A New Book Called ‘Cat Wars’ Calls For Killing Free-Ranging Cats

[mike_c]

12. I'm a professional ecologist with nearly 25 years experience in post-doctoral academic science...

...and I disagree with Marra and Santella unequivocally. I have colleagues who do agree, but in every instance they are dedicated birders whose objectivity-- in my opinion-- is hostage to their personal agendas. Disclaimer-- on the the other hand, I admit my own bias in favor of cats. I'm a lifelong cat person.

Nonetheless, there is little evidence that bird populations are endangered by cats. Most of the "evidence" that's cited has to do with the numbers of birds that cats kill annually, as in "cats kill millions of birds, so they must have significant negative impacts on bird populations." The second statement simply doesn't necessarily follow from the first. While many studies of cat predation are inconclusive and essentially anecdotal, some are fairly well documented so I have no real problem accepting-- at least in general terms-- that cats kill many birds every year. Despite that, the greatest danger to most bird populations is not predation-- it's habitat degradation and loss. Bird mortality would likely be high even if cat predation were eliminated entirely, either because other predators take them, or did before their numbers were reduced by human activity, or because of disease, parasites, starvation, reproductive failure, etc. Many, if not most birds killed by cats would probably die anyway. The British Audubon Society web site used to say this flat out (and still might): most birds killed by cats are weak, old, debilitated, handicapped, have marginal fitness, and so on. Cats have simply augmented native predators that regulated bird populations naturally until their own numbers were reduced by human encroachment.

Not only is there little real evidence that cats endanger bird populations, but there is considerable evidence that most bird populations that are in decline are threatened by other pressures, not cats. And a number of raptors also prey on cats, especially young cats, as the recent controversy about an eagle family consuming a cat on a nest camera reminds us.

Free ranging cats also kill rodents and other small mammals, many of which are far easier prey to capture than birds. In doing so they control disease vector populations and stored product pests that invade human habitations far more frequently than birds do.