Thread: Wife was upset at the tabby

Originally Posted by donnad

Alekto, Whyemier,
I know they are natural born killers. I have plenty of toys in the house for her to KILL. Whyemier, do you remember when the news story came out about how many birds that cats killed , it was in the billions. Whether it is true or not it is an eye opener!

Cats kill up to 3.7B birds annually

Ginger is not allowed outside unless on a leash, it is for her protection because we live in a city. She stalks anything in the house that moves including two fat Beagles who are not quite sure what her deal is! If it is inside the house, she can have at it. Here mousey, mousey, mousey.

Well, since the Audobon Encyclopedia says there were 5.6 billion birds in the US, 100 billion world wide, in 1951, I question whether cats have decimated the bird population by as much as 3.7 billion a year. Wouldn't cats have already wiped them out by now or if they are that prolific in breeding how can cats wipe them out? (See below)

According to Terres, The Audubon Encyclopedia of North American Birds, "it is difficult if not impossible to get an accurate count of the total population of a widespread species..." Given that ornithologists are not even sure how many species there really are in the world, it would be most difficult to estimate total populations. Nevertheless, the same source says that in 1951 "Fisher, a British ornithologist, estimated there are more than 100 billion individual wild birds in the world," and that Leonard Wing (1956) estimated that there were about 5.6 billion birds in the U.S. in summer and about 3.75 billion in winter. In 1931 McAtee estimated 2.6 billion breeding land birds in the U.S. Obviously these numbers are quite dated and only estimates.


Also, free ranging cats, which I take to mean feral cause the most damage per the article you cited:


"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 U.S. birds and mammals," Marra and his co-authors conclude. "Scientifically sound conservation and policy intervention is needed to reduce this impact."


I don't deny all wildlife is in danger and will continue to be as long as we (not cats) are on this planet. But I question the figures, they are either way too high, or those writing these reports have less an idea of the actual bird population than they should.

Touchy subject for some, guess I should leave it alone I'll delete this if it offends.