The First Cat War(birdhistory.substack.com) |
The First Cat War(birdhistory.substack.com) |
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.
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.
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...
We’ve also owned a couple “suburban” Chartreaux cats specifically bred to hunt rats. Fearsome beasts that hunted nothing but kibble in reality.
...
>> 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.
I dutifully collected confirmation and quotes from exterminators, and forwarded them to our landlord, along with a note saying, "look, we never saw these while the cat was here, how about you let us send back the pet deposit you forcibly refunded [yeah, he'd known about the cat all along; he'd found a loophole, and I told you he was doing it to be a jerk], and we bring him back?" He did. We did. We never saw another rat.
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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 :)
> Birds and larger mammals that eat insects can be directly affected by the decline.
Yeah yeah Wikipedia is not a source or evidence but it's a good enough starting point.
Pollution, global warming, ecosystem destruction, etc is causing bug population collapse which is at the basis of the food chain, including birds.
Cats may be part of the problem, but they are not /the/ problem. Compare also with the claims that windmills cause bird deaths (https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/do-wind-turbines-kill-birds).
See also https://theconversation.com/dont-blame-cats-for-destroying-w...
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.
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.
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
It is true that cats thrive when engaged. But it's very possible to engage indoor cats.
If you believe that you have reasonably significant information to the contrary of the general consensus of Veterinary Science, I implore you to publish your research and begin the conversation so that more cats are treated better.
If, however, you realize that your hunch is simply anthropomorphism of a domesticated animal, I would ask you to reconsidered your preconceived notion.
Or else the alertness in his eyes may indicate the number of times he has come close to dying.
I would guess a lot of kids in war torn parts of the world have more alertness in their eyes than kids in the US or EU, but it wouldn’t indicate a higher standard of living.
We train dogs but we negotiate with cats.
Dog: The humans feed me; they must be God.
Cat: The humans feed me; I must be God.
"He got caught up trying to tame a predator. You can't do that. You got to enter an agreement with one."
Making cat owner do something is really difficult
Any cat with a strong interest in getting outside will now do so several times a year.
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.
Not that my cats don't think they're top of the food chain.
Cat management is something worth working on; it's kind of annoying that many places don't have free spay/neuter locations.
Tibbles didn't kill them all, but bringing Tibbles doomed the species.
Cats are just predators.
I'm thinking the reason dogs don't go for birds is that the birds are too small and fast; dogs are predators, but they aren't ambush predators like cats.
Cats are solitary and so even if you get them to not do something in front of you, once you're out of sight they'll quickly revert to doing whatever it is they want to do.
Cats are solitary predators. Any other predator is just a competitor for the same resources.
- https://spca.bc.ca/faqs/indoor-cats-vs-outdoor-cats/
- https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/resource/are-outdoor-cat...
- https://www.banfield.com/en/Wellness-at-banfield/kitten-hub/...
And because I found it interesting, this study that aligns more with your point of view that concluded that cats who are allowed to roam do get more intellectual fulfillment than indoor-only cats on average: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10451177/
I would also like to note that I have seen firsthand how much cats infected with FIV and FeLV suffer when not actively treated, and all other considerations aside, I would never let my cats roam outside without a leash because of the prevalence of those diseases alone.
I've had indoor and outdoor cats. And I've had indoor cats that we started letting outside. The change in their behavior when they have access to the outdoors is palpable. They come alive in a very obvious and dramatic way.
This isn't really surprising when you stop and think about it. We seldom make the argument that zoo animals are living their best lives compared to their wild cousins despite the objectively safer conditions of a zoo.
Now, you have to still mind your indoor cat. They need stimulation (look up "eat hunt bathe sleep") and attention and a good diet and cat-friendly environment. But give them that, and there's really no argument that being outdoors is obviously better. It's more that the outdoors gives some of that stuff by default, so compared to a cat owner who doesn't fully invest in their cat, maybe there's a case.
But if you understand cats, you get that that "coming alive" isn't some "free at last" sort of thing.
[1] Outdoor cats die way earlier than indoor cats
Of course going outside is dangerous for cats. It's dangerous for people too but we still do it.