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In the United States alone, outdoor cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year:https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/ https://abcbi

In the United States alone, outdoor cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year:https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/ https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/

bombcar 3y ago
TIL there were 2.4 billion birds in the USA.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  There were, before cats killed them.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    At 60 million cats in the USA, each is killing 40 birds a year, or about once a week. Furry killing machines each and every one. But some sites say that there are an additional 40 million feral cats, and that the "owned cats" are 80% indoor-only. Tom and Jerry tried to warn us.
    - orwin 3y ago
      My father managed to 'adopt' a feral cat that should have been 1-2 yo at the time. That cat used to kill up to three birds a day from April to September, and even with cats food and a bell, managed to regularly catch birds. He even killed a magpie once (he's a thick boy). If the population of feral cat is really 40 million, 2 billions killed seems a bit low.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        At some point a cat's gotta eat, and if they're feral they're eating animals or garbage, mainly. I don't know how much of a cat's diet "in the wild" can be plant-based. But I suspect you have a small number of cats that are just murder machines, some that eat birds to stay alive, and the vast majority of fat housecats that just eat chickens via a giant grinder at the pet food store.
tehwebguy 3y ago
This is one widely accepted statistic that I actively refuse to believe.
- enraged_camel 3y ago
  Doesn’t make it any less real. I know it stuns people though, especially when they first hear it.
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    Because, it's implausible. How do you even measure a thing like that? It seems made-up, and probabaly is.
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  Cognitive dissonance. The only one you're fooling is yourself. ;)
- TheBigSalad 3y ago
  I agree. Everything about the number makes no sense. It assumes there are more cats than people and these cats are just killing machines. Maybe I just live in a bubble? I live outside of Boston and there are definitely fewer cats than people. There are very few stray cats, a small % compared to house cats. I let my cats outside on rare occasion, but almost nobody else I know does. I assure you my cats are not capable of killing birds. They just look in wonder. All in all, I've had about 30 cat years of ownership and there is maybe 1 dead bird altogether (RIP Frisky). I don't really know what's going on in other parts of the country. Are there stray cats just roaming the forests? I can't imagine why anyone would have incentive to exaggerate these numbers though.
  - Jka9rhnDJos 3y ago
    According to the study linked in the article, > Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. So, we should start culling feral cats. The statistic about extinct birds was done in Australia, and included foxes, stoats, rats, and other small mammals, as “alien predators” contributing to the killing of birds in Australia.
samuelclemenss 3y ago
Just to put that in perspective, that's like 400 holocausts every single year. Abhorrent.
- arghwhat 3y ago
  Just imagine how many worms those cats indirectly saved - A wormocaust thousands times worse than the birdocaust.
- arrowsmith 3y ago
  Just to put that in perspective, birds getting eaten by cats is not remotely comparable to the systematic industrial murder of millions of innocent human beings, and equating the two is preposterous.
makeitdouble 3y ago
Those are probably not the same birds.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  Odds are excellent that any bird killed by a cat also won't be killed by a wind turbine. Less facetiously, it's interesting that the turbine birds are somehow more valuable or special. I would imagine that would be easy to prove, and I would expect to see a lot of "America-hating wind turbines murder 100,000 Bald Eagles a year" but for some reason I never see that.
  - coremoff 3y ago
    I think this is a combination of kind-hearted, but contextually unaware, people shocked that wind turbines can kill birds, and bad-faith attempts to stigmatise wind turbines for disingeneous (or at least biased) reasons. Others have pointed out that there probably is a difference in the kinds of birds killed by cats vs wind turbines, but I've not seen any report breaking down the deaths by species (not that I've looked).
- jansan 3y ago
  You can kill a bird only once (unlike a cat).

bombcar 3y ago

TIL there were 2.4 billion birds in the USA.

BurningFrog 3y ago
There were, before cats killed them.
- bombcar 3y ago
  At 60 million cats in the USA, each is killing 40 birds a year, or about once a week. Furry killing machines each and every one. But some sites say that there are an additional 40 million feral cats, and that the "owned cats" are 80% indoor-only. Tom and Jerry tried to warn us.
  - orwin 3y ago
    My father managed to 'adopt' a feral cat that should have been 1-2 yo at the time. That cat used to kill up to three birds a day from April to September, and even with cats food and a bell, managed to regularly catch birds. He even killed a magpie once (he's a thick boy). If the population of feral cat is really 40 million, 2 billions killed seems a bit low.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      At some point a cat's gotta eat, and if they're feral they're eating animals or garbage, mainly. I don't know how much of a cat's diet "in the wild" can be plant-based. But I suspect you have a small number of cats that are just murder machines, some that eat birds to stay alive, and the vast majority of fat housecats that just eat chickens via a giant grinder at the pet food store.

tehwebguy 3y ago

This is one widely accepted statistic that I actively refuse to believe.

enraged_camel 3y ago
Doesn’t make it any less real. I know it stuns people though, especially when they first hear it.
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Because, it's implausible. How do you even measure a thing like that? It seems made-up, and probabaly is.
1letterunixname 3y ago
Cognitive dissonance. The only one you're fooling is yourself. ;)
TheBigSalad 3y ago
I agree. Everything about the number makes no sense. It assumes there are more cats than people and these cats are just killing machines. Maybe I just live in a bubble? I live outside of Boston and there are definitely fewer cats than people. There are very few stray cats, a small % compared to house cats. I let my cats outside on rare occasion, but almost nobody else I know does. I assure you my cats are not capable of killing birds. They just look in wonder. All in all, I've had about 30 cat years of ownership and there is maybe 1 dead bird altogether (RIP Frisky). I don't really know what's going on in other parts of the country. Are there stray cats just roaming the forests? I can't imagine why anyone would have incentive to exaggerate these numbers though.
- Jka9rhnDJos 3y ago
  According to the study linked in the article, > Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. So, we should start culling feral cats. The statistic about extinct birds was done in Australia, and included foxes, stoats, rats, and other small mammals, as “alien predators” contributing to the killing of birds in Australia.

samuelclemenss 3y ago

Just to put that in perspective, that's like 400 holocausts every single year. Abhorrent.

arghwhat 3y ago
Just imagine how many worms those cats indirectly saved - A wormocaust thousands times worse than the birdocaust.
arrowsmith 3y ago
Just to put that in perspective, birds getting eaten by cats is not remotely comparable to the systematic industrial murder of millions of innocent human beings, and equating the two is preposterous.

makeitdouble 3y ago

Those are probably not the same birds.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
Odds are excellent that any bird killed by a cat also won't be killed by a wind turbine. Less facetiously, it's interesting that the turbine birds are somehow more valuable or special. I would imagine that would be easy to prove, and I would expect to see a lot of "America-hating wind turbines murder 100,000 Bald Eagles a year" but for some reason I never see that.
- coremoff 3y ago
  I think this is a combination of kind-hearted, but contextually unaware, people shocked that wind turbines can kill birds, and bad-faith attempts to stigmatise wind turbines for disingeneous (or at least biased) reasons. Others have pointed out that there probably is a difference in the kinds of birds killed by cats vs wind turbines, but I've not seen any report breaking down the deaths by species (not that I've looked).
jansan 3y ago
You can kill a bird only once (unlike a cat).