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

[mike_c]

24. use a cat flap....

Then cats can go to the bathroom wherever they want. We use a flap, and have several litter boxes as well.

No evidence

Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific evidence that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK-wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally every year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation. There is evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds.

We also know that of the millions of baby birds hatched each year, most will die before they reach breeding age. This is also quite natural, and each pair needs only to rear two young that survive to breeding age to replace themselves and maintain the population.

It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season, so cats are unlikely to have a major impact on populations. If their predation was additional to these other causes of mortality, this might have a serious impact on bird populations.

Those bird species that have undergone the most serious population declines in the UK (such as skylarks, tree sparrows and corn buntings) rarely encounter cats, so cats cannot be causing their declines. Research shows that these declines are usually caused by habitat change or loss, particularly on farmland.

more@link

http://www.rspb.org.uk/makeahomeforwildlife/advice/gardening/unwantedvisitors/cats/birddeclines.aspx (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds)

And please stop putting words in peoples mouths. If I meant to say "Let the cats kill as many birds as they want because birds are also dying of other causes" I would have said that. Instead, I said that against the natural background mortality of birds, cat predation has little or no effect on bird populations.