But according to research from the University of Georgia, this is only a fraction of the carnage inflicted by house cats allowed to run free. The roaming cats kill an average of two creatures a week, bring home a fourth of what they kill, eat 30 percent and leave about half of their prey behind to rot.
“If we extrapolate the results of this study across the country and include feral cats, we find that cats are likely killing more than 4 billion animals per year, including at least 500 million birds. Cat predation is one of the reasons why one in three bird species are in decline,” according to George Fenwick, president of the American Bird Conservancy.
The study was done in Athens by attaching the National Geographic’s miniature CritterCam to the collars of about 60 house cats that roamed free during the day and downloading the data each night.
USA Today breathlessly said the researchers found “a secret world of slaughter.” The cats killed a wide range of creatures — lizards, snakes, frogs, chipmunks, voles, insects and worms. Birds represented only 12 percent of their prey.
The country has growing colonies of feral cats. Programs to trap and neuter them seem to be expensive and not very efficient, and the neutered cats, who are hardwired in any case, go right back to stalking prey.
The American suburbs, with their lush plantings and loosely secured garbage, have become mini-Edens for wildlife — deer, fox, coyotes, even bears.
Americans are loath to manage these populations through controlled kills, so it might be left to Mother Nature to find a solution, perhaps predators large enough to feed on cats. Suburbanites are reporting hearing more and more coyotes and occasionally getting a rare look at the reclusive predators.
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No, a study of 60 cats is not a sufficient sample to precisely ( /- 3%) determine how many and what species of animals that the nation's cats destroy. However, the number of cats used in the study might slow you down a bit---if you had to pay for the CritterCams and the data crunching.
I think the very valid point (I would say, irrefutable) is that cats kill a LOT of birds and that owners who love their cats, feed them well, care for their health, buy them fuzzy toys, etc.
are STILL irresponsible when they allow them to savage the neighborhood wildlife for their amusement.
Put a bell on the cat and save the wildlife, including the birds that poop on "Cheering them on".
Those birds just need to go. They poop on my nice car.
It's so simple, I don't know why I didn't think of it myself.
I feed birds and notice neighborhood kittys tracking them--every day. Many states offer a bounty for the carcass of a feral cat.
How many innocent and harmless native species did your "precious" cat kill before it met its much deserved fate in the jaws of a coyote. KARMA!
To suggest that a large predator such as a coyote might be the solution to control the cat population is disgusting. A year ago I lost a precious cat to a coyote. And no, I an not an irresponsible pet owner. Since then I have seen them multiple times in daylight hours and passing by neighbors outside their home. The coyotes are a threat to humans and animals and should be controlled, not viewed as an answer to control the cat population.