I think it might have something to do with feral and outdoor cats killing 1.4-3.7 billion birds per year in the US alone. [1] Individuals can do something here I wager, between education and taking responsibility by spaying and neutering.
It’s pretty wild to me that cats aren’t mentioned at all in this article since they’re absolutely massacring wild birds. They’re the leading cause of both bird and small mammal deaths in the US. They kill 10% of all US birds every year.
I do agree personal responsibility isn’t enough but it can certainly help.
[edit] in fact a cursory google shows the population of cats in the US is almost a perfect mirror of the bird population graph in the article since 1970.
I agree that cats kill a lot of birds and something needs to be done about this.
However, when you also have articles stating that migratory fish and insect populations have declined by 75% over the last 50 years [1,2] (which clearly isn't caused by outdoor cats) it would seem to me there are larger forces at work.
I agree that cats kill a lot of birds and something needs to be done about this.
Outside of birds, cats kill rodents. I live in rural Quebec, near farms, a massive nature preserve, and a national park larger than small US states.
When I first moved here, I had no cat, and several other neighbours were new to the area. Old houses, not fresh builds, just changeover of owners... they too with no cats.
The first year I was here, I became aware of the problem, and started to lay traps. And I caught 100+ mice, sometimes several per day for months, all inside my house.
Once Spring arrived, I tried to find entrances, and did! I blocked them, but anyone that knows rodents, and owns wood houses, that won't help if you have an out of control, local colony, and once the winter comes, do they ever want in!
I spent 3+ years with traps, sometimes reducing the population a bit, but each winter more than 50 mice.
Then a neightbour got a siamese cat.
I now catch a mouse or two a year.
If you look at mouse breeding and brood numbers, and you live in a area with loads of food in the summer (near farms, nature), you need something like cats. It's not an option, it just isn't.
There's a reason farmers have loads of semi-wild cats in their barns. And both the mice they catch, and the cats that catch them, are invasive.
And with the hantavirus often touted as 50% lethal, you do NOT want the moral responsibility of trap and release, nor do you want mice in your house. At all.
If they only killed mice that would be a fun fact, but they also kill 20 billion small mammals a year, lol. The point was though that cats are killing all the birds, that they help a few people with a mouse problem is tangential at best to the topic at hand. I can accept that mice are a problem and cats are killing all the birds and small mammals at the same time. It’s kind of like saying DDT is fine actually because it helps a few farmers improve their crop yields. That it does, but it nukes the eagles from orbit too, and we have to look at this systemically.
Once we accepted DDT as a problem we found alternative solutions. But there’s also localized solutions. A few spayed/neutered farm cats aren’t the end of the world.
that they help a few people with a mouse problem is tangenti
You like to eat, yes? Because I assure you, without cats, or something to replace them that does what cats do, you and I will starve to death.
Farmers don't have cats because they're cute. 3They have them to stop rodents from eating silo, seeds, fields bare.
What do you plan to do? Spray death chemicals all over the place, as a replacement?
And no, trapping won't work. It never kills enough, and there are never enough traps.
Honestly, I sincerely doubt cats are the issue. Cats do very poorly away from human settlements, and therefore there's loads of area without cat habitat. In Canada, most of the land is cat free, there is so much land without cats, it would be impossible for them to wipe out a noticeable percentage of birds.
There's no way they're the problem, as a result of this, when we're talking about 1/3 of the birds.
A far better explanation is insect population collapse. Missing food.
> Because I assure you, without cats, or something to replace them that does what cats do, you and I will starve to death.
You could have made the same argument about DDT. You have to acknowledge the problem before you can find a different solution.
With enough determination it’s quite feasible. You know as a Canadian that Alberta is the only place in the Americas without rats. They have a very successful management program. [1]
Cats are an invasive species, so are rats. Alternatives exist, please stop being so defensive. Given this topical counterexample it hardly seems like a case of “cats vs food and hentavirus” since Alberta has no rats, plenty of food and no hentavirus without relying on cats.
> There's no way they're the problem, as a result of this, when we're talking about 1/3 of the birds.
… they kill 10% of birds per year. Times 3 years is just about 1/3. Given it occurred over 50 years I’d say we’ve got us a good candidate. Especially since there is documented evidence of them leading to the extinction of entire species. You can see how the math here is within the ballpark yeah?
Alberta is not rat free. It claims to be, but poke about a bit, and you'll see how fake that claim is.
And rats are not mice. And Alberta has plenty of cats around farms.
And the replacements for DDT are destroying insect populations. The problem is NOT cats. I notice you didn't explain why birds, in all the areas without cats, which is all areas in Canada without human settlements very close by, which is most of Canadian land, are dying too.
You're attributing cats to the problem, then explaining how it's proof it's cats.
> Alberta is not rat free. It claims to be, but poke about a bit, and you'll see how fake that claim is.
Once again no sources cited on your part other than, I guess, your gut, and "poking around."
> The problem is NOT cats.
You haven't made a case for that. The studies I dug up say quite the opposite, that cats are a massive source of wild bird mortality, that they've driven several species to extinction. I have cited sources and you seem to just be shooting from the hip?
> ... in all the areas without cats, which is all areas in Canada without human settlements very close by, which is most of Canadian land, are dying too.
What makes you think cats aren't in areas without human settlements very close by? This map shows they're all over the place. [1] And if that doesn't convince you check out the invasive feral cat population map in Australia where they actually wanted to cull the population. [2] They live on every square inch of Australia, and let me tell you, people do not.
"In some cases, house cats have singularly contributed to the virtual disappearance of Vancouver Island bird species. The streaked horned lark, once a resident of southern Vancouver Island, is now likely locally extinct in Canada, and cats were cited as one of the main causes of nest failure." [1]
"The coastal vesper sparrow has seen its population drop by 85 per cent over the past decade, and a federal government analysis cited a “high concentration of domestic and feral cats” as factors in their decline." [1]
Stop just repeating "nuh uh" and dig up some studies or lets end this conversation here, because the fact is, you are wrong on this one.
> You're attributing cats to the problem, then explaining how it's proof it's cats.
Wild house cats cannot live without prey, and they are not adapted to -40C, let alone -20C for weeks at a time. They cannot live in many parts of North America without humans settlements.
There are native cats in Canada, skilled at even detecting prey under feet of snow, but house cats are not that.
There is no significant cat presence in Canada, outside of human habitats.
I notice you cited Vancouver Island, the most temperate place in Canada. And there are deserts in Australia, cats don't live there without humans, yet there are birds adapted to the desert.
The outdoor neighborhood cats are the ones that are an issue. It sounds like promoting owl habitat would be a great targeted solution to mice problem without affecting small birds as much.
yup, If only we make all but indoor only incarcerated cat pets extinct we will bring balance to the world. It's not like we ever had outdoor cats before when the birds were plentiful. All sarcasm aside, insecticides and loss of habitat are major players in declining bird, bee and insect populations. Natural predators not so much.
I am pretty pro-climate / nature, but from a pure scientific bent and it is enlightening (and frightening) the frothing rage you get from most “green” people if you point out that having outdoor cats and having kids are two of the most damaging things you can do to your environment.
"Birds, it turns out, seem to be particularly sensitised to dogs – even on leads. In woodlands outside Sydney, for example, a study found that people walking leashed dogs caused a 'dramatic' reduction in the diversity and abundance of birds – more than double that caused by the same number of people walking without pets."
At the risk of getting flagged the logical conclusion to this train of thought is that the most effective singe action any individual can take to reduce carbon emissions is to mass murder their neighbors and then kill themselves.
"I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in human evolution. We became too self aware; nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, a secretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody’s nobody. I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal."
Okay, I hear you; however, I'm not sure that the idea that cats bear more responsibility for birds fatalities than humans passes my smell test, though.
Food for thought [0] - 269 million bird deaths a year in Canada alone is asserted. Cited reasons for death include: feral and pet cats, agriculture, oil and gas activities, and collisions with buildings.
As noted outdoor cats are domestic and thus kept alive by humans. Who's responsible in this scenario - the cat or the human? I suppose some feral cats are the result of/spawn of domestic cat abandonment as well.
Cats in europe are even worse. You go to certain cities and there are thousands of strays lying on the roads and roofs, populations seemingly sustained by dumpster diving, rats, plus plenty of restaurant owners or workers straight up feed the cats regularly. There are seemingly no catch and fix programs like in the US.
a quick google search tells me that there are 75 million feral cats in the usa, far more than any other country - by area or population or any way you want to measure it
This seems like a number that would never be accurate no matter where you look. Either way, you just don’t see cities coated in cats like you do in Europe. Like dozens and dozens of cats up on a roof is a very common sight when you start exploring especially Mediterranean cities. Cats visiting you multiple times as you sit outside at cafes. Hotel and resort feral cat populations that the workers know by name at this point. I’ve seen it all. There’s just nothing like it in the US. Maybe in Key West at hemingways old home, I’m told.
Side issue but this is why arguments against wind turbines "because they kill birds" are never spoken in good faith.
Yes, wind turbines kill birds.
Collisions with vehicles kill 1000 times more birds than wind turbines do.
Collisions with glass buildings kill 3 times more still.
And cats kill 4 times more still [0].
Wind turbine bird deaths are deep in the noise as sources of bird deaths. Yes, we should keep trying to reduce that number further. But if we really care about saving birds we have a lot more dirty laundry than wind turbines.
actually, feral cats are what keep mouse, rat, squirrel and chipmunck populations in check and they are on their way to going extinct with the spay and neuter army out there. They do prey on birds when they can catch them but not at any great rate. You state 10%, that is not a massacre when you factor that cats are birds natural predators. Will you be erradicating eagles and falcons because they too prey on birds? Feral cats are not the same as abandoned house cats. Their home is the outdoors, why are we eradicating them to extinction? They are part of natures balance and an important rodent predator.
My neighbor has an outdoor cat. This cat kills at least one bird a day according to their kids (the cat brings the corpse to their porch). So I think you're tremendously mistaken about "not at any great rate."
Housecats are not native to most countries, and feral cat colonies are not healthy either (lots of disease). They are not part of "natures balance" and we're not eradicating them to extinction. That's just utter nonsense.
You are the owner of a domesticated species. Feral cats are part of natures food chain and natural balance. Without them there would be no stopping the rodent population.Not liking them being there doesn't make them invasive.
No, they're not. They're an invasive species brought to different locations around the world via human activity. The feral cats being discussed originated in the middle east and were brought to different continents by humans. North America's native cat species do not naturally target mice.
This is like saying the argentine black and white tegu is a natural part of the food chain in Florida. Please understand that humans bringing a species to a new location doesn't suddenly convert them to part of nature.
Cougars, wolves, coyotes. eagles, snakes (venomous and constrictors), hawks, and owls are natural predators of cats. Their populations have been decimated mostly by loss of habitat (same with birds). Peronnally I'd much rather be overrun by feral cats than rats any given day.
Er, cats are not native to North America. The 100M of them are descendants of the cats introduced by the colonists. They are an invasive species. They were never before and are not now part of natures balance in the Americas. So are rats in many places, having hitched rides on boats.
It’s pretty wild to me that cats aren’t mentioned at all in this article since they’re absolutely massacring wild birds. They’re the leading cause of both bird and small mammal deaths in the US. They kill 10% of all US birds every year.
I do agree personal responsibility isn’t enough but it can certainly help.
[edit] in fact a cursory google shows the population of cats in the US is almost a perfect mirror of the bird population graph in the article since 1970.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/outdo...