The last cat I owned was basically an indoor cat who got some supervised time outside. Of course, you couldn’t bring the groceries in from the car without him escaping. And more than once, he managed to kill a bird in the short time it took me to put the groceries on the counter and go back outside to retrieve him. He was like the ultimate predator. When I was a child, we had a cat that killed everything and then brought it home as a present. He was an outdoor cat and he just disappeared one day. It really upset me when I realized that God wasn’t going to answer my prayers and return my cat. Things were never the same between God and me after that. But I was about seven years old, so…
In any case, I’m not surprised to learn that cats kill a lot of stuff, but the estimates are kind of stunning.
In a report that scaled up local surveys and pilot studies to national dimensions, scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that domestic cats in the United States — both the pet Fluffies that spend part of the day outdoors and the unnamed strays and ferals that never leave it — kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat.
The article goes on to to scold people who let their cats go outside. I think people should know that their cat will encounter many dangers and probably not live as long if you let them roam around outside. But the fact that they will kill birds and shrews and mice is not a reason to confine your cat. If you choose to keep your cat indoors for its whole life, it should be because you want your cat to have a long life, not because you want to preserve the shrew population in your neighborhood.
For feral cats, it makes sense to have a policy to deal with impact.
Outdoor cats should be belled. Cuts way down on the kill rate.
The cat I spoke of from my childhood was belled and he could practically run without making it ring. It was amazing to watch.
At my last job, from 2004 to 2011, we had a black cat live inside the office and production areas. She broke her leg when her owner accidentally ran her over with his car after he was told not to let her out. Cost him $600.
I was initially skeptical of having a cat inside the office late at night, but she grew on me. By the end of my time with the company, she had me wrapped around her paw, lol.
In all that time, I absolutely refused to let her outside. After I left the company, someone forgot to leave the doors closed and she got out. She then proceeded to vanish and we never saw her again. I miss that little cat so much.
Norway rats are a lot smarter than cats, for one thing.
Norway rats are sometimes a lot BIGGER than cats LOL. I don’t know of anything except a rat terrier that will take on rats on a regular basis. That’s what they were bred for.
My Maine coon cat has killed rats. He brought one to our door but my neighbor says that he usually leaves them near the culvert in the back of the neighborhood where he finds them. Gross.
Coyotes. They even take super-rats for lunch. They LOVE Chicago alleys. Not to mention the garbage cans.
Cats and habitat destruction are a tremendous threat to the songbird population. Kitty cats (contrast with, tigers, say) are not only killing for food, they kill tremendous number of songbirds just because the birds are there. Birds that nest on the ground- forget it. Also, I believe they are an introduced species. they are a serious environmental problem. Very glad to hear this report was published
Both cats we’ve owned have been kept inside; one my mother got when she was 16, the other we got about 3 months after that one died. The one lived to be 18, and he died when I was 12. Our second one died because for some reason she stopped eating and she developed jaundice, so there wasn’t much we could do even with a feeding tube. I noticed she wasn’t eating pretty early and took her to the vet and the vet said she didn’t seem sick and to just give it a week. A week later, on fucking Christmas Eve 2011, I made the call to put her asleep; she worshiped the ground I walked on.
When I lived in North Carolina with my aunt during the summers, those cats were outdoor cats. All the animals my aunt has, she’s found wild and brought them in. One was feral when she obtained her, now she’s a sweetheart. The other two are mother/daughter, the daughter being a rambunctious little brat. All three kill shit, the daughter being the most lethal. She’d bring in rabbits in particular, and sever their heads. So if she didn’t eat them (sometimes did, sometimes didn’t), you’d find decapitated mammals strewn throughout the house.
The farm I live on has many semi-feral cats which serve to keep the rats away from the animal feed. I have one domestic outdoor cat (who is chief suspect in the death/disappearance of her mother) who serves to keep rats and mice away from the house. Very occasionally she might kill a rat, rabbit, or bird and leave it as a gift, but this has decreased as she has gotten older – although her own appetite remains voracious.
The local bird population has never been higher – millions swarm past my house every day – and even pheasants strut their stuff on the ground in my garden So I suppose I just see cats as part of the local ecosystem – which obviously includes humans and the built environment although my house is away from all that with Brent Geese and Hooper swans grazing the neighbouring fields in winter..
And Al Gore is fat!
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An island successfully killed off the feral cat population… only to discover that the bird population was evaporating at an increased rate because all those cats were mostly killing rodents… who eat bird eggs.
Pesticide contamination and destruction of habitat are what is killing birds. But addressing the real issue would cost rich people money. They prefer killing cats.
Terribly hard to do controlled experiments on this issue, in our deeply altered “natural” environment. Do you have a link for the island where they extirpated the cats?
“Feral cats on islands are responsible for at least 14% global bird, mammal, and reptile extinctions and are the principal threat to almost 8% of critically endangered birds, mammals, and reptiles.”
Global Change Biology; Nov2011, Vol. 17 Issue 11, p3503-3510, 8p, 2 Charts, 4 Graphs, 1 Map
I think there was ONE cat, pet of a lighthouse keeper on a small island in the general vicinity of NZ, that was responsible for the extinction of a significant number of bird species.
Is this the face of a killer.
You bet it is, she’s an apex predator, it’s why they’re indoor only cats and my house looks like a small version of the tiger enclosure at the zoo. I’m torn as a cat fancier of all sizes, most small cats in North America went extinct many years ago. We really don’t know what impact they do have as most domestic cats have a range of about one square mile and overlapping. I’m calling bullshit on their math too. Maybe they should consult Nate? That number seems way too high. And statements like this,
“Cats don’t need to wander hundred of miles to be happy,” and when they see something flutter, they can’t help but move in for the kill., are ridiculous.
Here’s what he thinks.
When my ex moved out, she took the cats. And within a month, the mice invaded. I’m a pretty tidy guy, and it was humiliating and awful.
Then in late November, I got two new cats. Mrs. Rocket is useless, but Mrs. Dracula? Holy crap. Four mice in 24 hours.
We don’t have mice anymore.
Well, don’t get the wrong impression – I love cats, kitty cats and big cats; barn cats are one thing; kitty cats outdoors is a problem; (not saying pesticides and habitat destruction aren’t also problems). I don’t know about the numbers, have not read this report, but wildlife orgs, especially bird orgs, have been talking about this problem for decades (I first heard about it 20 years ago). ppl love their pets so much it’s impossible to discuss. ordinarily I don’t even try
Cornell Ornithology Lab has a great web site
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/nestinginfo/downloads/Howtohelp_nesting_birds_04_08.pdf
here’s their home page
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/page.aspx?pid=1189
Let me also point out that the logic of the “bird report denial” resembles the logic of the climate change denial pointed out by Jon Stewart – “there is no global warming because it’s cold where I live”
The militant denial this story has caused inevitably begs for comparison to the gun control debate. People have an emotional connection to cats and that’s the end of the line in terms of rational discourse.
It’s staggering how many people respond by saying “not my cat” or “I see plenty of birds in my neighborhood”. Population science doesn’t run on anecdotes, same as climate science.
Those questioning the study are welcome to put on their statistical analysis hat and go in to find actual problems. But lets stipulate that there are at least 100million cats in America, roughly half of them unowned (feral). Pick a number of vertebrates you think those cats kill on average every year. Then multiply by 100million.
Feral cats are the big problem. I confess I simply can’t understand the fanatical devotion to maintaining feral cat colonies as anything other than pure emotion. The absolute refusal to consider humane euthanasia for introduced predators which destroy native species is curious. What sort of life do these cat lovers imagine these feral cats will lead? Do they imagine there is hospice care for them? Because 100% of them will die a painful death, often after long suffering. And the price of their painful death and your pious “no kill” policies will be the decimation of native species and degradation of native habitats. Now, if it’s so important that cats are never euthanized, I invite cat lovers to get together to fund safe enclosures where feral cats can live out the remainder of their lives with humane veterinary care. The alternative is asking the rest of us and our natural heritage to subsidize your abstract emotional attachments.
I don’t know that you are talking to me, but the only thing I denied is that you are an asshole if you let your cat out of the house.
No I wasn’t talking to you, but I don’t really know why you said this
Why the hell would it be wrong to keep your cat indoors because just because it kills native wildlife? It sounds like a damn good reason to me.
Because there is nothing wrong with cats eating things. Why don’t we lock up the lions because they eat zebras?
Large feral populations can decimate species, but people’s house cats are not going to do it on their own.
Boo, several people have already answered the question you pose. It’s wrong because domestic cats are an introduced species – they don’t belong in your ecosystem. Lions and zebras co-evolved. Domestic cats and anything in your neighborhood, not so much.
Our cat never goes out, for two reasons – this, and because we have another predator in the city now, coyotes, that love to snack on domesticated cats who’ve never even seen a larger predator. The odd eagle will pick one off, too. I suppose that’s also cruel, right? After all, there’s nothing “wrong” with things eating cats, either.
No, there is absolutely nothing wrong with things eating cats. You don’t want something eating your pet, though. Again, controlling a feral cat population that can cause extinction is a priority. Keeping your cat inside because they might kill something seems ridiculous to me.
domestic cats, unlike the large cats, don’t simply kill for food, they kill “for sport” as it were. And, they are an introduced species [if the two aspects of cats are related, I don’t know].
Who do those native species you call “things” belong to? Are they yours merely by dint of owning a cat? Some cats kills hundreds of animals a year. Are we saying that killing native species is no problem, pets are more important?
Wild lions aren’t receiving massive feeding support and constant population replacement from discarded pets. Feral cats aren’t being poached and revenge killed wherever they live. The situation is completely different.
I agree the primary problem is feral cats. I don’t have the answer for domestic cats but I can’t pretend that privately owned outdoor cats killing hundreds of millions of vertebrates is necessarily just fine. I certainly wouldn’t take kindly to a neighbors cat spending time on my yard.
I think a careful, fact-based, public discussion of this issue is well warranted.
You are familiar with the food chain, are you not?
A cat is a cat. If you let them outside, they will hunt. I see nothing wrong with that. What is a potentially a problem is when you create a wild population of cats that puts extinction pressure on a species. Why are you concerned about vertebrates eating vertebrates? That, in itself, is the normal healthy natural state of things.
You’re not getting it. It’s not some moral chill I get from one animal killing another. That’s how it works obviously. It’s that introduced species are most definitely not the “natural state of things”. And not just introduced, but continually supplemented and supported by pet people. For this reason you can’t even argue that cats are playing some stable ecological role in an ecosystem that has lost other predators.
But that argument would fail in any case because the lost predators are wolf and panther sized, not small felines. Many native predators of small vertebrates remain and would have likely even healthier populations without the effect of invasive cats.
A little reading on the subject reveals that feral cats have been shown to cause the extinction of a few seabirds in some places. But I found nothing about them doing more than that. Show me a species under threat from pet cats and I’ll agree that people in those communities should do their part to live up to the Endangered Species Act by belling their cats or keeping them inside. Otherwise, let your cat do whatever you want.
I think this is a reasonable standard. At a minimum, dozens of native birds species are known to be in general decline. Audubon has a good report on declining species. For instance, native Bobwhite have declined more than 50% in many places. This ground dwelling game bird is right in cats’ wheelhouse.
Unfortunately it’s much easier to assign causation on an island. On a continent, a variety of factors for the decline of species intermix. Funding for more research is needed. But when that research shows that introduced cats are killing 10% or more of the total bird population every year, that that is the greatest documented source of manmade mortality for native species, which we know are already threatened by habitat loss and climate change, I don’t think a casual dismissal of that fact is warranted by anyone who cares about the conservation of native species, setting aside any discussion of what it means for an ecosystem to be “natural”.
As long as they don’t go extinct, they will evolve to deal with the predators in their neighborhood. And I’d look at a lot of other potential causes beside cats to explain population loss among bird species. Look at the honey bee. We know cats aren’t responsible for that.
Booman, please stop. You don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s ok, I’m not an ecologist either, but blithely saying “birds will evolve” betrays a total lack of understanding of the problem. It would be much more accurate to say “ground nesting species won’t live in that neighborhood”. They may not go “extinct” but their population is further fragmented and made more vulnerable to other disruptions.
Also, saying “i’d look at other potential causes” is simply obtuse. The data is in, cats are the leading killer of birds. Is it possible that other causes do more damage but aren’t well documented and quantified at this time? Sure. But right now we KNOW that cats are the leading measurable cause of mortality.
There is no such thing as an uncontaminated environment anywhere in North America. You can’t preserve the native habitat or all the native species in their current state. All kinds of plants and animals have already altered our environment even without all the human building we do. And many species have evolved to exist in a new environment where humans and their pets are part of the ecosystem.
We don’t want to drive species extinct because that reduces biodiversity. But I also think trying to preserve things just as they were is foolhardy. There is no “natural state of things” in the sense that most people mean it, and there hasn’t been for hundreds of years.
One could also argue that human beings are part of nature, and as such our actions are ipso facto natural.
Well yes. If it’s ok to let cats outdoors to kill all they want (and most of their kills are not for food) why is it not ok for humans to kill all the animals they want?
I never said anything about “trying to preserve things just as they are”. That’s a strawman. Booman is the one who brought up “natural” and I rightly pointed out there is nothing natural about feral cats.
We have to accept that humans collectively are responsible for the environment. It’s a post-human world and so a state of prehuman nature is no longer possible. So we have a choice, feral cats or native diversity, but not both, because they are incompatible.
Are you talking about feral cats our house cats?
Never mind. I don’t care. If your position is that cats are unnatural and only belong in Egypt or something, then we don’t even have a starting point for this conversation. If feral cats put extinction pressure on anything, they should be managed.
House cats are not going to put extinction pressure on anything. So, let them do whatever you want to let them do. Stay inside and claw your furniture, or go outside and create a bloodbath. Doesn’t matter to me either way.
No, they don’t only hunt. They kill even when not hungry. the anecdotal evidence on this thread talked about cats that leave their extra prey somewhere.
Folks might enjoy this comic on the subject by The Oatmeal – http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill.
Warning- although it’s a cartoon, it’s pretty gory.
My wife brought her tabby with her when we got married – his name is Tiger but I call him The Suburban Thug – and he’s every bit of what the article describes. She doesn’t let him out until the sun is up, but I keep reminding her that it really doesn’t matter. The cat is so prolific that we should rename him Dexter…