The difference is that the outdoor cat population is artificially boosted by human feeding. If millions of people started feeding foxes they would also become a problem.
I’ve had a lot of cats over the years, with a few very accomplished hunters of mice, which I constantly found beheaded in the back yard.
But as far as I know, they only killed one bird, and the murderer was so excited, that he came and got my wife and I, and led us to the scene of the crime, to brag about it. Clearly not something he did often.
I watched one cat leap into a flock of sparrows on the ground. They all flew off, and she leaped epically, and brought down a single bird, holding it under her paw, clearly not sure what to do at that point.
Suddenly a sparrow dropped to the ground about 6 feet away, and started flopping around, as if injured, and making a LOT of noise. That attracted my cat’s attention, and as she took one step toward the “injured” bird, she lifted her paw off the captured bird, and both birds flew away, leaving her empty-handed, with a VERY confused expression.
I believe the bird-killing allegation is far overblown, and birds have developed their own defensive strategies as well.
I live in the country side and have experienced the same. The hunt rodents 99% of the time. The other 1% Is divided between birds and lizards. I think rodents are just a better snack.
But in urban/suburban areas where there aren’t field mice and gophers aplenty, they do go for the birds.
Don’t get me started on ravens stalking the cats as the cats stalk gophers. They will wait for an hour for the cat to kill the gopher, then come screaming down on them, cat drops his lunch and runs, Raven gets a juicy meal. Rude.
And that’s when the ravens aren’t busy raiding song bird nests for baby bird snacks while the parents are screaming and doing their best to fight a bird 8 times their size. Rude.
Yes, so untill a couple of years ago, the RSPB even said there was no evidence outdoor cats had any affect on bird populations as cats would mostly kill injured, sick or weak birds that wouldn’t make it to a mating season anyway and noted that all the most commonly preyed on soceis of birds were actually seeing an upwards trend in population (until a couple of Karen’s literally harrased and bullied them into taking it down)
Known invasive species that primarily consist on kibble purchased for them by humans. There is no evidence that they have an adverse effect on bird populations. The birds they kill on birds that would have been killed by some other predator some other way.
Yes but so do foxes, birds of pray, wild cats if your country has them.
The difference is that the outdoor cat population is artificially boosted by human feeding. If millions of people started feeding foxes they would also become a problem.
I’ve had a lot of cats over the years, with a few very accomplished hunters of mice, which I constantly found beheaded in the back yard.
But as far as I know, they only killed one bird, and the murderer was so excited, that he came and got my wife and I, and led us to the scene of the crime, to brag about it. Clearly not something he did often.
I watched one cat leap into a flock of sparrows on the ground. They all flew off, and she leaped epically, and brought down a single bird, holding it under her paw, clearly not sure what to do at that point.
Suddenly a sparrow dropped to the ground about 6 feet away, and started flopping around, as if injured, and making a LOT of noise. That attracted my cat’s attention, and as she took one step toward the “injured” bird, she lifted her paw off the captured bird, and both birds flew away, leaving her empty-handed, with a VERY confused expression.
I believe the bird-killing allegation is far overblown, and birds have developed their own defensive strategies as well.
I live in the country side and have experienced the same. The hunt rodents 99% of the time. The other 1% Is divided between birds and lizards. I think rodents are just a better snack.
But in urban/suburban areas where there aren’t field mice and gophers aplenty, they do go for the birds.
Don’t get me started on ravens stalking the cats as the cats stalk gophers. They will wait for an hour for the cat to kill the gopher, then come screaming down on them, cat drops his lunch and runs, Raven gets a juicy meal. Rude.
And that’s when the ravens aren’t busy raiding song bird nests for baby bird snacks while the parents are screaming and doing their best to fight a bird 8 times their size. Rude.
Yes, so untill a couple of years ago, the RSPB even said there was no evidence outdoor cats had any affect on bird populations as cats would mostly kill injured, sick or weak birds that wouldn’t make it to a mating season anyway and noted that all the most commonly preyed on soceis of birds were actually seeing an upwards trend in population (until a couple of Karen’s literally harrased and bullied them into taking it down)
Yes
Sorry is it your position that invasive species are fine?
Known invasive species that primarily consist on kibble purchased for them by humans. There is no evidence that they have an adverse effect on bird populations. The birds they kill on birds that would have been killed by some other predator some other way.
So humans shouldbt be allowed outdoors either?
No, honestly.
Invasive how? They’ve been around for millennia and suddenly now they’re invasive?