7 ms·
These types of die-offs are concerning, but probably more common than you'd think. People don't generally realize what a rough life birds, especially highly mig
by Exmoor 6y ago
These types of die-offs are concerning, but probably more common than you'd think. People don't generally realize what a rough life birds, especially highly migratory species, have. A pair of song-birds (passerines) will likely hatch an average of ~4 babies each year, and yet the populations are generally stable or shrinking over time. Using rough math that would indicate that 2/3 of the birds that exist at the peak breeding season will not be alive the next year.
Weather-related events are pretty tough to predict and prevent. There are several things you can do that will have a direct effect on bird populations. I'm short on time, so I'll just list the two most impactful ones:
1. Keep your cat indoors. The low estimate for the number of birds killed in North America pet and feral cats is one billion birds a year. That doesn't include the many small mammal, reptile, and amphibian species which are the base of the food chain for larger species of birds.
2. Reduce your use of insecticides both directly and via store-bought foods. There's a lot of evidence that insect populations are experiencing a population collapse, likely due mostly to accumulated insecticides in the ecosystem.
- bartread 6y ago> 1. Keep your cat indoors. I don't know. I've been considering pets for several months since I'm now spending so much time at home and, as for many people looking for some at home companionship, it comes down to dog or cat. I've read a reasonable amount of material that suggests that if your cat is kept indoors it's a lot more likely to be unhappy. So if you must own a cat then keeping it indoors may not be the best strategy for the cat. On the other hand, the point about environmental impact of cats - killing of birds and other small animals - might be a really good argument against having cat full stop. If you can't keep it in a way that ensures its welfare whilst also ensuring that it doesn't cause havoc amongst the local wildlife, maybe don't get one at all.
- posguy 6y agoIf you have previously let your cat outdoors on a regular basis, it will likely be unhappy if you stop letting it go outdoors. Outdoor cats get in fights with other cats, spread disease via their waste, kill birds and wildlife. Neighbors also can mistake your cat for a feral one and call animal control or trap your cat: https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/caring-community-cats-overview.pdf https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/carin...
- treeman79 6y agoWe made it almost a year before our rescue got outside. He was instantly hooked. Would hide for hours under something near door. Bolt the moment it was open.
- tomcam 6y agoSeems logical. They are wide roaming predators stuck indoors. If I lived in a box my entire life and then got to go outside just once, my preferences might change dramatically.
- jjtheblunt 6y agoWe have 3 cats, and only one has any interest in prowling the yard, and we watch her like a hawk, only let her outside with us. The other two (one born feral, one in a shelter) have zero interest in stalking birds. They're not lazy, just don't care about stalking birds, are more "dog-like" perhaps. Point is, it's a proper subset of cats wreaking mayhem, and they have very varied personalities, which I offer as another datapoint.
- adzm 6y agoIt is absolutely a subset. I've had many cats who go outdoors and only one really paid any attention to birds at all. They seem to be much more interested in rodents like shrews and voles. This is only my personal experience though, but I really would love to see further study on this, since I have bird feeders and a ton of birds in my yard. I'm also curious how it might be different in urban vs suburban and rural situations.
- leetcrew 6y ago> If you can't keep it in a way that ensures its welfare whilst also ensuring that it doesn't cause havoc amongst the local wildlife, maybe don't get one at all. I'm glad that you're taking the time to think through the responsibility that comes with getting a pet, but I think you are coming close to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here. just keep in mind that there are already more cats than homes willing to take them in (almost a million shelter cats are euthanized each year in the US alone). if we're talking adoption (and we really should be; deliberately breeding cats for sale is part of the problem, imo), you don't need to offer a perfect life for your prospective pet. you just need to offer a life that is worth living at all.
- poulsbohemian 6y ago> I think you are coming close to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here. Completely agree here. We have four cats plus foster regularly... the catio definitely created net positive happiness, but the key is really just the elimination of boredom. Cats need stimulation just like people. Some toys, a tower, a good window - just keep on top of their needs and they will be happy
- treeman79 6y agoCat was constantly sneaking out. Cat is much loved throughout neighborhood. Got really good at hunting. To the point a neighbor started shooting at it. We finally got good at keeping the cat inside. Cat became super depressed. Got a second cat. second cat peed in every laundry basket and bed in the house in a couple of days. Oh and first cat hated second cat. Things have calmed down, and cats are happy, and we now have a gate to bedrooms.
- tayo42 6y agoMy likely unpopular opinion, humans shouldn't have pets any more, i think its an overall net negative driven by peoples selfish need to take care of a thing, be loved and have attention. Dogs are particularly bad. off leash owners cant control them, we have kill shelters, breeding for obscene prices, dog shit being left all over, dog fighting. Then people just don't know how to take care of them. I had a neighbor that left their dog outside for hours barking. such a nuisance for no reason, and that dog must have been living a miserable life. we keep breeding chihuahuas that no one wants, pitbulls that can't be adopted, and some of these pure breeds like bulldogs are just miserable, other pure breeds have health issues. Cats we're already talking about.
- bumby 6y agoThe main counter argument I usually hear when this is brought up is that many of these animals have been bred for hundreds or thousands of years to be dependent on humans. To your point about kill shelters, I think the humane society has largely helped fixed this. There was an article on HN this week that claimed shelter killings was reduced from 20% down to 2% based on the efforts of the humane society since the 1970s. I may be biased as a dog lover, but most of your arguments seem to be based on bad owners. If we can stop bad ownership we should do so but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. I don’t think bad parenting existing should be an excuse for abstaining from having children either, unless we regress to a misanthropic world view.
- hunter-gatherer 6y agoThanks for this. In college I worked at the Humane Society and helped with the dogs. Very hard work. After working there I realized how most "breeders" are just random blokes with an AKC pure bread who get some dogs together. Some real breeders who monitor trace genetics and try to make the breed better exist, but these dogs usually cost a lot of money, and have specific purposes and customers. Sometimes I wonder if dog ownership should require a license and semi hefty fee (make it more a kin to adoption). But I am not sure... Disclaimer: I have a dog.
- tayo42 6y ago
- abacadaba 6y agoLeash training is an option.
- pstuart 6y agoAnd if you are going to have a cat, get 2 so they have companionship.
- nadezhda18 6y agoor hate each other...
- pstuart 6y agomisery does love company after all
- cm2012 6y agoI have 7 cats now and have had dozens of cats since I was a kid. Cats don't give a fuck about being outside if they've never been there. Now, trying to make an adult outdoor cat into an indoor cat is hellish. But if kept indoors from a young age they are quite happy.
- Brian_K_White 6y agoOr they are quite warped. Did it ever tell you it was happy? And do you have a substantial body of conversations with other cats to be able to analyse so you can tell when one claiming to be happy is instead stunted and warped and brainwashed into declaring it's love for it's cult leader?
- smegger001 6y agoWhile cats are little murder machines, the focus on keeping them indoors seems not to ring true to me (in North America). We have systematically killed/displaced all of the natural predators (bobcat, lynx, coyote, foxes, wolves, etc...) how is introducing a predictor to help re-balance things a net loose? Yes I know what they did in new Zealand but remember there were no indigenous predatory land mammals to replace there
- triceratops 6y agoUnlike wild predators or feral cats, domesticated, human-owned cats don't live or die by how much they kill. There's no feedback loop that would prevent them from hunting their prey into extinction. If they over-hunt birds one season and can't catch enough the next, their owners will simply supplement the difference. It's not even clear to me that birds are a primary food source for domesticated outdoor cats. They might be hunting them just for sport.
- literallycancer 6y agoWhy are you applying human morals to cats?
- therealdrag0 6y agoHow are they?
- literallycancer 6y agoWe might consider it a bad thing to kill for sport, but why is it bad for animals like cats to enjoy hunting and killing other animals? Cats have no such moral restrictions.
- triceratops 6y agoNo morals were implied or intended. Hunting for sport is unconstrained by population feedback loops.
- dsrees 6y agoIf you have an outdoor cat, you absolutely need to put a bell or something that jingles on it's collar. The sound will alert the birds and give them time to escape.
- dtornabene 6y agoThese have nothing whatsoever to do with cats or insectiside and they're not even remotely "common". The fact that die offs are happening more now, due, as the piece notes, almost certainly to effects of climate change shouldn't lessen the impact it has on people, on the contrary, it should heighten it.
- hombre_fatal 6y agoDefaulting to keeping your cat indoors is cruel. Instead put out some bird feeders. Cats love the outdoors. It's evil to take that away from them. Not all cats even kill birds.
- krisroadruck 6y agoYou really don't know what you are talking about mate. Indoor cats live 13-17 years. Outdoor cats average 2-5. What's cruel is willfully exposing your cat to an environment that will very likely result in a reduction of their lifespan by 60-80%. There are plenty of ways to stimulate a cat that don't involve dramatic risk of disease, parasites, disfigurement or death by predator or vehicle.
- h_anna_h 6y agoPretty sure that you are talking about feral cats rather than cats that are allowed to go outdoors.
- krisroadruck 6y agoI am not. I am talking about domestic cats allowed to roam outdoors unsupervised some of the time.
- zimpenfish 6y ago> Outdoor cats average 2-5. On the other anecdata, my parents have only had outdoor cats and every single one has made it past 5 - several past 10, one past 20. Of the 10 I can think of just now, only 1 died of "unnatural" causes (car).
- throwawaysea 6y agoWhat’s your source on the life expectancy of outdoor cats? I haven’t observed this having any impact myself. Cats that stay indoors and ones that free roam seem to have the same life expectancy. The ones that roam even seem healthier.
- ljf 6y agoI've seen that number before (1 billion birds killed a year) and I'm interested in how accurate it is. There are appropriately 92 million cats in the US - so that is like 10 birds per cat - I've had a lot of outdoor access cats and most have never brought birds in, or like once or twice a year. Do cats bring in only a tiny subset of things they catch, or are some cats killing far far more? --- On protecting birds, also be sure to keep dogs on a lead when birds are nesting, they can destroy nests in hedges and in the ground, or cause birds to abandon them. https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/ask-an-expert/previous/dog_disturbs_bird.aspx https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife...
- axiolite 6y ago> 1. Keep your cat indoors. The low estimate for the number of birds killed in North America pet and feral cats is one billion birds a year. If your pet cat is spayed/neutered, it should be fine to allow them outside. They will not contribute to the feral cat problem and in fact could help slightly reduce it.
- danielheath 6y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but IME cats don't use their genitals to hunt birds.
- ShinTakuya 6y agoIt's only fine in terms of preventing them from creating feral cats. It doesn't stop them from murdering wildlife.
- specialist 6y agoYour comment, and the article, makes me wonder what we can do to help misc birds. Concrete actions akin to planting milkweed for monarch butterflies.
- coderaptor 6y agoAnecdote - I find letting spiders live and using no insecticide results in fewer insects and more diverse and plentiful bird activity.