They’re Coming For Your Cat

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BBC

Cats are one of the top threats to US wildlife, killing billions of animals each year, a study suggests.

The authors estimate they are responsible for the deaths of between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds and 6.9-20.7 billion mammals annually.

Writing in Nature Communications, the scientists said stray and feral cats were the worst offenders.

However, they added that pet cats also played a role and that owners should do more to reduce their impact.

The authors concluded that more animals are dying at the claws of cats in the United States than in road accidents, collisions with buildings or poisonings.

It’s not about the cats. They want you to be miserable.

82 Replies to “They’re Coming For Your Cat”

  1. The world could really use a new plague these days. All the rodents running around our houses would help to keep journalism alive?

    1. I have acquired wealth by renovating real estate. I have working cats. Their job is to kill, and I give them treats when they bring me a furry rodent, but not when they bring a bird or a lizard (insectivores are encouraged to settle on my land). Takes them about a year to get the picture, oddly I have one that doesn’t want to give up capturing lizards, but now he brings them to me alive and unhurt for return to the woodpile. Kate is right, this is just about making human life more miserable so you don’t care about your pesky freedoms.

  2. I am more worried about the threat caused by both feral and pet progressives.

    Also, if I owned a cat talented at killing birds, I would name it “Wind Turbine”.

    1. – The Video…
      CULTUREOPINIONU.S. Large Truck Runs Over An Animal Rights Demonstrator – The Video Reveals Driver’s Smile At The End.
      Alberta Canada.
      Year later she still has nightmares.

      Sorry about that.

  3. Reminds me of a kids song on an old lady who swallowed a fly…perhaps she’ll die.
    Bringing in bigger game to get rid of the previous one.
    Oh my, I see elephants coming…

    Also, our governments have a terrible track record on intervention to solve a problem.

    Now, would you like to see more cats or more rats?
    I imagine they help to bring down that population a bit.

    1. Jojo, down in central America, the rats can grow as big as cats, and could probably kill a cat, they are great fighters, and smart!

      1. Yup GYM, during my merchant marine days of yesteryear, I was on a dock in Beirut Lebanon one evening, and saw a cat about 25 yards away, of course being an animal lover, I made calling sounds, as I got closer, imagine my surprise when the cat turned into a very large mangy rat about the size of a small cat. After a quick shudder, I gave it a wide circle, as did the two others that were with me. The three inch cockroach I later saw in Jamaica was also a shocker. Lots of nasty creatures out there, much worse than cats.

        1. Lots of nasty creatures out there, much worse than cats.

          Some of them are even voted into political office.

    2. Maybe they want you to have more variety in your future diet once they’re totally in control.

  4. But cats cause climate change.

    They eat food, thus generating body heat, and this causes climate change.

  6. The mammals being killed by cats are called RATS and MICE!
    Cats are NOT killing deer, moose, polar bears, raccoons, otters, seals, coyotes, wolves or dogs …they’re killing RATS and MICE.
    The MSM is getting desperate for click bait now that Trump has been silenced and Jobama’s puppeteers are running things, and “cats eating mammals” is today’s click bait. Grrrrrrrrr.

      1. I got a barn kitten, 6 toe tabby. Named it Mini.
        After it grew a bit, learned the house and yard…..
        Thing killed every rat and mouse.
        First few months were savage.
        I even saw it on a boulder trying to figure a deer.
        Cat is bored now.

    2. And … sparrows and House finches (the rats and mice of the skies). I have a close friend (yep, quite a lib.) who is past president of the Audubon Society (I won’t say what chapter or level) … who HATES … LOATHES … all pets. Cats and Dogs. He has claimed for years and years … that domesticated pets are scourges to all wildlife everywhere. But esp. cats.

      This is nothing new … EXCEPT … we are now giving voice (and government edict) to the most radical fringe of our society. The assault on Western Civilization is speeding up and running off the tracks.

  7. So, reading the report gives the gems…..a data driven analysis==> models based on reviewing other people studies, they did no additional data collection, nada, zip, zero. They also didn’t even include all prior reports since they were too busy “…excluding studies that did not meet a priori inclusion criteria designed to increase the accuracy of our analysis…”

    So, in other words, they threw out what they didn’t like.

    Here’s another gem: “We initially focused this search on US studies, but due to a limited sample of these studies, we expanded the search to include predation research from other temperate regions.”

    So, they didn’t even have enough of other people’s data for the US they went and brought in data for the rest of the world and applied it to the US. Yah, european feral cat data (feral cats in europe do NOT suffer from predation) is applicable to the forests of USA, which have foxes, coyotes, and wolves which decimate feral cats.

    Yet another worthless piece of taxpayer funded research telling us how bad we are all.

    1. “Models” … computer models … are what passes for “science” today. It’s NOT science. Not even fucking close. Stop calling climate scientists “scientists”.

      Whenever I say this … I get pushback. Esp. on the “climate skeptic” site Watts Up With That. Why? Because anyone with an EXCEL program and a web browser likes to call themselves “scientist”. Seems every statistician is a “scientist” today. Yeah … like polling is a “science” … right?

    1. See? Once we get rid of all those flatulent cattle, there’ll still be plenty of live protein running around.

      1. Yeah but what about all the flatulent Moose, Buffalo, Deer, bears, Pigs, feral and domestic, people, and cats too I guess 🙂

        Um’, just wondering, do fish fart? Worrying about domestic cattle farting, is like using a chain link fence to keep mosquitoes and covid out.

    2. One female ferral cat has a litter, that litter will produce six more litters, those six will make six more each and so on, and so on, making roughly 13,000 cats in a year.
      Mice do the same but bigger, making roughly 19,000 mice in a year.

      Cats are an integral part of nature, without cats,
      the planet would be over run by rodents and the plagues of old will be upon us again.

      Ps… the average ferral cat will eat 8 mice per/day and give said cat all the nutrition it needs.

      1. Unfortunately, predator reproduction is dwarfed by rodent reproduction.

        We have had feral cats in Australia – from shipwrecks – for longer than Europeans have lived here, but they have completely failed to prevent rodent plagues. Rats, mice, rabbits… we’ve set records.

        What feral cats HAVE done is driven to extinction quite a number of ground-nesting birds and small marsupials. I hunt cats every chance I get. I don’t mind your pet, just keep it under control because , no matter how well you feed it, it has an instinctive drive to hunt…… and not just mice.

  12. Birds native to the US, such as the American Robin, were most at risk, and mice, shrews, voles, squirrels and rabbits were the mammals most likely to be killed.

    I’m not seeing the problem, here. If anything, they’re slacking at their jobs of vermin extinction. Rabbits and squirrels are endemic in Calgary, and I snapped a mouse last week in one of my yard traps.

    The “study” was obviously done by cat-haters, who also don’t understand the role of cats in the natural world.

  13. The Han don’t have a problem with cats. They eat them. they actually eat anything.

    2. Yup, if it walks, crawls, flies, slithers, or wriggles, they’ll eat it. Been there, seen it.
      Suggesting we consider eating bugs and locusts, wouldn’t even make em shrug.

      But I still think cute Asian chicks are hot!

  14. Not a big cat fan, but why would there be a push to get rid of an animal that is a control of a disease vector? Why would governments allow plane loads of infected people into the country? (Brazil, China etc)

    Probably the same answer for both questions.

        1. Given that you find genuine working dogs earning their keep without a lot of effort it’s pretty clear you have that completely backwards. Cats meanwhile expect you to do everything, including picking their shit after them. IOW full time welfare recipients.

  16. I own 6 cats and have built them a 10×8 foot enclosed catio. They go outside but never go outside.

    1. I hope you let the smell the grass and climb some trees! Keeping cats caged is cruel!

      1. BBC, I think you totally misread his/her post.

        That’s great, a harrison, a huge catio giving them a taste of outdoor life without the dangers. As much as I have enjoyed outdoor cats, keeping housecats indoors protects them from predators, cars, disease, pissing-off neighbors, etc.. Raccoons, raptors and coyotes are so common in many Canadian neighborhoods. Enjoy your puddy-tats.

        1. I’m for full freedom of cats. If the yard is fenced in, okay, but a big chain link cage like they keep zoo animals in really grinds my gears!

    2. Um harrison, is that pronounced Catio, Catchio, or Cashio, sounds like a great idea, but our little Terrier dog would kill cats if given the chance, so no cats for us, and if I got rid of the dog, there would be no pussy for me either 🙂

  18. History has documented that in medieval times claims of cats being familiars to satanic forces convinced the population at large to hunt and destroy the cat population. Ironically not soon after the bubonic plague hit.
    I’m sure it had no connection, our media betters would have fact checked and reported.

    1. First they come after your cats, then they come after your dogs. I had a rats nest in my car and a big bill to repair the chewed up wires. I’m grateful for any neighbors’ cats that will kill the rats as I have too many bikes to park my car in the garage.

  19. I’m curious about where the BBC gets off flogging a story about cats in the U.S. anyway. Isn’t the BBC British? I mean, “British” is what I always thought the first “B” in “BBC” stood for.

    It’s be nice if somebody in the ‘States would authoritatively tell the BBC to “shut your mouth, mind your own business, and clean-up your own back yard.”

    1. It’s be nice if somebody in the ‘States would authoritatively tell the BBC to “shut your mouth, mind your own business, and clean-up your own back yard.”

      Society has become feminized, and women compete for social status via social bullying and reputation destruction. That doesn’t work if the target simply doesn’t care about how they’re perceived by the rest of the herd. We badly need to bring back into vogue the phrase “No, and f*ck off.”

    2. Not only that, but cat owners in Britain routinely let their cats outside, where they can kill birds to their hearts’ delights. Americans are much less apt to do that.

      My husband and I currently have five cats. I disagree with BonnieBikerChic that cats NEED to go outside. One of ours goes out with me when I’m in the garden. She kills nothing, just loves being out there with me. (If she finds a mouse in our basement it’ll be a goner in no time.) She stays in the yard where I am.

      One of the males also goes out, with supervision. He WILL kill things, but mice, voles, moles, not birds; and will also wander, if I let him. (But mostly the nearby nesting redtail hawks have dibs on the rodents.) He’s also good on a halter and leash (as is the female).

      The other three have no interest at all in being outside, though they enjoy looking out the many windows.

      One got out last summer — he thought he wanted to be out. He got so discombobulated and scared he ran, and didn’t seem to know where he was. Two nights later I finally caught him in our Hsvahart trap. He’s never gone near the door again. Admittedly he’s not the brightest cat we’ve ever had, but he’s an affectionate, sweet-tempered thing, and best buddy to the other male. Their real “hunting” activity is chasing a laser dot when my husband plays with them every day. They’ll both come over, sit by his chair and stare at him until he gets it out.

      All five cats were abused in one way or another when young but are now past10 years old, and the Grand Dame is 19 (not the female I previously mentioned). The third female is my nightly lap buddy while I catch up on SDA and other sites. Tonight her other sister has joined her there.

  20. Conservation (and the root of the word is also the same root for the word “conservative”) is about striking a balance in nature for long term benefit.

    One valid point: you should not let your pet cat loose in the neighborhood, wild, forest, you get the drift. It’s instincts are predatory and even though it’s belly is full, it will kill what it can. The numbers may be exaggerated, but pet cats are in fact upsetting the balance of nature. Do we allow packs of our pet dogs to roam freely to kill? Unless you operate a farm, keep your cat in the house.

      1. I guess you hate hunters. Hunters are the real conservationists. You’re a pretend conservative cuck. How many cats do you have anyway? Have you lost count? And calling yourself “guy” doesn’t disguise the fact that you’re just another hysterical female.

  21. Cats are stone cold killers, feral or otherwise – I can’t prove it of course but it’s my opinion they’ve tipped the balance with respect to songbirds. Mammals I don’t give a sh*t about. It also grates on me to no end that I’m required to have a license for my dog and responsible for him 24-7 whereas cats prowl around the neighbourhood day and night like it’s the Serengeti.
    It’s so bad around here I’ve thrown down the gauntlet, people know that my particular slice of property carries with it a certain reputation and where someones adorable “Cleo” could end up being on the “Los Desaparecidos” list.
    Love your pet? Start acting like it.

        1. Good. I hope you’re miserable because I take pleasure in other people’s misery, starting with yours.

          1. Not in the least. Why would I be miserable? I’m not the one stapling pictures of Cleo on local telephone poles.

            “…I take pleasure in other people’s misery, starting with yours.”

            But I’m the asshole. Got it. You have a nice day Chester.

    2. Regarding songbirds, in southern France and most of Portugal and Spain, there is much deliberate hunting for mega thousands of songbirds each year, with large nets for migrating birds. They are apparently delicious, but you need twenty plus to make a meal. In my mind a disgusting practice. So don’t blame just the cats, humans hold a bunch of responsibility too. Yet that doesn’t even consider the giant wind machines we humans are putting all over the planet to execute them as well.

  24. One wonders where they found these imbeciles (“scientists”..?? as if.).

    I’ve often seen some loon here n there preaching on a soapbax “the end of the world is nigh”. From One Faux Crisis to another….that shit will never end.

    We should NEVER have allowed Public servants of any stripe to UNIONIZE….the root of all Leftist-Marxist BULLSHIT we currently “enjoy”

    1. Things will never change as those public servants aren’t going to give up their free massages and gold plated pensions, thanks to unions and the sheeple who trust their government.

  25. I live in a rural community not far from a National Park. My cat rarely kills birds though I freely admit he does occasionally and that does bother me. He prefers killing mice, voles, rats and pocket gophers that are constantly moving into our yard. I cheer him on when he does. My neighbour leaves her shed door open on purpose because he goes in and cleans out rodents. My neighbour loves him.

    Doesn’t anyone from the left understand how rapidly rodents reproduce? CBC had an article about how beavers should be allowed to flood a town in Quebec. This is not about cats. This is about self righteous tsk tsking.

    1. I once tried to have a peek at the type of bird the cat caught. Never heard such a vicious growl like the one he let out. I figured I would let him eat in peace.

  26. First they came for the sparrow, but I didn’t speak up since I was not a sparrow.

    Sparrow – survivor of Mao’s great purge

    This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of Mao Zedong’s ‘Kill a Sparrow’ campaign. It’s also 20 years since the death of the biologist who persuaded him to halt it.

    As part of China’s ‘Great Leap Forward’, rats flies mosquitoes and sparrows were declared ‘capitalist public enemies’. Each sparrow, it was claimed, consumed several kilos of grain a year. The birds were also accused of spreading disease. ‘No warrior shall be withdrawn until the battle is won’ declared the Peking People’s Daily. From 1958 to 1962, nests were destroyed, chicks killed and adult sparrows shot on sight. Chinese Health Service reports claimed that a billion of them died. A history of China, published in Poland in 1999, describes birds seeking political asylum in the grounds of foreign embassies. Staff at the Polish mission refused to allow the sparrow-killers to enter, so a mob formed outside, beating drums continuously until the terrified birds dropped dead from stress and exhaustion.

    Tso-hsin Cheng, who died in 1998, was China’s leading ornithologist. Criticising the ‘four pests’ jihad, he reminded the authorities that sparrows help control harmful insects. Eliminating the birds, he argued, was madness. Denounced as a ‘reactionary’, he was forced to clean toilets and endure six months solitary confinement in a cowshed.

    But Cheng’s advice proved prophetic. Insect numbers exploded in China and crop yields fell. When the campaign was renewed, sparrows were quietly dropped from the list of public enemies, replaced by cockroaches.

    https://www.irishexaminer.com/property/homeandoutdoors/arid-30841266.html

  29. It’s the people who let their cats use the neighbours’ yards – particularly , flower beds – as their litter boxes that creates the dislike for cats.
    If it were up to me, the cats would be spared. The owners, on the other hand, need to be shot.

  30. Cats exist for dogs to chase. The proof is a number of the dachshunds that my parents owned.

  32. So nobody at the BBC raised a hand and mentioned, “uh, you do know cats are carnivores, right?”

    I look forward to the crusade to eliminate tigers, each of which kills more for its own sustenance than a thousand cats.

  33. Proper yard tigers are about the only tolerable cats there are.
    They aren’t much help with skunks though.

  35. This is the first step. Soon you will need a Cat Licence from the Ministry of Housinge.

  37. Rats, eh?

    Try terriers! https://youtu.be/SIJZ_bb1IVQ
    Bear in mind that that video, and thousands like it, was taken in a country in which cats have been endemic for millennia.
    Your cat is not a magic solution to the rat and mouse plague.

    We have had them in Australia since the first Dutch and Portuguese explorers started landing (or getting wrecked) on the western coast. They have been here so long that desert aboriginals have given cats a place in their “Dreamtime” mythology, as well as their diet. We still have mouse plagues. We had massive rabbit plagues that only ended with the introduction of myxomatosis.

    What they do seem to have done, is rendered a regrettable number of small marsupials and ground-dwelling birds, extinct. No-one “is coming” for your suburban moggie, but you do have a responsibility to keep it confined….. just as I am required to keep my dogs.

    Speaking of dogs, mine happily catch and kill foxes and cats whenever they can. Nothing seems to make them so outright joyous as a good chase and scrap. Maybe that is because the most obvious natural predator of smaller carnivores is a larger carnivore. They may not look like wolves, but in the heart of every Jack Russell……..

    On a serious note, large canines are the most obvious biocontrol for both cat and fox. We have removed the grey wolf and the asiatic wolf (Dingo) from much of their territory. With what do we replace them?

  38. What?
    I thought domestic pets were food we provided for the rising urban coyote population.
    Without cats,our local coyote population will starve.
    I can always tell when the coyote has been through,one night all the dogs are barking like crazy,next few days every power pole has pictures of “Cuddles is missing”.
    Not to mention damn near driving off the road laughing as in the early hours of the morning you often see foxes heading back to base,with a very limp feline hanging from its jaws.
    Save the wildlife,release more cats.

    Of course the dumbest one yet was the boaters running a radio add for the return of their little dog..Last seen on an island ..under an eagles nest.

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