Probably best to keep your cats inside even if you do get another one, considering the devastating effect they have as an invasive species on local wildlife. [1]
That aside, you yourself, as a human, are an invasive species that kills tons of animals indirectly through your habits each year, should you thus be enclosed 24 hours a day? Cats killing off random birds. The ship of human intervention in the ecosystem has long since sailed, and blaming cat owners for a relatively tiny part of it is an absurdity in badly applied blame.
Unfortunately, that's not true. There was a study by some academics in Britain a few years° ago that showed effectively no difference in hunting success rates between belled and un-belled cats. The explanation is that cats are ambush predators, so once they (very quickly) learn how to stalk (they're moving slowly, anyway) without ringing the bell, their quarry doesn't hear the bell until they pounce, when it's (mostly) too late.
They were specifically looking at songbirds, as I recall. Maybe success rates for rodents are different - though that'd hardly be a good thing, because we generally want cats to kill mice and rats!
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[On reflection]: Based on where I remember I was living when I read it, this was over a decade ago. (Where does time go?) There may have been updates since.
Concern for native birds and small mammals which are a keystone part of our ecosystems is not futile. They support literally everything required for human survival (carbon cycle, water, cycle, nitrogen cycle, pollination, sea dispersal, pollution control, etc) directly, and indirectly by their behaviors which have coevolved for millions of years. Invasive, feral cats, just like humans have only been here for a very short window of time, and while there are still native birds and mammals and plants left to care for, we can and should support them by minimizing the wonton carnage and death which we unleash each year. You’re probably aware that in North America alone feral cats kill between 10 and 30 billion native birds and small mammals a year. Euthanasia instead of trap neuter release is not a sailed ship. Planting native (human intervention) and undoing the lawns (human intervention) that have destroyed our native ecosystems is not a sailed ship. There is hope and it is exciting to work towards this in your own community and I hope you come to see that. The results (insects return, the soil enriches and traps carbon, and birds you've never seen before sing on your back porch in the morning) are nearly immediate and heartwarming
Edit: typo
and how many of those birds and mammals were old and ill and would be killed by other predators in similar situation in non-developed areas? Why didn't you specify that comparative number? May be because that would have shown that the cats are just doing the job of other predators pushed out by humans?
Btw, the cats kill up to 4 billion birds annually. At the same time 3.5 billion birds die hitting glass of the buildings. Cats kill old/ill. The birds hitting building aren't majority old/ill. Thus killings by cats are mostly beneficial to the bird species while glass buildings make tremendous damage to the bird species.
Cats being an invasive species in most places on earth means that most bird species have not evolved with them as a natural predator, and so are at an innate disadvantage.
And yes, birds hitting man made structures is a major problem. There can be two bad things at once. Just because there are two bad things doesn't mean we give up tackling one or the other.
it is well established pattern of predation in the Nature. Again, you specified the total number without providing the old/ill number. The relation of those numbers can completely change the conclusion, and i can only wonder why you didn't provide the old/ill number.
>Cats being an invasive species in most places on earth
What planet "earth" you're talking about? On the 3rd planet from Sun the wild cats are practically everywhere. And in the places where there are no cats, there are still similar predators - ferrets, foxes, etc.
>And yes, birds hitting man made structures is a major problem. There can be two bad things at once.
No 2 bad things here. Predation by cats is natural, and thus mostly good, in the Nature-way, for the species being predated upon. The man made structures are really bad as i described in my previous comment. Yet somehow you want to tackle the first and not the second.
I claimed billions of birds are killed each year by cats and provided a source (and there exist many more).
> Again, you specified the total number without providing the old/ill number. The relation of those numbers can completely change the conclusion, and i can only wonder why you didn't provide the old/ill number.
You claimed they kill mainly the sick and old birds but provide no sources for this claim, then attack my source for not containing the proof you failed to provide.
> On the 3rd planet from Sun the wild cats are practically everywhere.
So are rats. Would you call them a native species in places like Hawaii? No, neither are cats.
> somehow you want to tackle the first and not the second
Because this thread is about cats, not buildings. This is just changing the subject when your argument won’t stand up to scrutiny.
>I claimed billions of birds are killed each year by cats
you claimed it is a bad thing. Where is the proof for your claim?
>provided a source
Smithsonian with that felon convicted for animal cruelty toward cats.
>So are rats. Would you call them a native species in places like Hawaii? No, neither are cats
Hawaii take how much percent of Earth?
And the main invasive species is humans. The humans invade and change the environment, and the cats are actually natural in that new environment.
Do you have a citation for this? Are you comparing North American cat deaths to worldwide building collisions? Estimates I'm seeing of North American center around 600 million, a far cry from deaths due to cats.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/birds-win...
>a far cry from deaths due to cats.
No, they are about the same. The 3.5 billion is the top estimate similar to how 4 billion is top estimate for killed by cats. The lower estimates in both cases around 1 billion something.
FWIW 3.5 billion is not the top estimate, although I'm not sure how to interpret the way the estimate is stated ("annual mortality may be minimally 1.28 billion–3.46 billion or as high as 1.92 billion–5.19 billion"). What does it mean to have a range for each end of the range? The author only quotes the absolute lowest number from the study in press about it (see https://www.lehighvalleynews.com/environment-science/3-5-mil...), but maybe is just preferring to be conservative.
Feel free to smugly tell me that same thing whenever some animal or human you love is killed off by some element of nature. Its also hypocritical: Your comfortable, modern existence is absolutely, wholly the product of a colossal bending and crushing of nature to human will that let you sit at a laptop or on your phone and complain about people who simply recognize this practical reality in a more direct and basic context.
Also, I have no problem with culling feral cats and dogs if their populations can't also be controlled with more humane things like sterilization campaigns. Why let them starve and suffer pointlessly?
>[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
You're posting an article by the Smithsonian department employing that felon convicted for animal cruelty toward cats.
Wrt. the article itself - it has pretty much no scientific merits as, not surprisingly given the authors' agenda, the article has an obvious fundamental flaw disqualifying it from science - it doesn't specify how many of that wildlife killed by cats were old/ill who would be anyway killed by other predators if it were a natural setting and not a developed area where the only predators left are cats.
If we to believe the article's total numbers then it would really mean what the cats are just doing the job of other predators pushed out by humans. Killing the old/ill birds, reptiles, mammals by predators is good for those birds, reptiles, mammals species. (and around humans say an old/ill bird not killed by cats would become a dead bird and a food for rats or something like this)
My SO would occasionally unleash our cat and run alongside it.
> We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually.
I don't understand how to marry the point you're trying to make to this. Cats are an invasive species to most small animals, and should be kept from accessing them.
In addition to the havoc they wreak on local small animal populations, outdoor cats live shorter lives than their indoor counterparts.
https://www.vetinfo.com/indoor-outdoor-cat-life-expectancy.h...
Even the term "domesticated cat" is a partial, minor misnomer [1]. They aren't really domesticated in the same way dogs are. They're wild animals, who's wild behavior just happens to be kinda chill and mesh well with humans.
Cats do live longer when you keep them inside. Humans would also live longer if we kept them in a prison for their entire life, feeding them a nutritionally perfect slurry. Not sure why its relevant to the discussion.
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-s...
They’re willfully ignoring the facts and indulging in emotional projection. Domestic cats aren’t wild animals, they’re pets. Letting them roam outdoors is irresponsible both to local ecosystems and to the cats themselves.
Many dogs will run right out the door if left to their own devices, but somehow this is not ok while the same behavior for cats is. Very strange.
That's not at all difficult to explain. The dog is a nuisance to the nearby humans.
Cats can eat the wildlife in your yard. Or, you could have wildlife in your yard, and offset the calories by growing them on more farmland somewhere else.
The only difference in the second scenario is that you don't see the extra acre of woods — along with all the lizards and birds that would live there — getting turned into soybeans.
https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/info/invasive-species-profiles/...