[jonmc12]

> The U.S North American Bird Conservation Initiative estimates that our pet felines kill some 2.6 billion birds annually in the U.S. alone.

The 100M pet cats in US on average kill 26 birds/yr? Doesn't seem right. When I track the source[1] of research, the estimates include both "own" and "unowned" cats and rely on some assumptions like "a correction factor to account for owned cats not returning all prey to owners", amongst others.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380.pdf

[micromacrofoot]

26 a year for an outdoor cat honestly seems low to me… that’s 1 every other week. I had one cat that I started keeping inside because it was approaching one per day.

Without us they’d be doing this for sustenance, so in theory multiple kills a day.

[damnedspot]

Worse than for sustenance: I've read that about 2/3 of animals cats kill aren't eaten. They're doing it for sport...

[cheese_goddess]

Yes, but cats and birds have existed together for, I don't know, millions of years? Without cats causing a mass extinction of birds. And why is that?

[pirate787]

Agree, we have an indoor/outdoor cat, he's fixed and usually has a bell collar on, and he still kills more than 26 birds and mice a year.

[rowathay]

It’s an estimate based on fairly thorough research, which includes attaching collar cameras to outdoor cats. The carnage they wreak is impressive.

Cats belong indoors, period.

[colechristensen]

It seems like this is just narrative based judgment. Everyone is all about how reintroduced wolves are so great for XYZ because predators do so many good things for environments and prey dynamics but cats in the environment are bad for ABC and they kill all the birds, etc.

Most of the places which aren’t islands had predators in roughly the housecat niche before human civilization and many of those are lost.

I think it’s just the opposition by agriculture for wolves and the fact that people aren’t as affectionate for their prey which makes the “wolves good” narrative and people like birds and feel good about blaming humans so there’s “cats bad” narrative.

It probably doesn’t matter, your suburban cats are killing birds in a habitat that humans already destroyed by putting a suburb there.

If you want to make a difference to offset some cat activity plant native pollinator friendly plants and trees and shrubs that bear fruit for birds. You’ll make much more difference building habitat than complaining into the void.

[PeterisP]

This seems quite plausible, it's consistent with e.g. 90% of cats killing nothing and 10% of cats killing less than a bird/egg per day - and an outdoors cat can do much more than that.

[trhway]

> When I track the source[1] of research

Ah, the famous anti-cat "study" (giving its huge glaring deficiencies it is more like propaganda pamphlet) by Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center where a postdoc got convicted several years ago for animal cruelty committed toward cats! That is really objective people without agenda... Would you take seriously for example a study by child molesters on societal benefits of child molestation?

[elihu]

That sounds plausible. Cats can be very effective predators.