Posted on 08/06/2012 2:16:31 PM PDT by ColdOne
Pet kitties and their wild feral relatives kill a shocking 500 million birds and over 3 billion other animals according to new studies, prompting a leading Washington-based bird protection group to demand that local governments order their dog catchers to snag cats too.
One disturbing new study is based on evidence from "KittyCams" strapped on to 60 outdoor pet cats in Athens, Ga. The results: They each averaged 2.1 "kills" a week. Just 13 percent were birds, the rest voles, lizards, chipmunks, frogs and small snakes.
Based on the joint University of Georgia-National Geographic study of pet cats and another of feral cats from the University of Nebraska, the American Bird Conservancy said over 4 billion birds and animals are killed yearly by the felines, four-times the previous estimate. The group blames the extinction of some birds on the killer cats. "Cat predation is one of the reasons why one in three American bird species are in decline," said George Fenwick of the conservancy.
While it would be hard to get cat owners to keep their pets inside, the group wants cat lovers and local governments to stop coddling feral cats and round them up.
"Wildlife are being slaughtered and so often community leaders only seem to express concern for the cats," conservancy spokesman Robert Johns told Secrets.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
LOL!
We have a long sunroom on the back of the house. Today a female cardinal kept pecking on all the windows out there most of the day. Our little kitty ran herself ragged trying to get at that dratted bird. I HOPE our kitty will pretty soon get to be put outside more (much more) so she can live a normal wildcat life and catch birds, mice, lizards and all that. - How will they regulate her?
You are a good woman. I have to take my food up at night cause of the coons and possums but sometimes I forget and they turn the bowls over and such. It might be the coons in your neighborhood turning the water over.
Stray and feral cats do little bird killing on our property as they all get shot on sight. We’ve got a couple barn cats but they stay close to the barn and those that don’t end up being coyote food.
Just damn. But I’m not surprised.
I occasionally rescue a bird or a lizard from the cats and set them free. Now it makes me wonder if I could be in violation of wildlife laws that prohibit the possession or transport of wild animals, even though I’m taking them from in the house out to the yard. YIKES!
Every cat I’ve had, none feral, hunted and killed whenever they were able, and always ate it too. They only exception was the one who caught a squirrel and only ate half of.
My cat eats the hell out of his prey. Two months ago my family and I were all sitting on our patio watching him go. Within 40 minutes he got a bird, a rabbit, a lizard and a cricket. Ate every last bit of fur and feather.
He’s 16 pounds, has an unlimited supply of Purina cat food and gets moist dog food as a treat every day. (The damn animal snagged a half a cucumber off the counter while my daughter was making a salad a couple of years ago and ate the whole thing.)
The point you have to take from the first story is that there were enough prey animals available for him to easily catch within a 40 minute time period. In the seven years that we lived in TX, we only had ONE mouse in the house. He kept down snakes (loved to eat baby rattlers), squirrels, mice, rats and insects. And he never ran low on supplies. Rabbits, birds and squirrels abound.
And was was, by far, not the only cat in our area. If it weren’t for cats, we’d be overrun in no time.
Are the alternatives of property destruction, chemical pesticides or kill traps better than a cat? What about the diseases spread by prey animals?
I just took a break to take a call from my mom and she reminded me of an incident that we witnessed about 25 years ago.
We lived in a trailer court in Wyoming that was overrun with feral cats. The city decided to capture and put down the cats. They caught over 100 cats in just a couple of months.
About two months of being practically cat-free the prey animals started multiplying. We all got mice in our houses. Poop everywhere.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Two mother skunks brought in their babies and some males followed the mamas. (The babies grew fast.) Next came in the raccoons and the opossums. (The cats had deterred the opossums - now we had kissing, fanged marsupials in our garbage cans.)
One neighbor got blasted by a skunk when she was headed to her car. A child was attacked by a raccoon. (Just scratched, but it scared the heck out of everyone.)
For the first time in our lives, we were sincerely afraid of rabies.
We lobbied the city to stop the cat-capturing program and won. For awhile, we discussed capturing and releasing feral cats from other parts of the city, but they came back on their own once we stopped trapping them.
Cats were not part of the North American ecosystem, but they sure are now. Nature has adapted well.
You see, things cannot revert to the way they were - WE are here. We bring garbage and food storage. THAT is not natural. The cats balance out OUR impact.
Without them, prey animals would find a ready source of food from the waste and storage of human beings and multiply in an unnatural manner. We need them and have for thousands of years.
(If you ever watch a colony of mice eat a live pig, you’d root for the cats.)
Geez! No one is talking about extermination of cats. It just makes common sense to keep your cat indoors. Mine is not allowed outside unless we have him on a tether.
Even at 12 our cat is still a deadly hunter, and I appreciate that skill in my house when the mice come indoors, but I find it reprehensible that people let cats out to kill off wildlife for no good reason.
We live next door to a vacant/foreclosed McMansion. The owners had a fancy fish pond with Koi and whatever out back. After a year of neglect the pool has regressed to nature.
I started noticing dead frog parts in the lawn awhile back where I had never seen anything but live toads. My son was up early one morning and saw our cat coming back with a nice frog. He only eats the rear legs and gets one almost everyday for breakfast. I’m thinking he’s helping keep the pond’s fauna in equilibrium.
They never start by stating their real goals.
Years ago, I had a black and white fluffy cat who, from standing still position, could jump straight up a long way.
Blue jays would dive bomb her, attacking her. One day, she jumped stright up and a blue jay flew right in her mouth. Good for her, that taught the blue jay’s friends a lesson.
Years after that, she was killed by two big sized standard poodles. I don’t care for standard poodle killers.
My can unintentionally redistributes her kill when she comes in loudly bragging about it, and the corgi takes it away from her.
Those wouldn’t be particular Kittehs with Scandinavian (AKA “Viking”) Ancestry, would they? :-)
Yes, but sounds like were dealing with Liberals here; so the Circle of Life goes like this:
I go to work, goberment steals my earnings, goberment gives stolen earnings to Liberal slackoffs.
I go to work, goberment steals my earnings, goberment gives stolen earnings to Liberal slackoffs.
If diagrammed on paper it would actually look like the Square of Life; since Liberals believe circles have corners.
“•Mice under 500 grams must be thrown back.
That’s a big freaking mouse....hell that’s a good
sized rat. 500 grams is 1.1 pounds.
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