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If you’re going to quote, make it an accurate quote :) I didn’t say per year. And the amounts of animals killed by pet cats are very much not accepted as 5. May

If you’re going to quote, make it an accurate quote :) I didn’t say per year. And the amounts of animals killed by pet cats are very much not accepted as 5. Maybe you’re presented with 5. “Cats have played a leading role in most of Australia’s 34 mammal extinctions since 1788, and are a big reason populations of at least 123 other threatened native species are dropping. But pet cats are wreaking havoc too. Our new analysis compiles the results of 66 different studies on pet cats to gauge the impact of Australia’s pet cat population on Australia’s wildlife. On average, each roaming pet cat kills 186 reptiles, birds and mammals per year, most of them native to Australia” https://www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/news-and-media/latest-news/one-cat-one-year-110-native-animals-lock-up-your-pet-it-s-a-killing-machine https://www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/news-and-media/late... “scientific evidence does not support the popular use of cats to control urban rat populations, and ecologists oppose their use for this purpose because of the disproportionate harm they do to native wildlife” “Surveys of cat owners find they often view the depredation of wildlife as a normal thing that cats do, and rarely feel an individual obligation to prevent it.[55] They may experience some level of cognitive dissonance toward the subject, because when surveyed they're more likely than the general public to believe that cat predation isn't harmful to wildlife” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife

ajb 2y ago
My apologies, I misread your comment. I think it's safe to say that the number of animals killed by pet cats is disputed. It will also be quite different in different places; my figures come from my area. The situation is also very different in Australia, where cats are a recent introduction, and the native population is naive to them, versus countries where this is not the case. I certainly don't defend letting cats outside in Australia or New Zealand. In other places it's more a question about equilibrium. All wild animals die, either from predation, starvation, or disease; predation may not be the worse death. Nor is predation necessarily a sign of disequilibrium (IE, cats causing a falling wildlife population) - at equilibrium it's still possible for 100% of deaths to be by predation, as the older animals get slower and are predated. The exact effect of pet cats is therefore quite involved, and counting the number of kills won't tell you the whole picture even if you could get that figure.
- richardw 2y ago
  No problem. And you’re right it’s never simple. If cats weren’t there, native animals would be doing the predation. We enable cats to out-compete other animals. Islands make it easier to measure the impact but obviously this plays out similarly in all places. We like cats, help them where we can, have devoted much of our internet bandwidth to them, and there’s no way that is a positive for other animals in the ecosystem. The level of impact is debatable but it’s not anywhere near positive. I lived in South Africa. Tons of cats in cities and very few species of birds. Go to a reserve with “proper” wildlife and there are tons of bird species and no cats. They’re utterly out-competed when the playing field is level. Going back to the article, if we feed pigeons they’ll increase in number until we get a new equilibrium. So our current state isn’t an act of god, and by doing more of the same we’ll just exacerbate the problem. Humane management is surely a better idea, like the fake eggs approach described by another commenter. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40771093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40771093)

ajb 2y ago

My apologies, I misread your comment. I think it's safe to say that the number of animals killed by pet cats is disputed. It will also be quite different in different places; my figures come from my area. The situation is also very different in Australia, where cats are a recent introduction, and the native population is naive to them, versus countries where this is not the case. I certainly don't defend letting cats outside in Australia or New Zealand. In other places it's more a question about equilibrium. All wild animals die, either from predation, starvation, or disease; predation may not be the worse death. Nor is predation necessarily a sign of disequilibrium (IE, cats causing a falling wildlife population) - at equilibrium it's still possible for 100% of deaths to be by predation, as the older animals get slower and are predated. The exact effect of pet cats is therefore quite involved, and counting the number of kills won't tell you the whole picture even if you could get that figure.

richardw 2y ago
No problem. And you’re right it’s never simple. If cats weren’t there, native animals would be doing the predation. We enable cats to out-compete other animals. Islands make it easier to measure the impact but obviously this plays out similarly in all places. We like cats, help them where we can, have devoted much of our internet bandwidth to them, and there’s no way that is a positive for other animals in the ecosystem. The level of impact is debatable but it’s not anywhere near positive. I lived in South Africa. Tons of cats in cities and very few species of birds. Go to a reserve with “proper” wildlife and there are tons of bird species and no cats. They’re utterly out-competed when the playing field is level. Going back to the article, if we feed pigeons they’ll increase in number until we get a new equilibrium. So our current state isn’t an act of god, and by doing more of the same we’ll just exacerbate the problem. Humane management is surely a better idea, like the fake eggs approach described by another commenter. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40771093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40771093)