The First Cat War

[zachmu]

> A paper that appeared in Nature in 2013 put the number of birds killed by cats in North America at somewhere between 1.3 and 4.0 billion birds every year, a total that is mostly driven by unowned cats.32 If this figure were accurate — a big if — it would dwarf the toll of every other direct cause of human-driven bird mortality.

The chart which follows this quote does not include "habitat loss" among the "direct causes" of human-driven bird mortality, which is an odd framing considering its undeniable impact. Humans replace forests and prairies with residences and roads and monoculture crops, then blame cats for why there aren't enough birds around. Sure cats aren't exactly helping the situation but it seems bizarre to lay the blame at their feet like this.

[sixothree]

I feel like I can’t travel on a rural road for more than an hour without seeing a dead bird in the road. Never mind all of the pesticides we use. After some neighbors complained, the mosquito spray truck ran our neighborhood three times in a row. The next day I found 5 dead blue jays in and around my yard. My blue jays still haven’t returned. I think they killed the entire flock.

[photochemsyn]

Dynamic ecosystems need predators, but this isn't an argument in favor of letting pets roam outdoors - it's an argument in favor of not hunting, trapping or otherwise killing foxes, true wild cats, and coyotes. Moving up the ladder into mountain lions, wolves and grizzly bears does fill people with rising alarm (while there is an active movement to protect mountain lions and re-introduce wolves to California, I have yet to see any 'bring back the Grizzly' proposals, even though it's on the state flag - and mountain lions are enough to keep deer populations in check).

From an ecosystem perspective, cats are very successful hunters (the record for % of hunts that end in success is held by a small African wild cat^), but if there's a healthy coyote population in the vicinity, feral cats quickly become scarce (as do any overly fat squirrels).

^ https://youtu.be/nl8o9PsJPAQ

Crows and ravens predate on baby birds and nestlings, but again this is a dynamic ecosystem norm. A backyard birdfeeder for songbirds tends to draw bird-hunting hawks too, which is fine, they're incredibly acrobatic and watching them hunt is quite the show - plus, natural (unsubsidized) predation removes the chaff from the wheat, improving the songbird population genetics. Young hawks in turn may be hunted by owls.

That's nature for you - and an argument for not letting pets roam outdoors unsupervised. Additionally, letting cats eat wild animals tends to lead to internal parasites, fleas, viruses etc.

[bombcar]

Arguably the problem really isn't the cats so much as it is removing all the things that would eat feral cats.

[praptak]

"Most cats were considered working animals, and were expected to rid houses and barns of mice and rats"

Cats don't generally hunt rats[0]. Before modern pest control the working animal to kill rats was a dog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Terrier

[0] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2018.00146...

[mlhpdx]

Our farm cats certainly did hunt rats, and rodents were a far larger part of their diet than birds. Rabbits, too. Never a chicken (in the article) - I can’t imagine a cat hunting a chicken unless the cat was exceptionally large and healthy.

We’ve also owned a couple “suburban” Chartreaux cats specifically bred to hunt rats. Fearsome beasts that hunted nothing but kibble in reality.

[rufus_foreman]

>> An animal shelter in Chicago has released 1,000 feral cats throughout the city to combat a rat crisis.

...

>> While the deployed felines will sometimes kill rats, the mere presence of these repurposed alley cats is usually enough to scare off pests.

-- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/14/chicago-fera...

To a rat, a house with a cat that probably won't kill it is less attractive than a house with no cat.

[nullstyle]

My understanding is that the dirty little secret of these types of articles is that many song birds actually die because of the harshness of winter (and from what I gather, growing occurence of extreme weather events.) Unfortunately, that is much harder to study that than killing and cataloging the gut contents of some stray cats and doing some statistics.

---

That said, keep your cat indoors and spread cat-proof nesting boxes for your local bird friends around your community. you don't have to pick sides :)

[permo-w]

do you have any evidence for this "dirty little secret"?

[pg_1234]

Articles from 1916 and 1923 are not necessarily the "best source of truth".

Understanding of "the facts" evolves with hindsight.

After all ... Adolf Hitler was Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938, and Joseph Stalin featured twice 1939, 1942.

Times change.

[devmor]

If you love cats, keep your cat indoors. They are quite happy when provided for - especially if you've got two.

My wife works full time at a nonprofit no-kill shelter, and the amount of sick and miserable cats that come in rescued from the outdoors is mind boggling. Strays do not live happy (or very lengthy) lives.

If you have strays around, consider enrolling in your local TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) program, to help lower the population, as spayed males still hold territory and prevent intact males from breeding.

If the strays are friendly, consider contacting your local no-kill shelter and seeing if they can take them in to be cared for and put up for adoption.

[tetris11]

My old roommate has two british shorthairs, they're basically his kids. They live on the top floor of a four floor house, and never leave the 50m² apartment. They spend their days sleeping and doing not much else.

Down on the street, a neighbour also has a shorthair, almost an identical clone to my roommates. The cat has free reign of the neighbourhood, and the alertness in its eyes makes me realise that it has a much higher standard of living than my roommate's

[qiine]

Making cat not do something is really difficult

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

Can't remember where I heard it but it rings true:

We train dogs but we negotiate with cats.

[01HNNWZ0MV43FF]

Would be easier to make cat not

Making cat owner do something is really difficult

[cortesoft]

It is pretty easy to keep a cat indoors.

[coolThingsFirst]

They are the funniest creatures on earth. Manipulative, hilariously small, arrogant and lazy.

Yet apex predators, god must have a sense of humour.

They went as far as manipulating prophet in islam so he placed them as ritually pure and a sign of faith for people who like them.

Christians killed them so bubonic plague came and ravaged europe. Coincidence, I think not.

[kjs3]

Cats (domestic ones, at least, and most that aren't 'big cats') aren't apex predators; those are predators with virtually no predators of their own. Cats are predators, but lots of things eat cats.

Not that my cats don't think they're top of the food chain.

[samatman]

The last paragraph is one of those commonly-believed things which did not, in fact, happen. https://going-medieval.com/2023/05/16/on-cats/

[EdwardDiego]

Reminder that a cat named Tibbles once rendered an entire species of New Zealand wren extinct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyall%27s_wren

[Nextgrid]

The article itself seems to disprove this? It wasn't all caused by a single cat.