5 ms·

I think it might have something to do with feral and outdoor cats killing 1.4-3.7 billion birds per year in the US alone. [1] Individuals can do something here

I think it might have something to do with feral and outdoor cats killing 1.4-3.7 billion birds per year in the US alone. [1] Individuals can do something here I wager, between education and taking responsibility by spaying and neutering. It’s pretty wild to me that cats aren’t mentioned at all in this article since they’re absolutely massacring wild birds. They’re the leading cause of both bird and small mammal deaths in the US. They kill 10% of all US birds every year. I do agree personal responsibility isn’t enough but it can certainly help. [edit] in fact a cursory google shows the population of cats in the US is almost a perfect mirror of the bird population graph in the article since 1970. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/outdoor-cats-kill-between-14-billion-and-37-billion-birds-a-year-study-says/2013/01/31/2504f744-6bbe-11e2-ada0-5ca5fa7ebe79_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/outdo...

idleproc 3y ago
I agree that cats kill a lot of birds and something needs to be done about this. However, when you also have articles stating that migratory fish and insect populations have declined by 75% over the last 50 years [1,2] (which clearly isn't caused by outdoor cats) it would seem to me there are larger forces at work. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/migratory-river-fish-populations-plunge-76-in-past-50-years https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/migrator... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/25/the-insect-apocalypse-our-world-will-grind-to-a-halt-without-them https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/25/the-inse...
- b112 3y ago
  I agree that cats kill a lot of birds and something needs to be done about this. Outside of birds, cats kill rodents. I live in rural Quebec, near farms, a massive nature preserve, and a national park larger than small US states. When I first moved here, I had no cat, and several other neighbours were new to the area. Old houses, not fresh builds, just changeover of owners... they too with no cats. The first year I was here, I became aware of the problem, and started to lay traps. And I caught 100+ mice, sometimes several per day for months, all inside my house. Once Spring arrived, I tried to find entrances, and did! I blocked them, but anyone that knows rodents, and owns wood houses, that won't help if you have an out of control, local colony, and once the winter comes, do they ever want in! I spent 3+ years with traps, sometimes reducing the population a bit, but each winter more than 50 mice. Then a neightbour got a siamese cat. I now catch a mouse or two a year. If you look at mouse breeding and brood numbers, and you live in a area with loads of food in the summer (near farms, nature), you need something like cats. It's not an option, it just isn't. There's a reason farmers have loads of semi-wild cats in their barns. And both the mice they catch, and the cats that catch them, are invasive. And with the hantavirus often touted as 50% lethal, you do NOT want the moral responsibility of trap and release, nor do you want mice in your house. At all. And yes, it is in the local population.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    If they only killed mice that would be a fun fact, but they also kill 20 billion small mammals a year, lol. The point was though that cats are killing all the birds, that they help a few people with a mouse problem is tangential at best to the topic at hand. I can accept that mice are a problem and cats are killing all the birds and small mammals at the same time. It’s kind of like saying DDT is fine actually because it helps a few farmers improve their crop yields. That it does, but it nukes the eagles from orbit too, and we have to look at this systemically. Once we accepted DDT as a problem we found alternative solutions. But there’s also localized solutions. A few spayed/neutered farm cats aren’t the end of the world.
    - giantg2 3y ago
      The outdoor neighborhood cats are the ones that are an issue. It sounds like promoting owl habitat would be a great targeted solution to mice problem without affecting small birds as much.
      - dunefox 3y ago
        Great Horned Owls apparently also kill cats, so that might be a perfect solution.
        tetris11 3y ago
        I feel like we're sliding into snake territory now.
        TeMPOraL 3y ago
        Owl also kill other birds, so...
        giantg2 3y ago
        They can, but that's less of an issue since other birds are not active at the same time.
CaptainPistache 3y ago
Over the last 27 years, 75% of the flying insects biomass has disappeared because of human activity. But it must be cats ! I wonder how humanity would deal with a 75% of our food supply disappearing by 2050. Cats would certainly take over us...
- ForestCritter 3y ago
  yup, If only we make all but indoor only incarcerated cat pets extinct we will bring balance to the world. It's not like we ever had outdoor cats before when the birds were plentiful. All sarcasm aside, insecticides and loss of habitat are major players in declining bird, bee and insect populations. Natural predators not so much.
jorvi 3y ago
I am pretty pro-climate / nature, but from a pure scientific bent and it is enlightening (and frightening) the frothing rage you get from most “green” people if you point out that having outdoor cats and having kids are two of the most damaging things you can do to your environment.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  At the risk of getting flagged the logical conclusion to this train of thought is that the most effective singe action any individual can take to reduce carbon emissions is to mass murder their neighbors and then kill themselves.
  - brnaftr361 3y ago
    "I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in human evolution. We became too self aware; nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, a secretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody’s nobody. I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal." Rustin Cohle, True Detective
- scientator 3y ago
  You should also include dogs in your list of damaging things: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25433840-800-how-a-billion-dogs-including-our-pets-are-laying-waste-to-wildlife/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25433840-800-how-a-bi... "Birds, it turns out, seem to be particularly sensitised to dogs – even on leads. In woodlands outside Sydney, for example, a study found that people walking leashed dogs caused a 'dramatic' reduction in the diversity and abundance of birds – more than double that caused by the same number of people walking without pets."
ForestCritter 3y ago
actually, feral cats are what keep mouse, rat, squirrel and chipmunck populations in check and they are on their way to going extinct with the spay and neuter army out there. They do prey on birds when they can catch them but not at any great rate. You state 10%, that is not a massacre when you factor that cats are birds natural predators. Will you be erradicating eagles and falcons because they too prey on birds? Feral cats are not the same as abandoned house cats. Their home is the outdoors, why are we eradicating them to extinction? They are part of natures balance and an important rodent predator.
- greedo 3y ago
  My neighbor has an outdoor cat. This cat kills at least one bird a day according to their kids (the cat brings the corpse to their porch). So I think you're tremendously mistaken about "not at any great rate." Housecats are not native to most countries, and feral cat colonies are not healthy either (lots of disease). They are not part of "natures balance" and we're not eradicating them to extinction. That's just utter nonsense.
  - ForestCritter 3y ago
    Before they were housecats fed from the grocery store, how many birds did they eat a day? A natural predator does not make their prey extinct.
    - thefurdrake 3y ago
      Cats are an invasive species. They are not natural predators. That is the problem. I say this as a cat owner.
      - ForestCritter 3y ago
        You are the owner of a domesticated species. Feral cats are part of natures food chain and natural balance. Without them there would be no stopping the rodent population.Not liking them being there doesn't make them invasive.
vic-traill 3y ago
Okay, I hear you; however, I'm not sure that the idea that cats bear more responsibility for birds fatalities than humans passes my smell test, though. Food for thought [0] - 269 million bird deaths a year in Canada alone is asserted. Cited reasons for death include: feral and pet cats, agriculture, oil and gas activities, and collisions with buildings. As noted outdoor cats are domestic and thus kept alive by humans. Who's responsible in this scenario - the cat or the human? I suppose some feral cats are the result of/spawn of domestic cat abandonment as well. [0] https://windsorstar.com/news/human-activity-killing-birds-by-the-millions https://windsorstar.com/news/human-activity-killing-birds-by...
kjkjadksj 3y ago
Cats in europe are even worse. You go to certain cities and there are thousands of strays lying on the roads and roofs, populations seemingly sustained by dumpster diving, rats, plus plenty of restaurant owners or workers straight up feed the cats regularly. There are seemingly no catch and fix programs like in the US.
- jibbit 3y ago
  a quick google search tells me that there are 75 million feral cats in the usa, far more than any other country - by area or population or any way you want to measure it
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    This seems like a number that would never be accurate no matter where you look. Either way, you just don’t see cities coated in cats like you do in Europe. Like dozens and dozens of cats up on a roof is a very common sight when you start exploring especially Mediterranean cities. Cats visiting you multiple times as you sit outside at cafes. Hotel and resort feral cat populations that the workers know by name at this point. I’ve seen it all. There’s just nothing like it in the US. Maybe in Key West at hemingways old home, I’m told.
    - jibbit 3y ago
      I have no idea if it’s accurate, but would suggest that if it isn’t, then neither is the number of birds they supposedly kill a year
dreamcompiler 3y ago
Side issue but this is why arguments against wind turbines "because they kill birds" are never spoken in good faith. Yes, wind turbines kill birds. Collisions with vehicles kill 1000 times more birds than wind turbines do. Collisions with glass buildings kill 3 times more still. And cats kill 4 times more still [0]. Wind turbine bird deaths are deep in the noise as sources of bird deaths. Yes, we should keep trying to reduce that number further. But if we really care about saving birds we have a lot more dirty laundry than wind turbines. [0] https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds
- arcticbull 3y ago
  Yep and both windmill and glass collisions are an easy fix. I believe it was black stripes on the windmill blades and UV stickers on glass.

idleproc 3y ago

I agree that cats kill a lot of birds and something needs to be done about this. However, when you also have articles stating that migratory fish and insect populations have declined by 75% over the last 50 years [1,2] (which clearly isn't caused by outdoor cats) it would seem to me there are larger forces at work. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/migratory-river-fish-populations-plunge-76-in-past-50-years https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/migrator... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/25/the-insect-apocalypse-our-world-will-grind-to-a-halt-without-them https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/25/the-inse...

b112 3y ago
I agree that cats kill a lot of birds and something needs to be done about this. Outside of birds, cats kill rodents. I live in rural Quebec, near farms, a massive nature preserve, and a national park larger than small US states. When I first moved here, I had no cat, and several other neighbours were new to the area. Old houses, not fresh builds, just changeover of owners... they too with no cats. The first year I was here, I became aware of the problem, and started to lay traps. And I caught 100+ mice, sometimes several per day for months, all inside my house. Once Spring arrived, I tried to find entrances, and did! I blocked them, but anyone that knows rodents, and owns wood houses, that won't help if you have an out of control, local colony, and once the winter comes, do they ever want in! I spent 3+ years with traps, sometimes reducing the population a bit, but each winter more than 50 mice. Then a neightbour got a siamese cat. I now catch a mouse or two a year. If you look at mouse breeding and brood numbers, and you live in a area with loads of food in the summer (near farms, nature), you need something like cats. It's not an option, it just isn't. There's a reason farmers have loads of semi-wild cats in their barns. And both the mice they catch, and the cats that catch them, are invasive. And with the hantavirus often touted as 50% lethal, you do NOT want the moral responsibility of trap and release, nor do you want mice in your house. At all. And yes, it is in the local population.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  If they only killed mice that would be a fun fact, but they also kill 20 billion small mammals a year, lol. The point was though that cats are killing all the birds, that they help a few people with a mouse problem is tangential at best to the topic at hand. I can accept that mice are a problem and cats are killing all the birds and small mammals at the same time. It’s kind of like saying DDT is fine actually because it helps a few farmers improve their crop yields. That it does, but it nukes the eagles from orbit too, and we have to look at this systemically. Once we accepted DDT as a problem we found alternative solutions. But there’s also localized solutions. A few spayed/neutered farm cats aren’t the end of the world.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    The outdoor neighborhood cats are the ones that are an issue. It sounds like promoting owl habitat would be a great targeted solution to mice problem without affecting small birds as much.
    - dunefox 3y ago
      Great Horned Owls apparently also kill cats, so that might be a perfect solution.
      - tetris11 3y ago
        I feel like we're sliding into snake territory now.
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        Owl also kill other birds, so...
        giantg2 3y ago
        They can, but that's less of an issue since other birds are not active at the same time.

CaptainPistache 3y ago

Over the last 27 years, 75% of the flying insects biomass has disappeared because of human activity. But it must be cats ! I wonder how humanity would deal with a 75% of our food supply disappearing by 2050. Cats would certainly take over us...

ForestCritter 3y ago
yup, If only we make all but indoor only incarcerated cat pets extinct we will bring balance to the world. It's not like we ever had outdoor cats before when the birds were plentiful. All sarcasm aside, insecticides and loss of habitat are major players in declining bird, bee and insect populations. Natural predators not so much.

jorvi 3y ago

I am pretty pro-climate / nature, but from a pure scientific bent and it is enlightening (and frightening) the frothing rage you get from most “green” people if you point out that having outdoor cats and having kids are two of the most damaging things you can do to your environment.

forgetfreeman 3y ago
At the risk of getting flagged the logical conclusion to this train of thought is that the most effective singe action any individual can take to reduce carbon emissions is to mass murder their neighbors and then kill themselves.
- brnaftr361 3y ago
  "I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in human evolution. We became too self aware; nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, a secretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody’s nobody. I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal." Rustin Cohle, True Detective
scientator 3y ago
You should also include dogs in your list of damaging things: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25433840-800-how-a-billion-dogs-including-our-pets-are-laying-waste-to-wildlife/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25433840-800-how-a-bi... "Birds, it turns out, seem to be particularly sensitised to dogs – even on leads. In woodlands outside Sydney, for example, a study found that people walking leashed dogs caused a 'dramatic' reduction in the diversity and abundance of birds – more than double that caused by the same number of people walking without pets."

ForestCritter 3y ago

actually, feral cats are what keep mouse, rat, squirrel and chipmunck populations in check and they are on their way to going extinct with the spay and neuter army out there. They do prey on birds when they can catch them but not at any great rate. You state 10%, that is not a massacre when you factor that cats are birds natural predators. Will you be erradicating eagles and falcons because they too prey on birds? Feral cats are not the same as abandoned house cats. Their home is the outdoors, why are we eradicating them to extinction? They are part of natures balance and an important rodent predator.

greedo 3y ago
My neighbor has an outdoor cat. This cat kills at least one bird a day according to their kids (the cat brings the corpse to their porch). So I think you're tremendously mistaken about "not at any great rate." Housecats are not native to most countries, and feral cat colonies are not healthy either (lots of disease). They are not part of "natures balance" and we're not eradicating them to extinction. That's just utter nonsense.
- ForestCritter 3y ago
  Before they were housecats fed from the grocery store, how many birds did they eat a day? A natural predator does not make their prey extinct.
  - thefurdrake 3y ago
    Cats are an invasive species. They are not natural predators. That is the problem. I say this as a cat owner.
    - ForestCritter 3y ago
      You are the owner of a domesticated species. Feral cats are part of natures food chain and natural balance. Without them there would be no stopping the rodent population.Not liking them being there doesn't make them invasive.

vic-traill 3y ago

Okay, I hear you; however, I'm not sure that the idea that cats bear more responsibility for birds fatalities than humans passes my smell test, though. Food for thought [0] - 269 million bird deaths a year in Canada alone is asserted. Cited reasons for death include: feral and pet cats, agriculture, oil and gas activities, and collisions with buildings. As noted outdoor cats are domestic and thus kept alive by humans. Who's responsible in this scenario - the cat or the human? I suppose some feral cats are the result of/spawn of domestic cat abandonment as well. [0] https://windsorstar.com/news/human-activity-killing-birds-by-the-millions https://windsorstar.com/news/human-activity-killing-birds-by...

kjkjadksj 3y ago

Cats in europe are even worse. You go to certain cities and there are thousands of strays lying on the roads and roofs, populations seemingly sustained by dumpster diving, rats, plus plenty of restaurant owners or workers straight up feed the cats regularly. There are seemingly no catch and fix programs like in the US.

jibbit 3y ago
a quick google search tells me that there are 75 million feral cats in the usa, far more than any other country - by area or population or any way you want to measure it
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  This seems like a number that would never be accurate no matter where you look. Either way, you just don’t see cities coated in cats like you do in Europe. Like dozens and dozens of cats up on a roof is a very common sight when you start exploring especially Mediterranean cities. Cats visiting you multiple times as you sit outside at cafes. Hotel and resort feral cat populations that the workers know by name at this point. I’ve seen it all. There’s just nothing like it in the US. Maybe in Key West at hemingways old home, I’m told.
  - jibbit 3y ago
    I have no idea if it’s accurate, but would suggest that if it isn’t, then neither is the number of birds they supposedly kill a year

dreamcompiler 3y ago

Side issue but this is why arguments against wind turbines "because they kill birds" are never spoken in good faith. Yes, wind turbines kill birds. Collisions with vehicles kill 1000 times more birds than wind turbines do. Collisions with glass buildings kill 3 times more still. And cats kill 4 times more still [0]. Wind turbine bird deaths are deep in the noise as sources of bird deaths. Yes, we should keep trying to reduce that number further. But if we really care about saving birds we have a lot more dirty laundry than wind turbines. [0] https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds

arcticbull 3y ago
Yep and both windmill and glass collisions are an easy fix. I believe it was black stripes on the windmill blades and UV stickers on glass.