This article calls trap-neuter-release (TNR) a "controversial" practice, whereas it's well established and proven to be effective (something even this article says).
A few years back, they ran a full-blown frontal assault[1] on Google's volunteer-ran TNR program, gCat, blaming the TNR program (and only the TNR program) for the decline of the local burrowing owl population.
This led to Google forcing the shut-down of the employee-ran TNR program, and extermination of the remaining neutered cats that couldn't be immediately adopted.
To say that this was devastating to people involved is an understatement.
Of course, this was utter nonsense. The decline of the burrowing owl population is well-studied, and in all cases I know of has been attributed to destruction of habitat - both in the Mountain View area and beyond it [2][3][4][5].
Preservation plans - when they even mention cats - put them dead last on the list of reasons.
The cause for extinction is simple. Burrowing owls need two things for their habitat:
(1) soft ground for the holes;
(2) other animals, like squirrels or prairie dogs, to dig holes for owls to burrow in.
I have a hunch that a certain Mountain View company rapidly expanding its campus circa 2018 wasn't conducive to preservation of the said habitat, and "kill all cats" was a simpler solution to the problem than halting construction[6] (also see: [7]).
But having an indignant NYT article as a justification for felicide has sealed the fate of the cats who got used to coming to the same place for food.
In the aftermath of the shutdown, the local feral cat population predictably exploded[8], and the burrowing owl population at Shoreline Park went down to zero[9].
The report says:
>Habitat loss and direct human disturbance have been the main observable factors for the population decline at this site.
Cats - feral or TNR'd - are not mentioned in the report.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/26/technology/google-cats-ow...
[2]http://www.elkhornsloughctp.org/uploads/files/1408724962Moun...
[3] https://mv-voice.com/news/2016/11/15/worries-over-dwindling-...
[4]https://mv-voice.com/news/2012/04/06/new-hope-for-citys-burr...
[5]https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb52268...
[6]https://www.whiskersproject.org/latest-news
[7]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36235779
[8]https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2021/11/16/feral-cats-in-mount...
[9]Page 11, https://www.scv-habitatagency.org/DocumentCenter/View/1387/S...
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TL;DR: NYT made Google kill all cats on Google campus.
I have provided extensive references for everything I said. Please read them before typing out your gut response.
While cats, in general, are a threat to birds, these particular cats were not a threat to these particular birds.
Cats usually won't tackle rats, this is even mentioned in the article.
Joking aside, cats aren't going to be very inclined to head into a lair to pick off their young.
For example, while cats might kill a lot of animals in settled areas like NYC that doesn't at all mean that species are endangered as a result of it. Birds don't exclusively live in human settlements and their continental populations might barely be affected by cats as there are sufficient areas outside of human settlements where feral cats are simply non-existent or at least not a problem.
Furthermore, the decline of birds is almost entirely human made - no one doubts this. Habitat loss and insect decline. Reducing the cat problem will simply not have a notable impact at all. Yes, millions of birds are killed by cats but what does that mean in the grand context if billions and billions of birds are killed by humans? It's a drop in the bucket and not worth the effort and I would ask ornithologists to name species that have been wiped out by wild cats in a continental context and not just from Smallstown, Minnesota.
Disclaimer: island scenarios like New Zealand are different due to the locality of the problem.
It's like trying to save ants from some dude stepping on their streets once a day while ignoring a ravaging fungus that is destroying the colony from the inside. But here you are, saying "not stepping on the ant street is also helpful!". Congrats to saving 10 ants while the colony is being decimated by a fungus.
I don't know of any "cat breeders". They are just a resilient species.
I suppose we could make some sort of "equity" system for species based on an arbitrary metric, but that's closer to playing God.
Birds can fly, not really fair to the feline species concerning which places it's allowed, eh?
Zero cats should be allowed to exist in NA?
No open borders for cats!?
Zero non neutered cat should be allowed to exist in North America, correct.
Same applies to humans of non-native descent, I presume?
In the EU, a 2021 study of 378 bird species estimated that bird numbers fell by as much as 19 percent from 1980 to 2017. And that's not because of cats, feral or not.
I think we both know this person isn't supporting TNR for humans, don't be silly
FTFY.
[2], p. 30: "Predation by nonnative and/or nuisance species. Predators, such as nonnative cats, dogs and foxes, as well as native crows and ravens, that are thriving in human-altered environments. The City policy of removing cats and foxes has been effective and beneficial for the burrowing owls."
[3]: "There are many factors that could explain the low numbers. The owls are ground-nesting, living in holes hollowed out by squirrels. That can leave them vulnerable to a long list of predators, including foxes, skunks and raccoons. Feral cats are considered the worst of the lot, preying on owls as well as the small birds and rodents that make up the owls' main food supply. In fact, a released cat last year ended up mauling one prolific male owl, Kleinhaus said."
[5] appears to concern burrowing owls in Black Hills National Forest, which is substantially different from Mountain View.
[9] does not call out cats specifically, but does recommend "[r]educing adult mortality rates by preventing the use of harmful rodenticides near occupied habitat and reducing the threat from non-native predators" on p. 22.
It appears you did not read the claim. Again:
Preservation plans - when they even mention cats - put them dead last on the list of reasons.
>[2], p. 30: "Predation by nonnative and/or nuisance species
YES, dead last, right after:
- Systematic and regular grading on a large scale destroys prime foraging and nesting habitat
- Insufficient high-quality foraging habitat
- Insufficient mowing during the breeding season to maintain nesting habitat
- Disturbance by vehicles going off-road, leading to erosion (of habitat)
- Formal and informal trails and unofficial roads in owl habitat
Notice anything common with al of the above?
>The City policy of removing cats and foxes has been effective and beneficial for the burrowing owls
Yeah, the city thinks it's doing a god job as the population went down to zero. Also, notice the foxes. Also, notice that these were not the neutered cats in Google's TNR program that were potentially dangerous. Also...
[3]: Great, evidence of one owl being mauled by a cat. Again, notice that this is the last thing mentioned.
[5]: Oh, so this is different. Just like feral, un-neutered cats roaming the city are different from neutered cats fed by Google's TNR proram. Anyway, again, cats aren't called out.
[9]: "does not call out cats specifically" - isn't that what I said?
Because Google is very PR-sensitive.
NYT articles had a big impact on what Google was doing.
But, someone in this thread made the very strong point that people will trap and collect cats for free if you're going to neuter and release them.
Granted TNR hasn't worked at all, but at least it's possible to stay elected while the program exists.
[citation neeeded]
People (not me) love their "friendly neighborhood" cats, but most of them recognize that allowing them to breed isn't ideal. Maybe you can convince them to nab them, bring them in, and have them neutered.
[1] says:
>The owls are endangered from many sides. One of the biggest threats uses the Shoreline golf course. A bleak Mountain View report three months ago noted there have been deaths “due to direct contact between golf balls and burrowing owls.”
They do not blame only cats. They discuss cats in particular but do mention there are other threats. I will grant that this one confusingly-worded paragraph is not enough background.
They also do not call for the killing of all cats. The article mostly criticizes the practice of feeding cats, not TNR or adoption.
[2] says:
>Feral cats are supreme predators and actively prey upon burrowing owls. One study in Florida found owl mortality by cats accounted for 30 percent of deaths (Millsap and Bear, 1988). Cats also impact burrowing owls indirectly by decimating small bird and rodent populations, reducing the available food supply for burrowing owls.
One suggested solution is to:
>Proactively discourage all feeding of cats in Shoreline
It is exactly the same message as the NYT article.
[3] calls out the threat of cats first and foremost.
>There are many factors that could explain the low numbers. The owls are ground-nesting, living in holes hollowed out by squirrels. That can leave them vulnerable to a long list of predators, including foxes, skunks and raccoons. Feral cats are considered the worst of the lot, preying on owls as well as the small birds and rodents that make up the owls' main food supply. In fact, a released cat last year ended up mauling one prolific male owl, Kleinhaus said.
>In the aftermath of the shutdown, the local feral cat population predictably exploded[8], and the burrowing owl population at Shoreline Park went down to zero[9].
You seem to acknowledge that the large cat population was in fact a threat to owls, but still object to the NYT story.
If that's the case, so do you.
>[1] do not blame only cats.
[1] is a direct attack piece on Google's TNR program. The entire article is centered on that. To say that they "do not blame only cats" is laughable. Who they actually blame is Google's employees who ran the TNR program.
>They also do not call for the killing of all cats
Ah, but isn't it neat? They don't say it, that's just the impact they want (and got).
See, the entire point of gCat feeding stations was attracting un-neutered feral cats, trapping them, and neutering them. That's the T and N of the TNR.
R stands for release. Why release? Because not all cats can be domesticated. gCat has adopted dozens of cats from the street, but not all cats were OK with that.
The call to "not feed" the cats meant an end to the TNR program, because it could not trap the cats. It also meant that the released cats kept coming back to campus, looking for food.
Lacking a TNR program, these cats were captured, then killed (because adoption was not an option for them).
>[2] says:
Oh, we're quoting [2]? Let's quote [2]. [2] lists the following threats:
- Systematic and regular grading on a large scale destroys prime foraging and nesting habitat
- Insufficient high-quality foraging habitat
- Insufficient mowing during the breeding season to maintain nesting habitat
- Disturbance by vehicles going off-road, leading to erosion (of habitat)
- Formal and informal trails and unofficial roads in owl habitat
Notice anything common with al of the above?
And yes, after all of the above, cats may also present a threat.
Not the gCat TNR program cats in particular. Cats in general.
>One suggested solution is to: "Proactively discourage all feeding of cats in Shoreline"
...not differentiating feeding feral cats, and feeding stations in the TNR program.
It's infuriating that you accuse me of misrepresenting truth.
>You seem to acknowledge that the large cat population was in fact a threat to owls, but still object to the NYT story.
Large, uncontrolled, feral cat population is a problem.
Google's volunteer-ran TNR problem was a solution to that. Many cats were adopted (over 50, IIRC, the website has since gone down). The ones that were not adopted were neutered, and their romaing range was made smaller as they (predictably) returned to the feeding stations, instead of roaming freely.
The NYT story specifically attacks the TNR program, and misrepresents it as the problem.
Oops, you forgot one:
- Predation by nonnative and/or nuisance species
>And yes, after all of the above, cats may also present a threat.
You seem to think it's very important this bullet point is last, but there is nothing in the source that suggests items are listed in order of importance. Even if there were the order is not consistent in all parts of the report.
Why are you reading tea leaves when the authors say, explicitly and repeatedly, that cats are a serious threat?
I think it's important to know that there are five other threats listed, all of them having to do with destruction of habitat.
That's to drive the point home that destruction of habitat has a much higher impact than anything else - including predators.
>There is nothing in the source that suggests items are listed in order of importance.
The content of the bullet points suggests that. They are listed in the order of impact on habitats.
The bullet point following the "predation" bullet point is "future possible threats".
>Why are you reading tea leaves when the authors say, explicitly and repeatedly, that cats are a serious threat?
Because the authorities don't provide any hard data on that.
But let's not read tea leaves, indeed. The most important point is that the gap between cats, in general, may be a threat to Google's specific cats are a threat has never been filled.
It's solid logic:
- Some cats threaten owls
- The animals fed by gCat TNR volunteers are cats
- Therefore, gCat threatens owls
Do you see a problem here?
My sides.
NYT didn't "make" Google do anything. They published an article which may or not be correct and then the Google people made their own choices.
South of there is Shoreline Amphitheatre, north is the golf course, and east is more park, plus a restaurant. None of that changed at all, as of 2017. The owls were gone long before that. Unfortunately I don't recall exactly when I stopped seeing them.
Often they would just sit and stare at me, even though I was only 15 or so feet away. So I can easily believe that predators got them, maybe even cats; it seems being more skittish would be more adaptive. I've also seen snakes in there.
[3] says "Humans can also be a big nuisance for the owls. City parks staffers have installed signs and fencing to cordon off sensitive areas, but hikers sometimes go trailblazing. Shoreline Park prohibits dogs except in an off-leash zone near the entrance, yet some people still untether their canines in other parts of the park."
This is completely unsubstantiated and just plain wrong, from my experience. People do not go "trailblazing" and off-leash dogs are just not a thing.
"a certain Mountain View company rapidly expanding its campus circa 2018" -- you have outed yourself here. Google did not expand into the habitat area at all.