It is very difficult to assess if domestic cat predation of birds makes a difference to population sizes of the various species in the long term. I’ve said it before that some scientists are frankly biased and their studies are unreliable partly because they do small scale studies and then scale up the figures to represent the entire country. Some scientists have an axe to grind, a hidden agenda to follow.
The fairly recent Smithsonian study produced an estimate of between 430 million and 1.1 billion birds killed annually by domestic cats in mainland USA. The numbers sound startling. But what is actually happening on the ground and is this level of predation (if correct) damaging to bird population sizes?
Taking any one species of bird it may be that there are sufficient numbers of breeding pairs to produce sufficient offspring to maintain population levels despite cat predation. And of course there are the other man-made treats to wildlife such as wind turbines and skyscapers, which impact on bird population sizes. It is a complex issue.
However, many young birds don’t make it out of the nest and many starve during the cold winter months. This is because their metabolism runs very fast and they struggle to store enough food to keep themselves alive overnight.
When a domestic cat returns from a hunting trip, the bird he has in his mouth when he comes through the cat flap may have died from natural causes during the night. The cat simply picked up the body. Cats may simply be collecting birds and other animals that were destined to soon die anyway.
These animals are easy prey for a cat. It is the sort of prey a cat would go for. These animals may be malnourished and ill. A study which examined the condition of prey brought in by cats found that the animals were in general underweight and ill.
The conclusions of studies that I have read have not referred to the possibility that the cat’s prey, birds or small mammals, may have been ill or malnourished. There should be some sort of estimate of the percentage of cat prey items that are in this condition at any one time. This should then be factored in to the study’s conclusion.
If domestic cats are taking birds which are dying anyway of natural causes their impact on bird numbers is much less than as stated.
Source: myself and Cat Sense by Dr Bradshaw.
We had occasional bird flock problems when we had horses and were feeding oat hay. To be honest after watching how the cats hunted they were not getting the Einstein’s in the flock. In the wild the slowest, weakest , youngest or injured are first on the menu.
How can a cat kill a dead bird? The title makes no sense.
That guy is an idiot to think that any bird that gets away suffers some lengthy horrible death. A puncture would cause instant death to any bird because their body holds less than an ounce, if that, of blood and it would bleed out in seconds.
I’d be more concerned of what disease or parasite the bird would infect the cat with.
Yep, thanks for this. He is irritating and he was banned again. I have banned around 50 aliases of his.
Go away, Woody. Blogs are full of senseless dribble that you insist on spreading.
Humans kill more birds than cats will ever dream of killing. Many birds are not even harmed during the hunt. I have eyewitnesses to testify about the truth in that case.
So, crawl back under the rock you came from and leave cats alone. If you insist on attacking anyone, try human animal-abusers, like the dogfighting rings or those who skin or cook animals alive. They are much more deserving of your talent and attention.
The guy from OZ is Woody from the USA 😉 He’s banned. He has a habit of playing the same ‘music’ over and over again on a loop. He’s slightly mad. He never actually addresses the topic in the article. He just uses the article as a vehicle to rehash his manic statement.
I think Oz is a bit off in the head. His brain has malfunctioned when dealing with all those numbers he and his ilk have pulled out of thin air. The feral cats that have lived here were fed and watered and satisfied to sleep in the sun (or shade) and wander the area for awhile. I have never in 35 years of living here have found dead, mutilated or dying birds. And the indoor cats were satisfied to observe our cockatiels from afar, after the cats got nosey and the birds left pinched tails and pecked heads. Dogs, cats, hamsters, rats, gerbils, rabbits and the occasional wild creature who came for rehab got along or watched the indoor games from the safety of a bed or atop a cabinet.