Feral cats are the leading cause of death among both birds and mammals in the United States, according to a new study, killing 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion birds each year.
The mammalian toll is even higher, concluded researchers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, ranging from 6.9 billion to 20.7 billion annually.
The analysis, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that feral and owned cats pose a far greater threat than previously thought. One study in 2011 estimated that cats in the United States kill roughly half a billion birds annually.
I agree that cats are the number one killer of birds. However, a “billion” is a big number. Let’s see: my parents’ cat kills 12 birds a year and is the only cat on the street. Thus, to be a billion dead birds, we would need (one billion divided by twelve) and 830,000,000 cats. And there are 90,000,000 cats in the United States. Thus, perhaps USA kitties kill 1-3 million birds each year.
Solar is a waste of space, since solar breaks even after 75 years and we need a space the size of Oregon to power Los Angeles with solar.
How many birds did cats kill before humans infected Mother Gaia?
That's for the entire United States. Meanwhile the solar panels are in one tiny area of a large State and it fries how many birds?
I rather a bird be killed by a cat than a solar panel. The cat gets exercise and catches a meal. I have also found that more birds (on my property) die during a severe thunderstorm and high winds than killed by my cat.