Smithsonian Study Reveals the Murderous Habits of Cats

[Cpt. Slow]

They either must stop making these studies or else... my face would get stuck in a 'you don't say' expression for the rest of my life.

 

[direkiller]

The study estimates that a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion small mammals are killed each year by free-roaming pets and feral cats.

A margin that large sounds like guesswork to me. It's ten billion. TEN. BILLION. I'm not buying it

70 million free roaming cats(NJDOH)
50 million feral cats(humane society)
works out to 84 kills per cat per year
1-2 kills is not that far out there for a cat so there numbers are probably accurate

 

[geldonyetich]

In other news, Cats might be carnivorous predators.

Seriously, though, don't malign cats for obliterating mice, birds, and other small herbivores. That's the reason we domesticated them in the first place. All of those things are bad for crops. Heck, rats and fleas were largely attributed to distributing The Black Death.

So next time somebody tells you how sad it is that cats can make such a major environmental impact on the local rodent population, show them this:


Good thing we've got cats around to kill off species of animals whose survival strategy is to breed uncontrollably up to the maximum of available food, otherwise some kind-hearted humans would have to learn to do it the hard way.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Er....cats(and dogs for that matter) are a bundle of tightly wound instincts play is nothing more than honing the ability to stalk and capture preyl. Even if some or incapable of it..... killing... not so much mostly the stalking and capturing bits ...

 

[Twilight_guy]

I once had a dog that killed every rabbit and small mammal in our backyard. It was about a half acre of land with nothing alive. I'd say that most domestic animals that hunt can be a problem. They have an unnaturally high population because people like them.

 

[loc978]

...that's why I have a cat. Keeps the rodent population down in the vicinity of my house. Also, I like to have swatting wars with him... keeps my hands and his paws fast and accurate.

I imagine feral cats could be a problem in cities, though. Thankfully I don't live in one.

 

[iblis666]

pft like i didnt know this before

my cat is a whirlwind of death and blood to such an extent that when i give him baths the water turns red, the cat singlehandedly has killed everything in my neighborhood.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

Dude no one 'allows' them to hunt and I feed my cats plenty. My point was the the number of cats are not going up in massive amounts. So suddenly saying out of nowhere that it's a major problem is a bit odd.

Children need to learn to not pester strange animals, it's not the cats fault. Also you can pretty much rely on a dog person to be annoyed about cat behaviour

Excerpt from the RSPCA site

Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific evidence that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK-wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally every year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation. There is evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds.

It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season

We also know that of the millions of baby birds hatched each year, most will die before they reach breeding age. This is also quite natural, and each pair needs only to rear two young that survive to breeding age to replace themselves and maintain the population.

It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season, so cats are unlikely to have a major impact on populations. If their predation was additional to these other causes of mortality, this might have a serious impact on bird populations.

Those bird species that have undergone the most serious population declines in the UK (such as skylarks, tree sparrows and corn buntings) rarely encounter cats, so cats cannot be causing their declines. Research shows that these declines are usually caused by habitat change or loss, particularly on farmland.