done, not by ad hominen arguments, i.e. "Demonizing cats with shaky statistics...," used against researchers whose conclusions you disagree with.

I think we can agree that spaying or neutering pets is important. I think we can also agree that keeping your cats inside will help them lead a longer and healthier life. Maybe we could focus on that.

[Kelvin Mace]

28. Cat should be kept in doors

for their own safety and health, and spayed/neutered. Period.

However, the problem with meta studies is that they can be easily manipulated depending on the studies you decide to include and the ones you don't. This study got a LOT of press when there are demonstrably far more lethal problems facing birds than cats. But blaming cats and cat owners for the death a hypothetical number of birds is getting more play that the bird species being wiped out by pollution and destruction of habitat/wet lands.

People no longer seem to respond to "Pollution Driving x Species to Extinction". They seem to feel much better getting upset at cat owner for a birdpacolypse.

[Aerows]

32. Cats should without question be spayed and neutered

and if you CAN keep one inside 24/7, you should. It's just plain not always possible with a rescued feral. Mine is spayed, has all of her shots, wears a loud bell, and has a chip. She mostly stays indoors, but it is just not possible to keep her inside continuously unless the weather is really bad. Even then she has to see for herself that she wants nothing to do with being outside and camps out by the door to get in ten minutes later.

Please note that I underlined not always, because every cat is different.

I'll also note that she is the least destructive cat inside the house I have ever had, and I've another that was declawed on top of all of the above, indoors 24/7 and was far more destructive than my indoor sort of outdoor. Of course, the in/out cat is not declawed but she is extremely mindful of causing no damage. Frankly, as sweet as she is, had I gotten her as a kitten instead of rescuing her from starvation at 14 months, she probably never would have even been inclined to go outside.

[XemaSab]

18. People who argue that cats should be allowed to roam free

sound like smokers arguing that they should have the right to smoke wherever and whenever and concerns about secondhand smoke are overblown.

[Cleita]

20. Dogs hunt too.

You should see what our family dogs do to gophers and moles. They are allowed to run free in our pastures that are fenced in.

[Texasgal]

72. Yup.

My extremely spoiled Boston Terriers have killed more mice in my backyard than my lazy indoor/outdoor cat ever did. My babies are strictly indoors too.

[B Calm]

85. My neighbors dogs love killing baby rabbits.

[Kelvin Mace]

21. Gosh, don't see any arguments that cats SHOULD

be allowed to roam free. I certainly am not making that argument, quite the opposite. I just hate bad science.

[Zorra]

25. +1. We had barn cats all the time I was growing up, and no one

could ever possibly convince me that cats are not nature's perfect prolific killing machine.

I love kitties but sorry, they kill, and do so frequently when left outside. It's simply their nature. What do people think their kitty is doing when it's outside, but not around? Hunting, or, if it's a tom that's not neutered, looking for nooky.

I won't let cats own me anymore, because I can't in good conscience keep them inside, while at the same time, can't in good conscience let them roam freely to kill off wildlife, which does two huge negatives:

Letting cats roam freely kills off wildlife that is facing increased pressure to survive because of waning habitat caused by human encroachment, and it kills off wildlife that most natural predators, such as hawks, owls, eagles, shrikes, snakes, raccoons, opossums, bobcats, lynx, coyotes, all members of the weasel (Mustelidae) family, which includes various types of weasels, mink, marten, skunk, badger, otter, fisher, and wolverine, depend on for food, every single day, in order to survive.

All those critters hunt wild prey for their everyday survival as a matter of life and death. Bootsie the housecat hunts wild prey for fun when she's not curled up next to her bowl of little friskies.

[NickB79]

27. +1000. nt

[mike_c]

29. except that the basis for our argument is the happiness and welfare of the cats themselves....

Frankly, that's the ONLY argument that I'll ever make in favor of letting my cats outdoors.

We use a cat door. You know, one of those swingy plastic flaps. The point is that we don't put our cats outside-- we offer them a choice. That they choose to go out, even in the face of increased risk of predation and injury, tells me that access to the outside makes them happier. Yes, I'm aware of statistics showing increased longevity of strictly indoor cats, but when I close that cat door, my cats become anxious and unhappy. They urinate inappropriately (OK, some of them do that no matter what, LOL), and otherwise make their displeasure known.

Since they have a choice and are well fed in any event, they CAN choose to stay safe indoors and several rarely go outside, especially Merry who has deformed forefeet and isn't very mobile, and Pippin who is timid and risk averse. The elderly Siamese Grendel goes in and out as she chooses, but mostly chooses to snooze in the sun no matter which side of the door she's on. She hasn't any teeth left anyway, so she's arguably not a threat to any potential prey. Like Merry, Tygee (yes, that's how it's spelled) rarely uses the cat door, but she will go out on the back porch when we open the back door for her, and despite being overweight and elderly, I've seen her catch rodents. We have a wood rat problem in our outbuildings, so most prey we see are rodents. But we do find occasional piles of feathers at the foot of the bed. The male cats both spend significant amounts of time outside each day-- males don't care for one anothers' company much. Those two account for most of the hunting our cats perform, I think.

My point is that access to the outdoors is demonstrably important for my cats. I'm perfectly happy if they choose to remain indoors, and a couple pretty much always do. In the past there have been times when I couldn't let any of them out safely, and it obviously caused them stress and anxiety. As I've said elsewhere, my cats' happiness and welfare is way more important to me than that of their prey, for which I make no apology. I should also note that we live in a safe neighborhood-- no through traffic, people are cognizant that their neighbors have cats and they watch for them on the road, etc. Larger predators are the greatest threat, and increased likelihood of injury, of course. The latter has to be factored into cats' own choices, however. They're the ones taking the risks.

on edit-- of course, we also let the dogs outside. In fact, we PUT them outside every day. I think the same has to be said of increased likelihood of injury for outdoor dogs as has to be said for cats, but everyone simply acknowledges that canines kept indoors all the time are likely to be unhappy and depressed about it.

[Aerows]

37. My female cat freaks out when she can't go outside for at least a little while

As long as she is let out, to see for herself that the weather sucks and she doesn't want to be out there, she comes back in with no complaints. 90% of the time she stays in the backyard asleep under a bush when she is outside or camping out by the fence staring at squirrels she will never catch because they all know where she is because of her bell (not to mention, she's just plain rather lazy). She catches a few lizards and some mice, but I'd rather have her get the joy of keeping the place free of mice than have to put out poison.

Which is truly more harmful to the environment? A cat doing their traditional job of protecting the property from vermin, or artificial poisons?

[Demit]

45. Apparently you don't have neighbors who have gardens.

If you lived in a city neighborhood, hopefully you would give some consideration to the happiness & welfare of your human neighbors. Cats let outside piss & shit in your neighbors' gardens. Nice for you, not having to clean your cats' litter boxes. Not so nice for your neighbors, smelling that piss and finding that shit when they go to tend their flowers.

[mike_c]

47. you're right, none do....

Now that you mention it, it seems odd. I mean, we live in a very small rural northern California town, so it kind of surprises me that no one on my block of backyards gardens, at least for food. It's all lawns in various states of care (mostly a bit scraggly, like mine, LOL). Several others in the neighborhood have indoor/outdoor cats too, so they come and go in our yard or the house sometimes too. Several have dogs in their yards though (as do we). All but one of my cats avoids the neighbors' dogs generally, so they rarely leave the yard when they go out. The exception is a young male, named Six (for the obvious reason). He's a Maine coon, weighs about 18 lbs and is solid muscle. He clears the six foot + privacy fence in the backyard with one jump, runs like an orange streak, and takes no shit from any living thing. Thankfully, he's a bit insecure and not aggressive, but we learned early not to play tussle with Six because blood will be let.

But yeah, no gardens in the immediate neighborhood.

[Demit]

64. Well, it sounds like you're all of a mind, so that's nice.

But in my very urban Philadelphia neighborhood we have no back yards, just front ones. A lot of us are gardeners. There is one neighbor in particular who says, "But my cat is an outdoor cat!" and happily goes off to work in the morning. In addition to the other wandering cats nobody knows who they belong to, the rest of us are under siege. My neighbor across the street got tired of having her porch furniture pissed on & bought plastic fencing to weave through the wooden railing to keep them out. I went to water my miscanthus grass one day and nearly had a heart attack when a cat who had taken to sleeping behind it hissed & jumped out at me. Cats sleep on our plants & we routinely have to shovel up fur balls & other leavings.

That is NOT nice. If I were to leave my dogs out like that, they would be picked up & I would be fined. Cat owners have to decide do they have pets or not. If the cats are pets then they have to take responsibility. Not make their neighbors bear the brunt.

[Aerows]

68. A cat is a cat

They are great companionship animals. They were bred and domesticated to live among humans, but at the root of their psyche's they are hunters. If you got afraid that a cat hissed when you sprayed water on it, you may want to consider that it was probably doing something in your neighborhood that is beneficial - lying in wait for a rodent it heard. Would you rather have mice and rats around you, or cats? They express disapproval if you interrupt their hunt, but they do indeed provide a vermin removal service.

How does the person know it is cats pissing on the furniture, either? Dogs piss on furniture. It's easy to blame cats. Heaven knows there are some bad ones, but many of them quietly do their job of killing things you don't want in your home and your garden and to condemn them all is short-sighted.

[Demit]

74. Then keep them in your house, if you want a companion.

I wasn't afraid of the cat. I was startled. And angry that it WAS IN MY GARDEN, on my plants. He wasn't hunting, he was sleeping. Do you even read posts before you respond to them?

The person knows it was a cat because cat piss has a very distinctive smell.

We don't have any stray dogs in the neighborhood. Those of us who have dogs don't let them out on their own, we walk them on leashes. It's a city neighborhood and there are ordinances.

I'm blaming the cats because we know the neighbor who leaves her cat out. I'm blaming cats because we know what cat shit looks like. I'm blaming cats because we've seen them as they walk over our neighbors' plantings.

But you know what? I'm not blaming the cats as much as I blame THEIR OWNERS. For acting like they have some sort of dispensation from being pet owners, and making the rest of us pay. If you're a cat owner, take responsibility for your pet. You can't have it both ways.

[Aerows]

65. Of course, nobody that would do that has a garden, either.

Nobody has a cat around for pest control, no they just let them loose, collar with a bell on it and all to get into your garden, pee on your flowers and fertilize your garden in ways you disapprove of.

Nope, no gardens in the yards of cat owners. There isn't a cat around that ever stopped mice and voles from destroying a garden, they just piss all over it, which is obviously the most awful thing that could happen to soil. Thankfully, dogs don't do that, either. And you never see a rabbit munching on your collard greens! Who let those little bastards out!?

[seveneyes]

54. Same with people that argue Wolves can run free while felines can't

Overblown.

[Le Taz Hot]

88. All of my cats are spayed/neutered, well fed

and well taken care of. Just because they're outside doesn't mean they "roam free." You are presenting two extremes: A) In the house all the time NEVER being allowed to go outside even if they REALLY want to or B) roam free without any ties to a home. I've been raising cats for 40 years and if they have love, attention, food, water, shelter and have ben spayed/neutered, they rarely roam. They have no reason to.

ETA: At this moment, Dutchess is on the roof (so she can survey all she sees), Henry and Loki are asleep in their cat beds in the patio, Xena is asleep in her "tree house," Ghostie is asleep on the shady part of the fence, and Alaska (rescued kitten just recovering from spay surgery) is in the house trying to play with Erica who just wants to sleep. If you check in in another 12 hours guess where they'll be: Dutchess will be on the roof (so she can survey all she sees), Henry and Loki will be asleep in their cat beds in the patio . . . Honestly, a bigger bunch of sloths you will not find.

[NickB79]

30. First, 80 million dead animals is no small number

So there's that.

Secondly, even if outdoor cats killed precisely ZERO animals during their days, it still doesn't diminish the fact that allowing domesticated cats to roam free is incredibly INHUMANE. Letting a cat outdoors with no supervision, where they are exposed to predators, diseases, potential car strikes, and gunshots, is an incredibly irresponsible thing to do for people who supposedly love their animals so very much.

I don't let my toddler play unsupervised alongside a busy highway, nor leave them in the park for the day. I don't let my dog run wild through the woods and swamps for days on end. Yet I'm supposed to believe it's perfectly fine to allow my cat to wander outdoors?

[Kelvin Mace]

34. So far I haven't seen anyone

arguing that "it's perfectly fine to allow my cat to wander outdoors"

It isn't. For the cat's health and safety, they should be kept in doors. What I am objecting to is a single study making these incredible claims about how many birds cats are killing. First, I need to see a lot more peer review on this and validation of the methodology of these claims. Second, I need to see context of bird deaths by cats versus birds deaths due to pollution, habitat destruction and climate change.

Some people argue that letting there cat out for 30-60 minutes is fine, and they are not going into serial killer mode as soon as they step outside. Personally, I'm ok with his provided the cat is supervised, again, for its own safety.

Pretty much all of the cats I have owned much preferred the warm/cool indoors with plentiful food than the blistering/frigid outdoors with food you had to chase down and kill.

[brooklynite]

36. Okay...it's perfectly fine for my cat to wander outdoors.

I let my cats outside regularly. One stays in the yard, the other hops the fence. Occasionally he gets into a fight with another cat. Doesn't stop him from going out again.

Occasionally he catches a bird. Seems as though there are plenty of birds left.

Occasionally, when he's indoors he catches a mouse.

Right now, he's catching a stuffed bear.

[Aerows]

39. I think many people seem to forget that the entire reason cats were domesticated

was to protect grain stocks from rodents. It's their JOB. Those people that chastise everyone for letting a cat catch mice or :shudder: rats would be the same ones up in arms for the environmental harm caused by putting out rat poison, mouse traps and rodent poisons. Pick one.

[mike_c]

50. I think the jury is still out on who domesticated whom, LOL....

Moderator Kitty: "OK, let's brainstorm uses for humans-- remember, no idea is too whacky at this stage, just get them out and write them down!"

Brainstorming Kitty: "If they grow grain, and store it, we'll have easy access to perpetual prey."

Moderator Kitty: "Hmmm , how should we capture this idea? Um, 'Humans + Agriculture = Tasty Rodent Treats.' Any other ideas?"

[Aerows]

52. "Purr when you see them"

"That makes them pet us and make strange cooing noises. When they do that, we will know that we will forever have tasty rodent treats in stock!"

[Kelvin Mace]

77. Our cat is welcome to any mouse dumb enough

to hang around indoors.

That said, we have humane traps to catch them when we have a problem, and we release them back into the wild (in the country away from our house after we catch them. So, it is rare the cat gets to catch one.

[Kelvin Mace]

75. Not to get into a big disagreement over this

but this is my opinion on the matter based on about four decades of owning cats and two decades of animal rescue.

Domestics cats should be kept indoors in most circumstances for one of the very reasons you mention: fights.

Cats can be severely injured in fights and can pick diseases as a result that pose a threat to the cat's health, and possibly the owner's health as well. Cats who live in doors have two to three times the life expectancy of cats that venture out doors. Cats who wander outdoors are in danger of injury from cars, dogs and wild animals (not to mention some pretty sick people).

I worry less for the wildlife your cat may prey on, and more about what may prey on your cat.

[Aerows]

41. Bubonic Plague was demonstrably spread throughout Europe

because the Church declared cats to be evil. Guess which urban and semi-urban animal is the most efficient killer of rats and mice? Guess which animals the fleas that caused Bubonic plague host on most successfully? That would be rats.

It is arguably the hunting of cats in the late 14th century due to church doctrine that lead to the loss of life of over a quarter of the population in Europe. Because they didn't account for the fact that rats and cats both follow humans in urban environments.

[seveneyes]

55. Yes, and cats help keep vermin at bay to this day

On a similar subject, we humans also need to remove any vermin that cat's can't handle, like Racoons in urban areas. Pellet rifles work well in locals where firearms are restricted.

[Aerows]

56. I'm living proof of that

And the dumb people that I see every day say they "lure" them to the windows to entertain their cats, thus their homes, have no fucking idea the fire they are playing with.

[seveneyes]

59. They are wrong to do that

Maybe lay in wait until the racoons move off their property and then dispatch them with a scoped air rifle.

[Aerows]

61. I don't have a raccoon issue anymore

After I got bitten by one, and had to get a rabies series, they decided to go elsewhere.

[scarletlib]

43. People also need to remember cats kill other predators as well.

Rats,snakes & other predators kill birds as well as cats. However cats do kill rats, mice etc and help keep those populations in check. There may be many other factors in declining bird populatins including loss of habitat due to humans, pesticides in the environment, climate change etc.

I am. Cat lover but a responsible owner. Don't blame cats for all problems with bird o
Populations.

[MFM008]

44. my cat will never get out

unless he escapes, he seems happy to look at the world through the sliding glass door. I throw birdseed and peanuts out to draw creatures for him to watch. Squirrels, chipmonks, birds, deer all safe from him. Racoons especially get him worked up, oh and other cats....

[Aerows]

60. Luring raccoons near your home is a recipe for disaster.

Stop doing it immediately. I have no idea where you live, but if you live in the US, take heed. I'm fighting my insurance company on a rabies series because one of them bit me due to being habituated to human feeding, and the bill is $18,000.

You put yourself, your pets, your children and your neighbors at risk. They are wild animals that are also incredibly intelligent which makes them twice as dangerous as a dumb critter. They are also a vector animal for rabies. It isn't funny when someone you know gets bitten because you have made the raccoon get incredibly aggressive by feeding it and encouraging it to be around people.

[Warpy]

48. Cats born and raised indoors are inefficient hunters

Oh, the instincts are all there, but if mamacat didn't teach her kittens what to do with prey, the kitten won't know what to do when it grows up, especially if it's not being driven by hunger.

I had a cat bring me a bird once, held very gently in his mouth the way a cat holds a kitten. I opened his jaws a little more and the bird flew away, I hope wiser for the experience. The cat wasn't and the only dead prey he ever brought me were shrews he found already dead in the yard, cold and stiff.

I have kept my cats indoors for the last 22 years because of the stuff that hunts them, not the stuff they might hunt and fail to kill.

[Aerows]

49. A bird got into the house once

and the Maine Coon cat (huge dude that lived to be 20) that was a total indoor cat did the same thing. He released the bird into my hands, and I took it outside and sent it on it's way. I don't think he harmed a feather.

On the other hand, I was doing something in the back yard and my current huntress leapt straight up in the air and snatched a bird that was flying a tad too low. She also let go when I prompted her to do so, and didn't harm a feather on it. She knows EXACTLY what to do with prey (I've seen it). They catch them in the air, bring them to the ground, then break their backs so that they cannot fly and then go about divesting them of feathers.

So you are right, if they don't know what to do with prey, they *may* not, but even when they do, most of them have a method that they learn and it isn't just munch on it while you are in the air. Gross story, I know, sorry .

[Warpy]

51. I had one huntress

and she skipped the divest them of feathers step and ate the whole bird: beak, feet, feathers and all. I started keeping her indoors after that, her window seat having to supply her with entertainment as I supplied her with food.

[Aerows]

53. I've rescued three birds from mine just that way.

I think she just does it to impress me.

Now she just goes after rodents which she knows I won't take away from her (if she can bother to get out of her chair, off the couch, out of the sun, etc.)

[Kelvin Mace]

78. My thoughts

and experiences exactly.

[HereSince1628]

57. I posted the abstract on this subject from a scholarly journal in Science topics

Last edited Sun Mar 23, 2014, 08:15 PM - Edit history (2)

It's there. And the actual article is available on line so you can subject it to criticism of methods or interpretations.

In general, the abstract estimates between 82 and 108 million animals killed by domestic cats in Britain. The US has a cat population roughly 10 times the size of Britain's. So, should the predation estimates for British domestic cats hold comparable for US cats...the billion number bears consideration.

[Kelvin Mace]

79. Perhaps

but as I mention, meta-studies can be highly problematic since what studies and included/excluded can dramatically affect the results.

According to this article there are between 10-20 billion birds in the U.S., so that would mean that cats are killing between 5-10% of all birds in the U.S. which seems like a VERY big number.

However the article (from 2011) cites a Wisconsin study that put the number of avian deaths at the paws of felines at 39 MILLION.

Other killers of birds?

Pesticides kill 72 million birds directly, but an unknown and probably larger number ingest the poisons and die later unseen. Orphaned chicks also go uncounted.

And then there is flying into objects, which is most likely what killed the birds in Arkansas. The government estimates that strikes against building windows alone account for anywhere from 97 million to nearly 976 million bird deaths a year. Cars kill another 60 million or so. High-tension transmission and power distribution lines are also deadly obstacles. Extrapolating from European studies, the Fish and Wildlife Service estimates 174 million birds die each year by flying into these wires. None of these numbers take into account the largest killer of birds in America: loss of habitat to development.

As you can see, the number are pretty much all educated guesses, but based on the "extrapolations", cars kill 50% more birds than cats, pesticides kill almost twice as many, while power lines kill four time as many.

[dem in texas]

62. I questioned those reports too.

I have seen a large bird loss in the area where I live, blue jays, mockingbirds and crows to name a few. I read in the paper that it was the West Nile virus that was killing off the birds. I know I have found dead birds on the street and in the alley several times.

As far as cats go, I have always kept both indoor and outdoor cats. My indoor kitty never goes out, she is a big couch potato. The outdoor cats are usually strays that show up on our porch and we feed them. We live at the edge of the city with woods behind our house and a creek a short way off, idea areas for urban wildlife. But we have a problem with the most common urban animals, the rats. Keeping some outdoor cats helps keep the rats under control. I always try to catch the outdoor cats so I can take them to the vet to get fixed and get shots. Sometimes they are too wild to catch. I have two outdoor cats right now, I like to have about 4. We are sitting on limestone rock in this area and is full of cracks and crannies so we also have snakes, mostly grass snakes, but I have seen blue racers, chicken snakes and once a copperhead. So the cats keep the snakes out of our yard too. There are plenty of other animals around to kill off the birds. There are plenty of other animals running around that could kill a bird. Just a few week ago, I saw a red fox in the alley. We often see coyotes and are seeing bobcats more often lately.

So I think there is more to the loss of birds than cats killing them. I think in addition to West Nile virus, they are being killed off by the use of pesticides which gets in the insects that they eat. We used have horned toads in North Texas, but no more. I read it was because of the pesticide put out to kill ants. Ants are the horned toads major food. Same for fireflies or lightin' bugs as we call them in Texas. They used to fill the night air in June and now it is rare to see one.

There should be more studies about the decline in birds. Remember we are having major declines in other animal groups too; bees and frogs come to mind.

[idendoit]

66. It seems to me this is a plausible explanation for a lot of bird kills.

massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/birds/bird-window-collisions

[Mojorabbit]

67. I get a large amt of baby cottontails each year that are cat caught. nt

[Aerows]

70. Did you prefer them attacking your garden?

Or do you not have one and object to cats keeping them out of THEIR owner's gardens? Nothing like having a full crop of collard greens and a big old hare comes by and dines on it, making a huge mess of things.

[Mojorabbit]

71. I have a large garden and they don't do much in the way of damage.

I don't mind sharing some of my harvest with wildlife. I get orphaned cottontail and marsh rabbit babies from all over central florida and I raise and release them and or doctor them up. I get a large percentage that have been caught by cats. A few only caught by dogs. It is what outdoor cats do.

[dipsydoodle]

73. My five are house cats and they kill sweet fuck all

apart from maybe the odd spider.

[Kelvin Mace]

80. Oh, one does not know what an adrenaline surge is

until you have had your cat jump in your lap and drop a big spider in it.

[reddread]

87. European starlings

It aint the cats.
Its the humans.

[justiceischeap]

89. I share my life with 2 cats who never go outside

and they never kill anything inside either... quite useless they are except for taking up space, eating me out of house and home and leaving fur everywhere but I love them nonetheless.

I got into a lot of abandoned buildings of all kinds and I see bird skeletons there all the time, as well as live birds. They get into these buildings, then can't find their way out. That's yet another source of bird death I'm sure isn't factored into this study.

If cats were kept indoors as they should be, this wouldn't be that much of an issue. Another thing they don't seem to take into consideration is why bird numbers are dwindling at such a drastic rate. I suspect it isn't solely because of predator kills. I suspect some of the reasons is that with urban and suburban sprawl, our human homes are invading their territories and habitat, leaving them with fewer places to go, more vehicles to intersect with, etc. There are lots of very valid reasons birds are dropping like flies.

[Kelvin Mace]

92. I posted a link to a 2011 NYT story elsewhere in the thread

which postulates a MUCH lower avian death count due to felines than this British study (39 million, versus 1 billion) It also notes that cars kill 60 million birds a years, pesticides 79 million, and power lines 90-970 million (talk about a wild-ass guess). It then flat out says the greatest killer of birds is habitat destruction.

[justiceischeap]

94. It's easier to create a study that blames something else

than the real cause... humanity.

[LWolf]

95. In my area,

the local organization that rescues, spays/neuters, and vaccinates feral cats offer those that are too old/wild for socialization as "barn cats." People who take them keep them in kibble in the barn, and they keep the rodent population in barns down.

When I moved into my place there was an entire colony of feral cats in my barn. The people before me allowed them to breed freely, so there were new litters every year.

I set about trapping, spaying/neutering, and releasing. I collected all the kittens and socialized them and found them homes. I worked on earning the trust of a couple less aggressive. Still after one year, there were none left. None. Out of about a dozen adults. The local coyote, hawk, and owl population did them in.

I've been fighting the booming rodent population ever since. They did a great job with the rodents. I haven't gotten more, though, because I view it as a cat death sentence. My pet cat is forced to stay indoors. Not her idea, to say the least.

It's always about the birds. My experience with a lifetime of outdoor cats before moving here where outdoors means death, though, was that cats catch many more rodents than birds. And that year living with a colony of feral cats in the barn? I didn't see them taking birds, or find piles of feathers. When they were gone, the bird population stayed about the same. The rodent population skyrocketed.

For what it's worth.

[Feron]

96. I have both Indoor & Outdoor cats

Right now I have two indoor cats and one indoor/outdoor cat.

The eldest cat is only indoor/outdoor because she is the oldest and has always been that way. Rosie is only a threat to lizards and doesn't go out much anyway. I'm hoping to gradually ease her into being indoor only as she ages.

Wildlife concerns aside, indoor cats are a lot less stress and cost less to keep healthy.

You don't have to worry about (which have all happened to me/my family):

-An asshole shooting your cat with a pellet/BB gun and giving your cat an infected wound.
-Neighborhood dog mauling your cat to death
-Your cat getting into the trash after the possums finished pawing through it and getting sick because of it.
-Your cat getting into a fight. And then getting an abscess which takes off a large chunk of your cat's flesh. This happens repeatedly.
-Your neutered male cat encounters another male. Must. Spray.Everything.
-Waking up at 3 am to the sweet sounds of dueling cat falsettos.
-The goddamned cat door which is no more. And having to wrestle away prey my cat has delivered inside. Worst: live baby copperhead. How my cat didn't get injured I don't know. Weirdest: A live crawfish. Most disgusting: A decapitated and half-eaten squirrel I found in my bedroom. Got the most exercise trying to catch it: toss up between the garter snake and the mouse my cat dropped in the dining room unscathed.
-Uninvited cats coming in through the cat door. I did catch the neighborhood stray when the cat door malfunctioned and it got stuck in my house. Animal control picked him up.
-Sick cat wandering off. One came back and was euthanized after a month of unsuccessful treatments for what we believe was probably a hereditary liver problem. The other cat, Kramer, wandered off never to return. He was elderly and was going down from old age issues. In hindsight I think his life inside would have been better and a lot less stressful. FWIW, he was 16.
-Wild animals attacking and/or killing your cat.

Anyhow I think that a better approach for bird enthusiasts is to educate cat owners on how to enrich your indoor environment. It's a least a start.
I don't think that the knee jerk "cats bad" approach some overzealous birders have is productive. It just puts cat owners on the defensive and nothing changes.

[XemaSab]

97. Am I an "overzealous birder?"

Or am I concerned about the environment and opposed to cruelty to animals?