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It doesn't matter. Both are orders of magnitude less than cats. "We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion ma
by ben_bai 4y ago
It doesn't matter. Both are orders of magnitude less than cats.
"We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually" from "The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States" (2013)
- onion2k 4y agoCats tend to kill small garden birds though, which are very common. Wind turbines take out eagles. I don't think a domestic cat could kill an Eagle. Although one of my cats thinks he could, and might be tempted to have a go.
- gumby 4y agoRaptors are more likely to take the houscat than the other way around.
- Errsher 4y agoThey do not just kill "common" birds, they have led to the extinction of several bird species. Keep your cats indoors.
- acchow 4y ago> Keep your cats indoors Are cats not naturally supposed to be outside?
- oefnak 4y agoAren't all animals?
- acchow 4y agoI guess the ones meant to live in caves or underground would do fine indoors?
- havelhovel 4y agoThere’s nothing natural about a domesticated species being spread around the world and allowed to roam free while simultaneously receiving care and protection from humans.
- simondotau 4y agoThey are (in nearly every country) a foreign invasive species, so “naturally” they shouldn’t be there at all.
- dragonsky67 4y agoCats can live happy lives inside, they just need a bit of attention. Ours get a couple of hours supervised outside time whilst on long leads. They can and do carry out hunting behaviours, but being on a tether and being supervised allows us to dramatically reduce their impact on wildlife to almost nothing. Considering what they do attempt to catch whilst we are standing their, I'd imagine they would take a dramatic toll if we just let them roam free.
- pstuart 4y agoAnd only implied in your comment: they should not be alone. Not an excuse to go full catlady as 2 are plenty.
- TylerE 4y agoNot in North America!
- ncmncm 4y agoApex predators are surprisingly important, far out of proportion to their numbers. Efforts to protect them have similarly outsized effect.
- havelhovel 4y agoSince you didn’t name the species, it’s hard to say whether they’re common or not, or verify that their populations remain stable while an ever increasing number of cats are given an unrestricted license to kill anything that moves if it happens to be small enough. Relevant: “Cat owners failed to perceive the magnitude of their cats' impacts on wildlife and were not influenced by ecological information“ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.1553 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.1553
- m463 4y agoso statistically speaking, yes - because many domestic cats live near small gardens. But there are lots of ground-nesting birds that have been decimated by cats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduced_mammals_on_seabird_breeding_islands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduced_mammals_on_seabird_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife I found the cognitive dissonance comment interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife#Cat_owner_attitudes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife#Cat_...
- makomk 4y agoIt's not just that small garden birds are very common, in general they've co-evolved with predators similar to cats and have adapted to deal with that (for example by nesting at height, having large broods, etc). There's some exceptions, mostly when cats get introduced to islands with few similar natural predators, but as a general rule it's probably not the most pressing problem. Large birds like eagles reproduce slowly and don't have the instincts to avoid wind turbines which in theory makes wind farms a serious threat to those species.
- orionion 4y agoMammals such as rats and mice... which can carry many diseases including hantavirus, leptospirosis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCMV), Tularemia and Salmonella...
- Errsher 4y agoIt sounds like the implication here is that it's acceptable to use an invasive species to deal with pest problems. There are alternatives to dealing with pests that don't involve decimating bird populations.
- dsr_ 4y agoThe other way around: the domestication of the cat helped deal with pest problems. Here's a question: suppose next year we mandate all cats are indoors unless they work on farms, and all cats allowed outdoors are sterilized. What happens to the small bird and mammal populations ten years later?
- colechristensen 4y agoIt’s even more the other way around, the native cat species basically domesticated itself finding hanging around humans for our density of vermin to prey on to be more advantageous than living in the wild. We didn’t go stealing cute kitties from the wild because they looked nice, we started taking care of the vermin eaters that migrated into our cities, especially the ones that had adapted themselves to be cuter and nicer to us. We are not separate from the evolutionary process and several species have effectively domesticated us in order to survive better. Our civilization has created new habitats and we don’t need to pretend that it doesn’t exist. You want to help your local bird populations? Plant oak trees.
- klyrs 4y agoWhy oak, and/or what region does this advice apply to?