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Fawn,
This is just one of many articles that can be found about the impacts of cats on wildlife. It is very easy to find them if you wish. It is hard for me to believe that all the studies are wrong. If you choose to bury your head in the sand well, so be it. As I said earlier, loving your pet is one thing but loving something to the exclusion of all else is insanity!

Subsequently, Stanley Temple from the University of Wisconsin gathered some stronger data for Wisconsin. He estimates that there are over 100 million cats in the United States. These include house pets as well as rural, free-ranging cats that are not considered house pets. The latter cats include “barn cats,” left to fend for themselves. From U.S. census data, we know that over 30 percent of the households in the United States have at least one pet cat. In the United States, Temple found that 70 percent of the prey killed by cats are small mammals, particularly rodents. About 20 percent are birds and the remainder are other types of animals. In Wisconsin, Temple found that most house cats on average kill 14 animals per year. Rural cats kill far more.

Temple coupled his information on predation rate with estimates of the number of cats in Wisconsin. He estimates that Wisconsin cats alone kill somewhere between eight and 217 million birds each year with 39 million birds per year being the most reasonable estimate.

Extrapolated countrywide, Temple’s studies suggest that cats are important sources of bird mortality.Ê Temple argues that cats are one of the most important causes of extinction for some birds and small mammals; he claims cats may be second only to habitat destruction as a cause of death. For example, cats have been implicated in the decline of Piping Plovers, Least Terns and Loggerhead Shrikes as well as Marsh Rabbits in the Florida Keys.

Based on Temple’s work, significant tension has developed between groups that seek to neuter feral cats and let them roam free and others who favor the capture of all feral cats. The people in the former camp believe that most bird mortality can be pinned on humans (buildings, pollution, habitat destruction) and that cats are scapegoats.

Regardless of your position, everyone who owns cats should do all we can to minimize the number of birds our pets kill. The best solution is to keep your cat indoors. If your cat does roam outside, put a foot-high fence around your bird feeder. When the cat jumps over the fence, the birds have enough time to detect the cat and escape.

DOMESTIC FELINES CAT-ASTROPHIC FOR COLORADO SONGBIRDS

Cats help rid households of mice, but charming kitties kill more than just rodents. Predation on Colorado’s bird populations, and other wildlife, by free-roaming and feral cats is a daily occurrence.
Although there are no laws against cats preying on birds, squirrels, baby rabbits and other small species, the Division of Wildlife suggests cat owners keep their pets inside to protect vulnerable wildlife.
Outdoor felines are usually active hunters and will occasionally bring home a “gift” for their owners. “Everyone has had the experience of a cat bringing home a bird,” said the Division’s Dean Riggs, district wildlife manager in Pueblo. “But cats hunting at their own free will is equivalent to allowing hunters to go out without a license and shoot everything they see,” he said.
Cat owners need to realize that for every bird their cat drops on the doorstep, there are many more injured and dead that we do not see, he added. According to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum of Walnut Creek, California, cats kill between 4 and 5 million birds a day in the United States, or more than a billion birds a year. Studies show that felines are dangerously depleting ground-nesting birds and killing countless numbers of baby songbirds in the spring.
Domestic cats are the most numerous pets (60 million—30 percent of households have them). And research shows that the problem is not just free roaming “house cats,” but also feral cats. According to the publication Birder’s World, there are 60 million wild cats roaming the country. With 120 million cats hunting in rural and urban areas, songbird populations have been seriously affected. Statistics show a decline in the numbers of songbirds such as, tanagers, warblers, vireos and others.
Although loss of habitat also contributes to the decline in birds, cats play a major role in dwindling number of songbirds in the North America. Jake Rodriguez, district wildlife manager for Canon City, said he sees a fair number of songbirds killed by cats. “People need to realize that their cats are detrimental to the bird population,” he said.
Even well-fed cats are predators, apparently out of instinct. According to Linda Cope of the Wild Forever Foundation in Colorado Springs, wildlife veterinarians in Colorado see thousands of birds each year that are injured by cats. Birds that fall prey to cats usually suffer before dying, Cope said.
“Although cats are predators by nature, very rarely do they eat the birds they catch,” she said.
Cope says that rehabilitators save the lives of less than half the birds they receive from cat attacks. Birds attacked by cats that do not die immediately may later die from infection.
“The bacteria in a cat’s mouth is quite deadly to a tiny bird,” Cope explained.
Rodriguez said that baby birds just learning to fly are particularly vulnerable because they can’t get away from predators. He recommends that if homeowners notice a nest in a nearby tree, they should keep their cat inside during the spring until the fledglings learn to fly.
A four-year study of cat predation by the University of Wisconsin Department of Wildlife Ecology revealed that most bird kills occur in spring and summer, although predation at winter bird feeders can be substantial. Many of the spring killings are nestlings and fledglings. The majority of the kills are songbirds, but larger birds are also killed, especially as nestlings.
Some say domestic felines out for predacious prowls are just doing what comes naturally. Although predation is natural, domestic cats are not native to the United States, are not wild animals, and are maintained at artificially high numbers by humans who provide food, shelter and veterinarian care.
Many veterinarians suggest that owners use a bell to keep cats from hunting successfully but there is growing evidence that bells don’t work because birds do not associate the sound of a bell with danger.
“Birds are very visual,” Cope said. “It is very important that people with bird feeders keep the grass cut short around the feeder so the birds see the cats as they approach,” she said.
Riggs recommends that people just keep their cats indoors, particularly during the evening and morning hours when birds are most vulnerable.
“Cats are healthier and live longer if kept indoors, and not given the privilege to hunt,” he said.
The United States Humane Society reports that indoor cats live an average of 17 years, while free-roaming cats typically live less than five years because in many cases the hunter often becomes the hunted.
“We get numerous reports from homeowners in the Pueblo West area of coyotes, foxes, owls and other predators killing pet cats that were allowed to roam,” said Riggs.
“Too many cats are allowed to run free,” he added. “That’s the problem.”

1. In 1987, Peter Churcher and John Lawton asked the owners of cats in a Bedfordshire, England, village to keep any ‘gifts’ brought to them by their cats; owners of 78 house cats participated (all but 1 cat owner in the village), with the researchers extrapolating from these findings to estimate that the 5 million house cats in England were responsible for killing approximately 70 million animals each year, 20 million of which are birds. [PB Churcher and JH Lawton, 1987, “Predation by domestic cats in an English (UK) village. Journal of Zoology. (London.) 212:439-455.]

2. A four-year study in rural Wisconsin by Coleman and Temple confirmed the UK findings; 30 cats, radio-collared for various periods of time, led researchers to conclude that, in Wisconsin alone, cats may kill 19 million songbirds and some 140,000 game birds in a single year. The researchers focused on rural areas, where residents averaged more than 4 cats apiece, working out to a density of 57 cats/sq mile. [JS Coleman and SA Temple, 1993. “Rural residents’ free-ranging domestic cats: a survey. Wildlife Society Bulletin 21: 381-390] In urban areas, however, cat populations can be more than 2,000 cats/sq mile. [Marin Conservation League, Sept 1995 issue of the MCL News, “Is There a Fluffy Killer in Your Home?”] Temple, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin, also stated that house cats are probably the principal predator of birds and small mammals in many areas of rural America. Using figures from Wisconsin and Illinois, he found that outdoor cats kill 47 million rabbits a year - more than human hunters kill with guns. Temple points out that cats may also be the chief threat to some bird populations, especially grassland birds (many of which are in decline already due to habitat loss.)

3. In Virginia, Dr. Joseph Mitchell, an ecologist at the University of Richmond, and his colleague, Dr. Ruth Beck, conducted a study using their own cats. During the 11 months of their test, their 5 cats killed at least 187 animals, mostly small mammals. Of special interest to the researchers was the impact on songbirds, which are in decline in the state - they conservatively estimate that domestic cats each kill at least 26 birds each year in urban areas or 83 in rural areas, representing over 26 million birds in Virginia alone. Mitchell says “The figures may be conservative, because the study only counted confirmed kills - not cases in which cats ate their victims or left the bodies hidden.” [JC Mitchell, 1992. “Free-ranging domestic cat predation on native vertebrates in rural and urban Virginia.” Virginia Journal of Science, Vol 43 (1B):107-207.]

4. Worldwide, cats may have been involved in the extinction of more bird species than any other cause, except habitat destruction. Cats are contributing to the endangerment of populations of birds such as Burrowing Owls, Least Terns, Piping Plovers and Loggerhead Shrikes. In Florida, marsh rabbits in Key West have been threatened by predation from domestic cats. Cats introduced by people living on the barrier islands of Florida’s coast have depleted several unique species of mice and woodrats to near extinction. [Humphrey, S.R. and D.B. Barbour. 1981. “Status and habitat of three subspecies of Peromyscus polionotus in Florida.” Journal of Mammalogy 62:840-844. Gore, J.A. and T.L. Schaefer. 1993. “Cats, condominiums and conservation of the Santa Rosa beach mouse.” Abstracts of Papers Presented, Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation, Tucson, Arizona, June, 1993.]

5. Many humane societies and rehabilitation centers doing education, quote the following for a country-wide estimate of the impact of owned cats on birds. Richard Stallcup of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory estimated that of the 55 million domestic cats in the US, excluding Hawaii and Alaska, some 10% never go outside, and another 10% are too old or slow to catch anything. Of the remaining 44 million, a conservative estimate is that 1 in 10 cats kills a bird a day - this would yield a daily toll of 4.4 million birds - or 1.6 billion cat-killed birds in the US each year. [”Cats take a heavy toll on songbirds / A reversible catastrophe,” Observer, Spring/Summer 1991, 18-29, Point Reyes Bird Observatory; Native Species Network, Vol 1 Issue 1, Fall 1995.] Research has shown that rural cats, with more wildlife contact, kill many more, with the result that the feral cat population, most of which is rural, has an even more significant impact on the bird population. Alley Cat Allies estimates that there are 60 million feral cats in the United States. Combining feral and domestic cat predation, it is estimated that more than 3 billion birds are killed annually.

6. Cat predation can also negatively impact our native predators, including raptors (hawks, falcons, and owls). A study in Illinois concluded that cats were taking 5.5 million rodents and other vertebrates from a 26,000 square mile area, effectively depleting the prey base necessary to sustain wintering raptors and other native predators. [WG George, 1974. “Domestic cats as predators and factors in winter shortages of raptor prey.” The Wilson Bulletin 86(4):384-396. O Liberg, 1984. ‘Food habits and prey impact by feral and house-based domestic cats in a rural area in southern Sweden.” Journal of Mammalogy, 65(3): 424-432.]

7. Domestic cats have passed diseases (feline leukemia, distemper, and an immune deficiency disease) to wild populations of felines, including the endangered Florida Panther. [Jessup, D.A., K.C. Pettan, L.J. Lowenstine and N.C. Pedersen. 1993. “Feline leukemia virus infection and renal spirochetosis in free-ranging cougar (Felis concolor).” Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine 24:73-79. Roelke, M.E., D.J. Forester, E.R. Jacobson, G.V. Kollias, F.W. Scott, M.C. Barr, J.F. Evermann and E.C. Pirtel. 1993. “Seroprevalence of infectious disease agents in free-ranging Florida panthers (Felis concolor coryi).” Journal of Wildlife Diseases 29:36-49.]