House cats kill more critters than thought - researchers use cameras to track the slaughter

[Atman]

80. My cats are rescued feral cats.

When we lived in the 'burbs of Hartford, there was an old shed behind our house. And lots of cat fights at night. One day I heard this tiny peeping sound coming from under our porch. It went on for a couple of days. I had to use a camera on a broomstick to poke around the crawl space, and that was when I found kitten #1. Very small, cold and miserable. Crusty eyes, runny nose.

I lured him out with food. That when his brothers and sisters and cousins showed up. And then started showing up again every morning. I managed to wrangle up three of them and took them to the vet for shots and to be fixed. I fully intended to find homes for them. One woman came to take one and the kitty hissed and growled and clawed her.

Feral cats don't like people. But they thought I was their mom or something, because I had been caring for them and feeding them since they were barely three weeks old. They are still with us. They won't wear collars. The Tom likes to spend the night out, sleeps inside all day. One of the girls lives outside during the summer, never goes out once it gets cold. The other is a big sofa cushion who loves being inside...outside scares her.

We live in farm country. LOTS of birds. We have two families of cardinals and two families of blue jays, and countless finches and various other species. We have TONS of birds here. I've never seen our cats go after the birds. They make a lot of warning noises, and swoop and dive at them when they go outside. The squirrels make lots of warning sounds, too.

There is a big meadow in front of our house...I can't say the field mice fare as well as the birds, though.