The First Cat War | Hacker News Reader

The First Cat War

birdhistory.substack.com

> 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.

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.

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.

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

"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...

>> 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.

Unless the rat is infected with Toxoplasma gondii, which makes them attracted to the smell of cat urine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Rodents

Can confirm. We had a cat, at a shared house in San Francisco, which our landlord (mainly to be a jerk) forced us to get rid of. Rats immediately appeared, rummaging through our pantry and tearing up our clothes. I remember one cheekily glaring at me from a piece of furniture in the hallway. They were wood rats, quite fortunately, so kind of cute and not particularly disease-ridden, but absolutely a nuisance.

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.

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.

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 :)

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations

> 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).

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.

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.

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

All cats spend most of their day sleeping.

It is true that cats thrive when engaged. But it's very possible to engage indoor cats.

Not in the same way.

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.

I think you're anthropomorphizing housecats a bit here. A housecat who gets multiple square meals of catfood a day, played with, gets to cuddle with their owner or other cats, and sleeps safely in the sun for 3/4 of the day will live a happier and longer [1] life than an outdoor cat.

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

Just reporting what I've noticed from my own cats. There's an entire aspect of their personality that doesn't come out when they are restricted to indoors. I don't think it's possible to fully replicate what cats get from being outdoors, but a lot of people convince themselves it is.

Of course going outside is dangerous for cats. It's dangerous for people too but we still do it.

It's not the same kind of dangerous.

> and the alertness in its eyes makes me realise that it has a much higher standard of living than my roommate's

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.

he wasn't skittish, he just took interest in the world around him

I don't think "alertness observed in eyes" is not an empirical measure of life quality as disease, lifespan, diet and temperament are generally considered.

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.

Can you provide articles I can read to update myself?

Certainly. Here are a few articles from reputable sources:

- 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.

Thanks for these -- I guess supervised outdoor activities might be good compromise

Making cat not do something is really difficult

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

We train dogs but we negotiate with cats.

Or, as a cat-loving friend of mine succinctly sums up the difference between dogs and cats and their relationship to us:

Dog: The humans feed me; they must be God.

Cat: The humans feed me; I must be God.

Counterpoint: Cats yell at you when it rains, because they have observed you make the rain (in the shower) start, therefore, you are a God that can control the weather.

I really liked a line in that Nope movie:

"He got caught up trying to tame a predator. You can't do that. You got to enter an agreement with one."

Dogs are also predators. Quite a lot of large dog breeds should not be kept with cats, because they have enough prey drive that the cat will be in very grave danger. Dogs were historically bred for ratting and gophering.

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.

Dogs are also pack animals (as wolves) and so they can be trained easier by abusing the pack instincts, even unintentionally.

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.

Dogs are pack predators. They know that to succeed they must be part of a cooperating team, so they instinctively work towards group harmony.

Cats are solitary predators. Any other predator is just a competitor for the same resources.

Would be easier to make cat not

Making cat owner do something is really difficult

It is pretty easy to keep a cat indoors.

Add kids to the mix.

Any cat with a strong interest in getting outside will now do so several times a year.

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.

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.

Big cats might be apex predators, normal house cats are just predators/prey.

Cat management is something worth working on; it's kind of annoying that many places don't have free spay/neuter locations.

I think that's exactly what I said...

They are the apex predators of their particular size (big cats or small cats).

No. Small domestic dogs like terriers routinely kill cats. I've seen both a fox and a hawk kill a cat. The fox was perhaps slightly larger but not much; you maybe could say the hawk was 'bigger' by wingspan only but couldn't have weighed more than a third what the cat weighed. Owls take cats as well.

Cats are just predators.

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/

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

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

All Tibbles had to do was eat the last one (or the second to last).

Tibbles was the first cat brought to the island, and she had kittens, hence the feral cats.

Tibbles didn't kill them all, but bringing Tibbles doomed the species.

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