Fully anecdotal, but got into a conversation with an animal trainer once after a demonstration that he put on. After mentioning how impressive the training of the cats in particular he said he actually preferred working with them and got more accomplished in his training sessions with them.
Said they were much more "business-like" and weren't distracted by everything like dogs are.
It's amazing how a cat will learn something in 5 seconds if they are truly motivated. They will learn a squirt gun so fast they will spook if you make one with your fingers. My cats learned what "treat" meant in a day and run to the kitchen if we say the word to them.
Yeah, the hard part is just that cats have different motivations than dogs. Dogs will do something just because they know you want them to do it and you are above them in the pack. They are also more likely to be food motivated.
One of my cats is very food motivated. She will always come running for the word "treat".
One of them is extremely not food motivated. He gets excited when I say treat because the other cats get excited and he loves excitement. But when the treats are dispensed, he might eat one, maybe. The first cat will usually finish his. He's motivated by attention. He will come when called by his name, just because he knows you will pick him up and snuggle him. Of course, this also means that if he's bored, he quite quickly learns what you don't want him to touch or jump on, and will do it just so you go after him for it.
"Dogs will do something just because they know you want them to do it and you are above them in the pack. They are also more likely to be food motivated."
Dr. John Pilley, who trained his dog Chaser to learn over 1000 words and even syntax (like the difference between "To ball take Frisbee" and "To Frisbee take ball")[1], said Chaser is best motivated by play.
"My last words to the class were to remind them that play was Chaser’s reward. I told them that they should always reward their dogs for good behavior by playing with them and petting and praising them. We all learn better and faster when learning is fun."[2]
That is super cool. So perhaps amend my statement to something like, "all animals have different motivations, and the best way to train one involves finding the strongest motivation for that individual."
Some dogs are more reward-motivated (not necessarily food - some like to be pet more), others are motivated by pleasing the owners. But either way, dogs are better conditioned to obey commands for the sake of something they like. Not really surprising, since that's what we've been selectively breeding them for, unlike cats.
You'd ask yourself just how diverse the wildlife in an urban environment is, where the bulk of domestic cats live. Right now I'm not convinced about the ecological impact.
Pigeons only account for one of those 200+ species the OP mentioned though (unless they live in one of those regions with the native Band-Tailed Pigeons). That particular kind of pigeon that everyone loathes (European Rock Pigeons) aren't even native to the New World and are an evasive species.
Ironically, they're in the decline in their natural habitat while thriving in North/South America. The Americas has a few native pigeons, but none are as well known or wide spread as the Rock Pigeon. Quite a few pigeon species are also far from the ugly "rats with wing" stereotype[1], but they don't live in Europe or North America.
> We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals.
I wonder to what extent domestic casts have replaced mustelids (weasels, badgers, etc.) and similar small predators in North America. If there were fewer cats, would there be more mustelids? Would they then have a similar effect on the bird and rodent populations?
I imagine they make a poor replacement for mustelids. Mustelids tend to prefer small mammals and birds, but they usually vary their diet with insects, fruits, some plants, carrion (I think cats generally don't go in for scavenging, not sure) etc. They also have different hunting approaches: weasels will go into burrows or dig into vole dens. Cats wouldn't be able to fit, and I've never seen a cat actually dig to get at prey. So the small mammal and bird population is adapted to predators with different tactics. Plus cats have a habit of hunting even when not hungry, which amplifies their effect on the ecosystem.
This is a systematic review derived from existing work.
While the models they use are fairly conservative, it seems like figure 2 is pretty telling. 50% of the variance in their estimates comes from the "Unowned cats" parameter - a parameter with which "no empirically derived data exist".
IMO think they are reaching too far on this - but it is a nice elegant, simple study. I look forward to following the letters re: this pub.
Grew up with cats that would kill mice, but weren't very good at it. Got a miniature pinscher, which were also bred to kill rodents, and it was amazing how lethal they were around mice. Grab, bite, dead.
I'll put a terrier up against a cat any day. As you describe: grab, bite, dead, move on to the next one. None of this "let's play with it for a bit" crap from cats, there's work to be done.
Mole problem? Borrow a dachshund for a week, no more moles. For efficient, methodical obliteration of a local pest population, hard to beat a canine for Terminator-like determination and efficiency. Cats just dick around too much.
I'll put my cats up against your terrier any day. Bite, whimper, dead. That would be your terrier.
Umm, I think you misread my statement, which was intended as "in a contest of who catches the most rats...". It was not intended as cat vs. dog in a cage match.
Though if that's the direction you want to go, the terriers I personally have are "American Pit Bull Terriers". Tell your cat to bring its A game.
Yeaaaaahhhh I grew up on a farm. I can tell you from experience once a dog (of more than the toy size) gets a taste of killing cats it's no contest. Cats are tough but if a dog wants to kill a cat, it's a dead cat. Full stop.
My parents have a story when they had some rats that got into the hay in a dog house their scottie had the best day of its life. 13 dead rats later she was bummed she didn't get to play any more.
After an unpleasant experience with rats in a big city, I found the Youtube videos of "ratter" Plummer Terriers going to work morbidly satisfying. Although I've wondered if it's the bite or the shake that finishes the job.
Dogs are also far more expensive, in both cost of care and time/labor.
There are many places in the US that have more of a problem with feral cats than rodents (which doesn't happen with dogs as much here). Some trap/neuter/release programs exist for these, but they struggle. Often the only service they provide the community - beyond simply neutering the wild cats - is a steady supply of pet kittens (also made sterile). I'm sure many people involved would love to see the wild parent cats actually made useful for something, which could also help reduce the problem of the thousands of unwanted cats that are euthanized every day.
Few years back, I moved to a place in the country where the previous owner fed birds. So there was a bit of a rodent issue. I had with a indoor/outdoor cat, not much of a hunter to look at -- big floofy Maine Coon, and not all that fast. Ran a bit like a bear, thundery, not graceful.
In that first year, I found 23 small rodent bodies inside and out, I got 2 with traps. I found no bird carcasses. Pretty sure he wasn't eating them after seeing one half thrown up on the mat.
So, eh. Some cats kill birds. Some don't. (His brother certainly did. But his brother met something bigger and pointer than he was, and didn't make it to that house.)
I agree, not all cats hunt birds. However, there was a study (easy to google) where researchers put cameras on cats, and they found that some outdoor of cats do kill a monumental number of birds.
Overall, I think we can't conclude that any specific cat is doing this, but we can conclude that outdoor cats do greatly reduce the bird population.
This was the first thing I thought of. We have two fat, lazy house cats, and we will never ever have mice. I grew up on a horse farm. We had Four cats that lived in the barn (12 horse barn) for the exact same reason. They were legitimate badasses, too. We fed them once a day in the winter. Otherwise, they fended for themselves. One of them came in the house one cold winter night when she was about 16 years old. She never went back out and lived to be 22 as a lap cat.
I've heard multiple stories on this theme: a farm cat that's lived out in the barn and fields for years, often not particularly concerned with humans, one day decides to hang it up and "retire" to a comfortable old age being a cozy house cat. I find this behavior to be so absolutely fascinating.
I dunno, I find it pretty interesting too (and I hadn't heard any stories like this before). It's a pretty significant change in behavior, especially to just happen out of the blue one day.
It's not the laziness that is interesting, it's how the cat responds to it: by actively choosing to "retire" indoors among the humans as a house cat. Do you know of any other animal that does something like this?
And if they are going to pick up children, the least they could do is cross the street carefully at the designated crosswalk rather than just darting willy-nilly. Rats these days...
Not having a healthy predator prey relationship in areas leads to public health issues
I wonder what could be released in a dense city like New York to take care of the rat problem. Bats? Snakes? It's a comical thought, but so far there's no real solution.
The only healthy relationship we've found so far is that of rats to poison, but the rats seem to be winning that battle given their ubiquitousness!
If you have an indoor cat it's not. Toxo is only shed by cats for a few weeks after exposure, and the toxo lifecycle can't be completed indoors so your cat will not be reinfected. Unless you have a mouse infestation, in which case I'd be more worried about hantavirus than toxo.
Just keep your cats inside, everyone! It's better for the environment, it's better for birds, it's better for the cat, it's better for you.
Indoors is categorically not better for the cats. They're nocturnal predators. Let them hunt as is their desire and way of living. It's like keeping birds in cages and not letting them fly. Or chickens in battery farms.
There are so many unhappy cats imprisoned for the benefit of their fluffy -loving captors. If you have cats, you must let them be cats.
So here's the rub: we really have to stop keeping so many cats
That's exactly like saying humans ought to only live in the savannah of Africa as hunters and gatherers. Just because that's where humans evolved doesn't mean that that is the only way they are "supposed" to live, nor is where they are "happiest". For starters, humans in civilization and indoor cats live a heck of a lot longer and don't have to worry about getting eaten by predators.
Our modern ways of living, sedentary, often little visceral excitement, control by overlords and paperwork and rules do lead to an awful lot of depression and anomie. Why do you think so many people are unhappy?
Indoor cats have that without any of the benefits.
> Indoor cats have that without any of the benefits.
You mean, except for significantly reduced exposure to diseases and prompt care for any health issues that do arise, better food, and risk free entertainment?
Based on the average life expectancy alone, an indoor cat has a lot of benefits.
The youngest straight up chose to be an indoor cat. He was a feral kitten, about 12 weeks when I first encountered him (based on the vet's estimate of 16 weeks when I eventually brought him in). I left food out for him for a month, as he progressively hung around more and more and watched my two indoor cats through the sliding glass door in the back of my apartment. After about a month he seemed to trust me, so I picked him up, took inside, took him to a vet to get him a checkup (he very badly needed to be dewormed), got him fixed, and now he doesn't even want to go outside, even if the door is left open. He saw how good my indoor cats had it, and he wanted it. He's the most affectionate cat I've ever had. He constantly wants to be touched.
My oldest cat is over 17 years old, and has arthritis. She's never been a good hunter, even as a young cat. She got out for a week when she was around 3 years old, and came back so thin you could touch your fingers together on either side of her stomach. She could have never survived outdoors, then or now.
The oldest cat is the only one I set out and said, "I'm going to get a cat," and adopted one. The middle cat was an abandoned kitten my mom rescued at 3 weeks (she waited all day after she found the crying kitten in the barn to see if the momma cat came back from hunting, but she never did, nor did she ever find the rest of the litter). Given the area my mom lives in, she would have been eaten by a bear or fox even if she hadn't starved.
Indoor is better for almost all cats. You just have a provide an enriching environment with lots of high surfaces for them to explore and exercise them with toys.
Even if you think cats should be indoor/outdoor, there's no way you can compare keeping a pet cat to chickens in battery cages.
She was actually pretty emotionally traumatized. I lived in a fairly small apartment at the time, and she would wander into the next room, realize she couldn't see me, and just start crying.
I would try to call her back, so she could find her way back to me, but she would just sit in the next room and cry until I physically went into the room she was in. Then she would run to me and rub against my legs and follow me back out. Then she'd be calm for 30 minutes or so, then wander into the next room, repeat. It was worst the first week she was back, and gradually got better until she could handle leaving the room and coming back to find me when she wanted company again on her own.
Exactly. Cats make bad pets. And I say this as an owner of two cats. One of our cats loves people and is very happy to be our pet, the other one, not so much. We feel bad for him and let him go out on our patio as a very modest way to feed his needs. It does help, but he really would prefer to be free.
My wife and I have decided no more cats going forward.
Humans are the apex predator for the entire globe. Or at least one of the very small number of apex predators. There are a few others that are preyed on by nothing else, including Hippos. As far as I know nobody hunts Hippos for their meat or other products. They're just too damn scary.
Some other predators have reciprocal predator/prey relationships with other predators. Like lions and hyenas that will eat each other if given the chance but generally prefer less dangerous meals.
In many cases, humans are hunting species which don't have any effective natural predators, either because said species were introduced into the environment by humans (as is the case with feral pigs), or because humans have exterminated the existing predators (as is the case with wolves, who kept deer populations in check).
For example, in Texas, the problem with feral pigs is so severe that two thirds of the entire population needs to be culled each year in order to maintain it at a stable level.
The things that cats hunt, though, generally do have other natural predators to keep them in check, and getting cats into that game causes populations to plummet.
Recently a coyote killed an outdoor pet cat in Berkeley and the citizens were outraged. The predator must be hunted down and shot as soon as possible! This amused me of course. Pets can be predators but actual predators are "invasive" and must be shot.
100% of Berkeley residents were so flabbergasted we spilled fair trade granola and almond milk all over our copy of the Sunday New York Times whilst listening to NPR in our REI/Patagonia outdoorwear.
Or maybe some citizens were outraged. This Berkeley liberal monolith stereotype gets a bit old. The chicken population in Berkeley is in the hundreds; Berkeley residents do small-scale farming, to include slaughtering their animals. Plenty of Berkeley residents have more perspective than the knee-jerk reaction you describe.
> This is a ridiculous point to waffle on: pet cats should no more be allowed to roam around at will than should pet dogs, horses, pythons, or pot-bellied pigs.
Actually, my Dad grew up on a mountain where, every day after school, he would come home and gather up the pig and cows that had been let free to eat for the day. So there's certainly use cases for letting a pig roam free and gather some forage. By the time I was growing up we had chickens, which had to be brought in at night to prevent predators from eating them, but otherwise could roam the yard to eat worms and the like.
Also a horse that kept the grass in the yard short without us having to mow it. There were goats, but they weren't allowed free mostly because they went and ate mountain laurel and poisoned themselves.
It's kind of strange to take a working animal like a cat, bred for pest control, and stick in a little indoor room and never let them out. Did farmers originally lock up their barn cats in the barns? I don't think so. It's actually a problem when they accidentally get locked up in a shed or a car or something, because they aren't out doing their jobs.
Seems nuts to me that the author belittles letting them outside.
Actually, my Dad grew up on a mountain where, every day after school, he would come home and gather up the pig and cows that had been let free to eat for the day.
The statement you quoted said cats "should be no more allowed to roam than <other domesticated livestock>". Your father's livestock were allowed to roam. Ergo, maybe the author wasn't talking about the farm your father grew up on. Something something false equivalencies or something.
Did farmers originally lock up their barn cats in the barns?
Did Jesus have a pet cat? No. Cats are the devil. Or maybe the author was not prescribing a one-size-fits-all solution.
We have a litany of examples of "Europeans brings domestic cats to newly-explored island, ecological devastation ensues", I don't think we need to digress with stories unrelated to the environments to which the author refers (which I gather to be urban and suburban environments).
Are you suggesting we should ignore an ecological disaster because the perpetrators are "just doing their job"?
Citing the historical reasons for their existence doesn't really help the case that they aren't a problem now because the exact reason that it's now and not then. Cats may have had a purpose when they were introduced but in most cases they don't actually serve that purpose anymore. And we can ignore that point entirely because feral cats don't even fit the definition of animals with a job to begin with. They aren't owned by anyone, they are just another animal in the environment. One that happens to be an invasive species causing extraordinary damage to the environment.
Just stop. Stop bickering about cats being the problem. The problem is humans... We are the problem. Their existence is due to us. Their domestication is due to us.
I did some back-of-the-envelope math a while back that showed that if we wanted to make demand-of-pets match the supply-of-cats-and-dogs in the US, we'd basically each have to have one pet, at all times, for our entire lives. So, a family of four would need four pets. New baby: additional pet. Pet dies: get a new pet. One for each person at all times.
Barring that, if you want to minimize suffering of future stray cats/dogs (or limit environmental impact), it makes sense to do a one-time massive nationwide effort of scooping up all stray cats and dogs, and either spaying/neutering them, or culling them.
Allow people to own dogs? I know where I live, many pet-owners who could have gone either way choose a cat just because there are almost no landlords who allow dogs.
There is a new view in biology that accepts that humans have introduced new species and there are many examples where mass killing just won't work anymore.
What if cats were god's way of controlling human population?
Yea--this is wrong on so many levels, but in my case, cats--I adored, prevented me from having a child, or cut back the probality.
O.k.--yes, my pills haven't quite kicked it, but in my wild dating days in San Francisco, I dated a few women.
Two of which were serious relationships. They both had cats. I am very allergic to cats. This will sound harsh, but when those thoughts of "Could I live with her--for more than a weekend?" The thought of taking Benadryl 24/7 entered into the picture.
Now we did have some fun times. Times where could have produced a baby--many babies?
Statistically those cats cut back on our probality of having a child.
At one point my father, and myself were both dating women in San Francisco at the same time. Don't ask--long story. We had this conversation about cats, and procreation many times. I once took him to the hospital over an asthma attack. He called me from a first date. "Son--pick me up at ______, in the Richmond district. I just noticed a cat in the apartment." I got him to the hospital, but it is was a close call. I injected him with two epi pens while in transit, with no improvement in the car. We got lucky that night.
I still love cats though! Not as much as dogs, but love them.
"Wilderness" most likely meaning the wilderness on your fenced in but very large property.
IIRC some cattle out West are allowed to graze on government/public land. Later in the season when it's time to get them back to the farm they check their brands so they know which Cattle belong to their farm.
I have owned cats my entire adult life (I'm 58) and have never allowed them outside. They do just fine indoors. They also live longer, healthier lives, with less disease and much less danger from cars, raccoons, etc. And they don't bother the neighbors.
In the country, I could imagine letting cats outside -- though only after getting them neutered or spayed -- but in the city or suburbs, where I have lived, keeping them inside makes more sense.
Yes but it's not clear that the life expectancy is shortened by disease rather than accident (interactions with cars, coyotes or unpleasant people, for example).
That indoor cats live longer seems reasonably well attested. However here's some anecdata: sum of my parents' 8 indoor/outdoor cats + my 3 indoor/outdoor cats: none have lived less than 13 years (two made it to 18). My parents two indoor-only cats both died before reaching 13. I have assumed the cats that go outside survived due to the low number of vehicles and predators they had to deal with.
It seems kind of obvious that indoor cats would have less disease. Outdoor cats are exposed to a lot more than indoor cats are. And there's a few big ones, like Feline leukemia or Feline Aids, that indoor cats simply don't get because they don't come into contact with other cats that have them. As long as the cats eat a healthy diet and have enough exercise, indoor cats should be expected to live longer than outdoor cats on the average.
It does seem obvious but plenty of things that seem obviously so turn out not to be after a study is done. I don't know of any actual studies of it. It might be possible to get the data simply by reviewing at records from pet veterinarians.
There are other reasons to keep cats inside, as is the subject of the article. The problem is much worse in Australia where birds and small marsupials nest on the ground.
I agree. I did have a cat that came to me. It showed up on on my property (of rather small size) and wouldn't leave. When the weather got nasty, he would come in for the night, but would sit at the door until we let him out, and if we didn't his cries got progressively worse until we did. He was just too used to the part inside/outside life. Before he showed up, we had a serious mouse and rat problem. A few months after he arrived, no more problem. I literally never saw any evidence of rats/mice again (5+ years until we moved).
The mice were getting to be a problem, btw, because they were burrowing between the walls of my house and making noise at night, and doing god knows what damage in there.
My wife was once on the porch with him. She was gardening (lots of potted plants, etc). He was laying there in the sun and snapped up to grab a hummingbird in flight. She grabbed him and he spit it into her hand. The hummingbird flew away a few seconds later. That was when I realized how efficient a predator he was.
EDIT: and he did get into a fight with a raccoon once, that required stitches. So, living inside will definitely increase the health and length of life.
people gather wild bird eggs for food as a delicacy in city parks. Yet we blame the wild bird decimation (those birds who was able to survive in already tough city environment created by humans) in cities on cats. Cats don't eat eggs, rats do. Cats control rats. Cats also able to catch and eat an ill bird. It is pretty healthy coexistence until humans forcefully insert themselves. And it is so typical of the human race to blame somebody else for the harm humans create. I mean just look at the environmental damage, including the damage to birds population, resulting from production of that burger you've just ate for lunch.
Uh, the fantasy world your dad described is not the real world. Cows are one thing, they are too big to lose except perhaps in India, but do you have any idea what environmental damage is being done by feral pigs that were "let free to eat for the day' and never came back? If you want to domesticate an animal to work for you, then you take responsibility for it and all it does, plain and simple. Eventually we will use DNA and chipping to charge people for the costs of their "companion" animals, which are only now becoming apparent.
It should not be too surprising what apex predators like cats (we make them tiny, but they are at the top of the food chain nonetheless) can do to ecosystems if crazy people (us) confuse them with cuddly toys and breed and feed them without control.
> It should not be too surprising what apex predators like cats (we make them tiny, but they are at the top of the food chain nonetheless) can do to ecosystems if crazy people (us) confuse them with cuddly toys and breed and feed them without control.
Just for nitpicking: How can they be "apex predators" "at the top of the food chain" when they're eaten by coyotes e.g.?
Different apex predators sometimes compete. Humans, for instance, can be eaten by lions, but we're apex predators nonetheless. The point of being an apex predator is that you're not a staple of anyone else's diet.
It's a special kind of creepy when people decide that cats are a problem worthy of public attention. Yeah, they can cause real problems when introduced into closed ecosystems which lack a historical small-predator.
So silly... we worry about cats, but humans BY FAR are worse for the planet than cats. Maybe we should be talking about the mass execution of humans who pose no positive benefit for the population as a whole?
We, as the dominant species, are always looking for ways to save the planet - but for the most part it is a blame game. Humans are what helped cats hit all corners of the world. Cats aren't responsible, so why target them?
Wouldn't work. Every decent cat collar is designed to come off with only a minimal amount of tugging[1], so even if you managed to get a collar on every feral cat in the city, they'd pretty quickly manage to get the collars off.
[1]: This is behavior that you absolutely want to have in a collar that's designed to go around the neck of an animal who's roaming unsupervised. Consider the (likely) scenario where the collar gets caught on something, and the animal panics. If the collar comes undone easily, the cat escapes from being trapped and saunters off, and you need to buy a new collar when you can't find the old one. If the collar is shut in such a way that the cat can't escape, the cat is likely to injure itself.
My cat who died a couple of years ago at the age of 16 had a bell on his collar all his life. I couldn't pick that bell up without it tinkling but Radar could walk from one end of the house to the other, including the stairs, without a sound. Also when hunting he did most of it by waiting for his prey to get close enough so that any noise from the bell was simply the last sound they heard.
For a while he used to sit on the roof and catch bats
Can you be sure? I've read before how cats learn to adapt to this very easily. Just because the bell is tingling when you're around and the cat doesn't care, doesn't mean it hinders its hunting.
“Euthanasia needs to be part of a successful long-term solution.”
But linguistic abuse does not. Make whatever recommendations about species culling you want -- but there's no way that targeted killing can be compared to "euthanasia."
Near where my parents live, coyotes have returned. They have been killing a lot of outdoor cats. I wonder if a reintroduction of coyotes to some areas would control cat populations naturally.
Well, it's evolution. The locals can't compete. Given enough time, the local ecosystems will adapt. Compared to the enormous environmental impact of humans, it's ridiculous to blame cats. You really want to conserve local species? Get rid of the humans.
Tylenol poisoning is a terrible way to die and advocating it's use is reckless. Also poisons have a bad tendency to harm more than just your intended target.
The article also doesn't talk about the invasive bird species humans have introduced all over the place.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 222 ms ] threadJust check CATMANTOO channel on Youtube, you will be amazed at what he makes his cats do.
And apparently it's that hard to train a cat, he says you can do the same with yours.
Said they were much more "business-like" and weren't distracted by everything like dogs are.
One of my cats is very food motivated. She will always come running for the word "treat".
One of them is extremely not food motivated. He gets excited when I say treat because the other cats get excited and he loves excitement. But when the treats are dispensed, he might eat one, maybe. The first cat will usually finish his. He's motivated by attention. He will come when called by his name, just because he knows you will pick him up and snuggle him. Of course, this also means that if he's bored, he quite quickly learns what you don't want him to touch or jump on, and will do it just so you go after him for it.
Dr. John Pilley, who trained his dog Chaser to learn over 1000 words and even syntax (like the difference between "To ball take Frisbee" and "To Frisbee take ball")[1], said Chaser is best motivated by play.
"My last words to the class were to remind them that play was Chaser’s reward. I told them that they should always reward their dogs for good behavior by playing with them and petting and praising them. We all learn better and faster when learning is fun."[2]
[1] - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/dog-spies/how-to-teach-...
[2] - http://www.chaserthebordercollie.com/the-book?_escaped_fragm...!
Ironically, they're in the decline in their natural habitat while thriving in North/South America. The Americas has a few native pigeons, but none are as well known or wide spread as the Rock Pigeon. Quite a few pigeon species are also far from the ugly "rats with wing" stereotype[1], but they don't live in Europe or North America.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_crowned_pigeon
> We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals.
Other parts of the world have had wild cat populations for millions of years.
The US has a few native cats, and I assume has had them for quite a while.
While the models they use are fairly conservative, it seems like figure 2 is pretty telling. 50% of the variance in their estimates comes from the "Unowned cats" parameter - a parameter with which "no empirically derived data exist".
IMO think they are reaching too far on this - but it is a nice elegant, simple study. I look forward to following the letters re: this pub.
That example is why cats were domesticated in the first place.
Not having a healthy predator prey relationship in areas leads to public health issues.
Mole problem? Borrow a dachshund for a week, no more moles. For efficient, methodical obliteration of a local pest population, hard to beat a canine for Terminator-like determination and efficiency. Cats just dick around too much.
My cats kill moles and mice. They do a damn good job of it. Only thing dogs seem capable of killing: rabbits and themselves.
Umm, I think you misread my statement, which was intended as "in a contest of who catches the most rats...". It was not intended as cat vs. dog in a cage match.
Though if that's the direction you want to go, the terriers I personally have are "American Pit Bull Terriers". Tell your cat to bring its A game.
There are many places in the US that have more of a problem with feral cats than rodents (which doesn't happen with dogs as much here). Some trap/neuter/release programs exist for these, but they struggle. Often the only service they provide the community - beyond simply neutering the wild cats - is a steady supply of pet kittens (also made sterile). I'm sure many people involved would love to see the wild parent cats actually made useful for something, which could also help reduce the problem of the thousands of unwanted cats that are euthanized every day.
In that first year, I found 23 small rodent bodies inside and out, I got 2 with traps. I found no bird carcasses. Pretty sure he wasn't eating them after seeing one half thrown up on the mat.
So, eh. Some cats kill birds. Some don't. (His brother certainly did. But his brother met something bigger and pointer than he was, and didn't make it to that house.)
Overall, I think we can't conclude that any specific cat is doing this, but we can conclude that outdoor cats do greatly reduce the bird population.
Maine Coons are the powerlifters of the cat world.
(edit: and yes, he did have that special skill of always being able to land right on your nuts)
And we're having rats picking up children at school, now.
https://www.usu.edu/markdamen/WritingGuide/10dangpt.htm
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/dangling-...
But at the first coyote or cougar sighting in the suburbs, the rifles come out. And then we wonder where all those feral cats came from.
I wonder what could be released in a dense city like New York to take care of the rat problem. Bats? Snakes? It's a comical thought, but so far there's no real solution.
The only healthy relationship we've found so far is that of rats to poison, but the rats seem to be winning that battle given their ubiquitousness!
The numbers seem to line up.
Just keep your cats inside, everyone! It's better for the environment, it's better for birds, it's better for the cat, it's better for you.
So here's the rub: we really have to stop keeping so many cats
It's not as black and white as you paint it
You mean, except for significantly reduced exposure to diseases and prompt care for any health issues that do arise, better food, and risk free entertainment?
Based on the average life expectancy alone, an indoor cat has a lot of benefits.
The youngest straight up chose to be an indoor cat. He was a feral kitten, about 12 weeks when I first encountered him (based on the vet's estimate of 16 weeks when I eventually brought him in). I left food out for him for a month, as he progressively hung around more and more and watched my two indoor cats through the sliding glass door in the back of my apartment. After about a month he seemed to trust me, so I picked him up, took inside, took him to a vet to get him a checkup (he very badly needed to be dewormed), got him fixed, and now he doesn't even want to go outside, even if the door is left open. He saw how good my indoor cats had it, and he wanted it. He's the most affectionate cat I've ever had. He constantly wants to be touched.
My oldest cat is over 17 years old, and has arthritis. She's never been a good hunter, even as a young cat. She got out for a week when she was around 3 years old, and came back so thin you could touch your fingers together on either side of her stomach. She could have never survived outdoors, then or now.
The oldest cat is the only one I set out and said, "I'm going to get a cat," and adopted one. The middle cat was an abandoned kitten my mom rescued at 3 weeks (she waited all day after she found the crying kitten in the barn to see if the momma cat came back from hunting, but she never did, nor did she ever find the rest of the litter). Given the area my mom lives in, she would have been eaten by a bear or fox even if she hadn't starved.
Indoor is better for almost all cats. You just have a provide an enriching environment with lots of high surfaces for them to explore and exercise them with toys.
Even if you think cats should be indoor/outdoor, there's no way you can compare keeping a pet cat to chickens in battery cages.
Yeah, but maybe they were the best seven days of her life, worth more than a decade living indoors.
It just seems to absurd to decide what's "best" for them. By what standard?
I would try to call her back, so she could find her way back to me, but she would just sit in the next room and cry until I physically went into the room she was in. Then she would run to me and rub against my legs and follow me back out. Then she'd be calm for 30 minutes or so, then wander into the next room, repeat. It was worst the first week she was back, and gradually got better until she could handle leaving the room and coming back to find me when she wanted company again on her own.
My wife and I have decided no more cats going forward.
Why not start by extending that to humans as well?
Some other predators have reciprocal predator/prey relationships with other predators. Like lions and hyenas that will eat each other if given the chance but generally prefer less dangerous meals.
For example, in Texas, the problem with feral pigs is so severe that two thirds of the entire population needs to be culled each year in order to maintain it at a stable level.
The things that cats hunt, though, generally do have other natural predators to keep them in check, and getting cats into that game causes populations to plummet.
100% of Berkeley residents were so flabbergasted we spilled fair trade granola and almond milk all over our copy of the Sunday New York Times whilst listening to NPR in our REI/Patagonia outdoorwear.
Or maybe some citizens were outraged. This Berkeley liberal monolith stereotype gets a bit old. The chicken population in Berkeley is in the hundreds; Berkeley residents do small-scale farming, to include slaughtering their animals. Plenty of Berkeley residents have more perspective than the knee-jerk reaction you describe.
Actually, my Dad grew up on a mountain where, every day after school, he would come home and gather up the pig and cows that had been let free to eat for the day. So there's certainly use cases for letting a pig roam free and gather some forage. By the time I was growing up we had chickens, which had to be brought in at night to prevent predators from eating them, but otherwise could roam the yard to eat worms and the like.
Also a horse that kept the grass in the yard short without us having to mow it. There were goats, but they weren't allowed free mostly because they went and ate mountain laurel and poisoned themselves.
It's kind of strange to take a working animal like a cat, bred for pest control, and stick in a little indoor room and never let them out. Did farmers originally lock up their barn cats in the barns? I don't think so. It's actually a problem when they accidentally get locked up in a shed or a car or something, because they aren't out doing their jobs.
Seems nuts to me that the author belittles letting them outside.
The statement you quoted said cats "should be no more allowed to roam than <other domesticated livestock>". Your father's livestock were allowed to roam. Ergo, maybe the author wasn't talking about the farm your father grew up on. Something something false equivalencies or something.
Did farmers originally lock up their barn cats in the barns?
Did Jesus have a pet cat? No. Cats are the devil. Or maybe the author was not prescribing a one-size-fits-all solution.
We have a litany of examples of "Europeans brings domestic cats to newly-explored island, ecological devastation ensues", I don't think we need to digress with stories unrelated to the environments to which the author refers (which I gather to be urban and suburban environments).
Citing the historical reasons for their existence doesn't really help the case that they aren't a problem now because the exact reason that it's now and not then. Cats may have had a purpose when they were introduced but in most cases they don't actually serve that purpose anymore. And we can ignore that point entirely because feral cats don't even fit the definition of animals with a job to begin with. They aren't owned by anyone, they are just another animal in the environment. One that happens to be an invasive species causing extraordinary damage to the environment.
Barring that, if you want to minimize suffering of future stray cats/dogs (or limit environmental impact), it makes sense to do a one-time massive nationwide effort of scooping up all stray cats and dogs, and either spaying/neutering them, or culling them.
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/courting_controversy_with_a_new...
It's too late to go and kill all the cats. It's been tried in Australia for decades and it's a dismal failure.
It's arguable that trying to kill cats or rabbits or whatever now is just species Xenophobia.
Yea--this is wrong on so many levels, but in my case, cats--I adored, prevented me from having a child, or cut back the probality.
O.k.--yes, my pills haven't quite kicked it, but in my wild dating days in San Francisco, I dated a few women.
Two of which were serious relationships. They both had cats. I am very allergic to cats. This will sound harsh, but when those thoughts of "Could I live with her--for more than a weekend?" The thought of taking Benadryl 24/7 entered into the picture.
Now we did have some fun times. Times where could have produced a baby--many babies?
Statistically those cats cut back on our probality of having a child.
At one point my father, and myself were both dating women in San Francisco at the same time. Don't ask--long story. We had this conversation about cats, and procreation many times. I once took him to the hospital over an asthma attack. He called me from a first date. "Son--pick me up at ______, in the Richmond district. I just noticed a cat in the apartment." I got him to the hospital, but it is was a close call. I injected him with two epi pens while in transit, with no improvement in the car. We got lucky that night.
I still love cats though! Not as much as dogs, but love them.
That IS the problem.
IIRC some cattle out West are allowed to graze on government/public land. Later in the season when it's time to get them back to the farm they check their brands so they know which Cattle belong to their farm.
In the country, I could imagine letting cats outside -- though only after getting them neutered or spayed -- but in the city or suburbs, where I have lived, keeping them inside makes more sense.
Seems unlikely. Citation needed.
'A pet that spends more time outdoors may live on average 2 to 3 years less than a cat that lives exclusively indoors.'
That indoor cats live longer seems reasonably well attested. However here's some anecdata: sum of my parents' 8 indoor/outdoor cats + my 3 indoor/outdoor cats: none have lived less than 13 years (two made it to 18). My parents two indoor-only cats both died before reaching 13. I have assumed the cats that go outside survived due to the low number of vehicles and predators they had to deal with.
There are other reasons to keep cats inside, as is the subject of the article. The problem is much worse in Australia where birds and small marsupials nest on the ground.
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Know_Why_the_Caged_Bird_Sing...
The mice were getting to be a problem, btw, because they were burrowing between the walls of my house and making noise at night, and doing god knows what damage in there.
My wife was once on the porch with him. She was gardening (lots of potted plants, etc). He was laying there in the sun and snapped up to grab a hummingbird in flight. She grabbed him and he spit it into her hand. The hummingbird flew away a few seconds later. That was when I realized how efficient a predator he was.
EDIT: and he did get into a fight with a raccoon once, that required stitches. So, living inside will definitely increase the health and length of life.
It should not be too surprising what apex predators like cats (we make them tiny, but they are at the top of the food chain nonetheless) can do to ecosystems if crazy people (us) confuse them with cuddly toys and breed and feed them without control.
Just for nitpicking: How can they be "apex predators" "at the top of the food chain" when they're eaten by coyotes e.g.?
We, as the dominant species, are always looking for ways to save the planet - but for the most part it is a blame game. Humans are what helped cats hit all corners of the world. Cats aren't responsible, so why target them?
Are you serious?
I am suprised no one else has said this.
But yeah, that would be no easy task. Trying to herd cats comes to mind :)
[1]: This is behavior that you absolutely want to have in a collar that's designed to go around the neck of an animal who's roaming unsupervised. Consider the (likely) scenario where the collar gets caught on something, and the animal panics. If the collar comes undone easily, the cat escapes from being trapped and saunters off, and you need to buy a new collar when you can't find the old one. If the collar is shut in such a way that the cat can't escape, the cat is likely to injure itself.
My cat who died a couple of years ago at the age of 16 had a bell on his collar all his life. I couldn't pick that bell up without it tinkling but Radar could walk from one end of the house to the other, including the stairs, without a sound. Also when hunting he did most of it by waiting for his prey to get close enough so that any noise from the bell was simply the last sound they heard.
For a while he used to sit on the roof and catch bats
But linguistic abuse does not. Make whatever recommendations about species culling you want -- but there's no way that targeted killing can be compared to "euthanasia."
The article also doesn't talk about the invasive bird species humans have introduced all over the place.