Posted on 07/01/2015 8:36:24 AM PDT by Rio
Your cat is a killer. And we're not just talking about the hit to your soul when Fluffy stares right past you despite your sweetest cooing.
Cats, no matter how adorable, are predators. They stalk, they pounce -- and then they snap the neck of whatever little flying or skittering thing they've just caught.
Most of us view this as a good thing. We're all better off with fewer rodents around, and if some pretty little birds get caught up in the killing spree, we can live with that.
Biologists, it seems, aren't so sure. Domestic cats aren't a natural part of most wildlife ecosystems: that is, they're an invasive species, brought in by their human companions/enablers. Though researchers can't nail down solid data, they fear cats are throwing your neighborhood's natural wildlife biodiversity out of whack, damaging the long-term prospects of actual wild predators that don't have the option of chowing down on a can of Friskies at the end of a hard day.
This might sound familiar to you. Back in January 2013, the New York Times published a story called "That Cuddly Kitty Is Deadlier Than You Think" that topped its most-shared list for ages.
The upshot of that story: "scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that domestic cats in the United States -- both the pet Fluffies that spend part of the day outdoors and the unnamed strays and ferals that never leave it -- kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat."
It concluded that "the domestic cat (is) one of the single greatest human-linked threats to wildlife in the nation."
The world read that sentence and went, "Whew! The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (whatever that is), the Fish and Wildlife Service and the New York Times have all gone nuts."
The world's opinion hasn't changed in the past two years.
A new study published in Ecology and Evolution found that "owners fail to perceive the ecological footprint of their cat, and have shown that their opinions on the general problem are not influenced by the predatory behavior of their cat."
In short, people who own cats and let them go outside do not believe their cute furball could possibly be damaging the ecosystem. (They do have a little better understanding of how the outdoors can damage their cat, giving it diseases and subjecting it to bigger, meaner animals and fast-moving automobiles.)
The Ecology and Evolution study tracked both cat-owner attitudes and 86 free-roaming cats themselves in two British towns. The pet owners were generally opposed to keeping their outside cats in the house, either entirely or at nighttime when cats are widely (and erroneously) believed to do most of their killing.
The study found that cats kill "up to three times more prey than they bring back (to the home), either because they consume or abandon their kills at the capture site." How many kills are typically racked up every week varies widely from cat to cat, but suffice it to say, these domesticated pets are prolific hunters.
The researchers determined that cat owners were not "influenced by ecological information" that documented the impact of their pet on the wider world.
"The opposing roles of cats, as both human companions and wildlife predators, are likely to drive divergent interests between cat owners and conservationists and may develop into a socially intractable problem should mitigation strategies be required," the study concluded. It mentioned the possibility -- perish the thought! -- of "Cat Exclusion Zones" to help distressed ecosystems right themselves.
The most unsurprising finding in the study: that the cat owners weren't clear about who was in charge. Wrote one human participant: "My cat chooses for herself whether to stay in or go out."
Good. Kill those vermin.
My cat didn’t get the memo that he is “cuddly.” He merely tolerates us because we provide a bowl of cat food he may or may not eat..
I don’t know....I see a lot of cats but also (unfortunately) a lot of rabbits, squirrels and other garden loving critters.
These enviro-whackos are totally insane.
“Though researchers can’t nail down solid data, they fear cats are throwing your neighborhood’s natural wildlife biodiversity out of whack...”
Neighborhoods don’t have “natural wildlife biodiversity”. By their very nature, they are artificial creations shaped by man, with all the associated scavengers, parasites and predators that follow us around and depend on our existence.
First it was global warming we had to worry abouts ..now its global pussy’s
Believe it or not, there are also “experts” who have claimed that released fishing worms in some parts of the Great Lakes region have destroyed the forest floors.
One of the ferals was targeting birds, but we figured out it was only the stupider birds (which also tended to freely poop all over the car), the smarter birds OTOH are flourishing.
We also see lots of other critters. And not finding a bunch of dead ones around the yard or neighborhood. The last two birds that we know our cat caught, he just toyed with them both, and they lived (or went somewhere else to die?).
Not the feral around here, she leaves carefully picked little piles of feathers and bones.
Some are better hunters than others.
Hahahahahahaha...looks like my cat! (though he does get mice in the house)
We’re seeing more coyotes in my neighborhood, because a large area of woods/brushland was recently cleared to build a new subdivision about a mile away.
That’s funny right there!
I stopped reading right there.
GUILTY !!
Have their fears prompted any studies or reports showing actual harm to our fragile urban eco-systems?
Jacks are the ultimate killing machine. A Jack on a mission is a sight to behold. If they were bigger they would be the alpha predator on the planet.
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