Althouse: "More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats... than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons..."

January 29, 2013

"More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats... than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons..."

"... collisions with skyscrapers and windmills and other so-called anthropogenic causes."

Domestic cats — pet and feral — "kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year" in the United States — "most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat."

81 comments:

rhhardin said...: These mammals are part of the food chain.

A bird pair has 3 broods of 5 chicks each year, and breeds for say 3 years, producing 45 offspring.

Nature's plan is that 43 of them are food.; 1/29/13, 5:52 PM
edutcher said...: It's called the Balance of Nature.

Kind of like bringing a knife to a gunfight.; 1/29/13, 5:53 PM
RiverRat said...: Adopt feral cats and put house cats on foodstamps. The loving kindness of liberals; 1/29/13, 5:57 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: I was just reading that article!

The waning gibbous moon is bringing us into synchronicity, Althouse!

I just forwarded the article by Facebutt to my daughter, who has (ugh!) several cats.

The more interesting part of the article to me is that cats are friggin' freeloaders. They pretend to belong to one household, then when you let them out they may visit as many as 10 other houses for food, then return home.

Cats are whores.; 1/29/13, 5:58 PM
RiverRat said...: Either that or release Ann's hound of war on them.; 1/29/13, 5:59 PM
edutcher said...: Shouting Thomas said...

The more interesting part of the article to me is that cats are friggin' freeloaders. They pretend to belong to one household, then when you let them out they may visit as many as 10 other houses for food, then return home.

No, cats are independent and very adept survivalists.; 1/29/13, 6:03 PM
Robert Zaleski said...: And yet it's illegal to shoot feral cats in Ohio.... Sigh....; 1/29/13, 6:04 PM
RiverRat said...: Cats are not whores...they're very conservative survivalists. Ever met a liberal re-distributions feline?; 1/29/13, 6:05 PM
rhhardin said...: If you wanted to make an anti-cat case, it wouldn't be feral cats but domestic ones.

The supply of predators and prey follows some Lotka–Volterra equation, where when the prey gets scarce, the predators also get scarce, which lets the prey regenerate.

That's true of feral cats but isn't true of domestic cats, which hunt as entertainment while remaining well-fed at home. They do not get scarce in response. They could drive the prey out of local existence entirely.

If you wanted to make that case.; 1/29/13, 6:07 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles

Thank GOD!!! Just think how over run with vermin we would be if not for the fabulous cat.; 1/29/13, 6:09 PM
Sorun said...: Life is an infinitely renewable resource.; 1/29/13, 6:10 PM
RiverRat said...: Domestic cats,like Ann's dog are survivalists. They became domesticated and accepting of humas to be fed...just like liberals. However, they retain the skills to survive when the foodstamps run out...unlike liberals.; 1/29/13, 6:14 PM
mariner said...: Yes, but -- women like cats, so that's OK.; 1/29/13, 6:16 PM
Howard said...: rhardin

I wish you were right. The 21st century cat lady no longer keeps 147 cats in her 1-bedroom apartment. Today, crazy women all over the USA feed feral cats in the field (ie. down the block) where they are free to breed, kill and shit.

Fortunately in my neighborhood, we have cougar, lynx and racoons, so feral cats don't have a chance and most people keep their domestics inside at night.; 1/29/13, 6:17 PM
Darrell said...: First, they come for your BiG Gulps.
Then they come for your guns.
Now they want your cat.
Shut off the cameras and get busy.; 1/29/13, 6:18 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: The more interesting part of the article to me is that cats are friggin' freeloaders. They pretend to belong to one household, then when you let them out they may visit as many as 10 other houses for food, then return home.

Reminds me a bit of the cat that I brought home as a kitten for Mother's day in maybe 1st grade. And, yes, for most of the next almost two decades, my mother, no pet lover, had to take care of him. He was an outdoor cat, since at the time, said mother would not allow any pets in her immaculate house (this changed when they moved up in the mountains where cats were coyote bait).

First story was when we moved about 10 miles at the end of 5th grade. Cat disappeared for most of week, and went back to the old neighborhood. No one fed him, and so he came back. Still don't know how he managed it.

Then the more relevant story. During his lifetime, we had a puddle, who had been spayed after a couple of litters. Making her a canine vacuum cleaner - not quite morbidly obese, but getting there. And, part of that was the puddle's inclination to eat the cat's food and the other dog's food.

WE took to feeding the cat on the top of the upright freezer in the garage. This usually worked, but we would know that the puddle was into the cat's food again, when the latter started leaving uneaten portions of dead avians around the yard for said mother to pick up. That was when we realized that the cat ate cat food because it was convenient, not because it had to to survive. And, yes, even in the best of times, he kept in practice - we still had the occasional avian carcass in the yard, just not as often, and often not partially consumed.; 1/29/13, 6:18 PM
Kevin said...: Remember when America mocked Wisconsin for its "cat-hunting ways?"; 1/29/13, 6:24 PM
Anonymous said...: My daughter's cat never goes outside. Soon she will be back home in California. She did a good job of catching a mouse in the house not long ago, and that's without front claws.; 1/29/13, 6:26 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Score! Go Team Cat!; 1/29/13, 6:27 PM
Roger J. said...: Add to Howard's list, coyotes--had lots of coyotes in eastern wa and damn few feral cats; 1/29/13, 6:27 PM
Revenant said...: most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles

So... vermin, then?

I'm too allergic to cats to keep one as a pet, but quite a few neighorhood cats like to visit my yard to hunt and drink from the swimming pool. Fine with me; keeps the squirrels under control.

Sometimes when I'm swimming at night I'll notice one crouched off to the side, watching me and waiting for me to leave. Kind of unnerving.; 1/29/13, 6:27 PM
kentuckyliz said...: My cats are serial killers.

I am trying to stay on their good side.; 1/29/13, 6:28 PM
TerriW said...: I miss our cat, may she RIP. Now I have to put out mouse traps.; 1/29/13, 6:36 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Fortunately in my neighborhood, we have cougar, lynx and racoons, so feral cats don't have a chance and most people keep their domestics inside at night.

Sounds like a neighborhood that I would like. Lived in one like that (absent the raccoons, but plus black bear) west of Denver up in the mountains. Father has lived on the other side of I-70 at a similar altitude for 25 years now, and that is where coyotes got the 2nd cat, and his successors were declawed and spent their lives indoors. Bears and big cats are discouraged there, and hence the coyotes and fox, along with a rather large herd of elk, and enough deer to make fencing everything highly suggested and driving somewhat dangerous. Bear and big cat really do keep down the populations of deer, and, yes, single dogs outdoors are usually taken by the cats pretty quickly.

Figure it must be the cats taking the deer, because I am now spending about half the year in NW Montana, where black bears are common, and grizzlies even come around, but no big cats, and coyotes are rare - possibly because we do have wolves on the ridges, but not in town, given the deer infestation. Don't see moose at the house, but are somewhat common in the pond named after GF at their ranch 5 miles down the river.

Summer before last, I threw out food by the driveway one night for the deer. I thought that it was stupid, and it was - we were up for maybe a half an hour around midnight with a bear 20 feet from our window feasting on the trash. So, last summer I would take the food we were throwing away maybe 1/4 mile towards the main road. Worked, until I took off right before we moved out for the winter, when GF threw it under her front porch, trying to entice a bear to hibernate there. Dumb. That was what happened when I went into Missoula for the night.; 1/29/13, 6:39 PM
Palladian said...: Cats are brain-disease vectors.; 1/29/13, 6:41 PM
Bob Ellison said...: Our cat responds "You didn't want me to eat those voles? My bad."; 1/29/13, 6:42 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: and that's without front claws.

You mean with her front paw digits being partially amputated.

Good for your daughter's cat, though. Instincts are strong in these ones.

Our cat is outside during the day and becomes "inside kitty" about 3pm in the winter and 5 pm in the summer. We have trained her that it is treat time about then. Recently with the extreme cold and snow and her being about 12 years old now, she has decided that "inside kitty" is not such a bad thing.

Outside cats, feral cats, don't live very long here due to the predators. One day our "outside kitty" will just not come back. That is the best case scenario. Worst case is that she comes dragging her partially disemboweled broken body back for us to put her out of her misery.

There is a local organization that will live trap the cats and then have them spayed or neutered. I donate to them. The cats are then notched in the ear so that you know that they are now sterile and do a catch and release on them in the future. There is one big old tough tom cat [looks like a Russian Blue] with a notched ear that has been around for at least 5 years and looks to be a very VERY rough 10 years old. Blue Boy. One day, he too shall not return for the free food and warm seat on the deck furniture.; 1/29/13, 6:42 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: The cat article immediately brought to mind one of the funniest, and truest, of the pickup artist site theories, which is this...

Beta guys who get stuck in the "Let's just be friends" thing with women often tend to romanticize women, put them on a pedastal, and imagining that because the girl of his dreams isn't screwing them that she's living the life of a virgin.

No, she isn't. She's probably catting around plenty, just not with Mr. Beta.

I've witnessed some pretty hilarious confrontations of Mr. Beta defending the virtue of some stray cat woman. Mr. Beta never gets it.

Women, of course, are like cats. That's why they call it pussy.; 1/29/13, 6:46 PM
Anonymous said...: Yes DBQ, my daughter got her when she was stationed at GTMO. She was an abandoned cat, which happens all too often when Navy personel are stationed elsewhere and don't want to bother dragging a cat along to a new duty station. The deed was done before my daughter adopted her.; 1/29/13, 6:52 PM
Kelly said...: I never wanted a cat, i don't like cats, but I some how ended up with a stray. He goes out at night and returns home during the day and stays mostly in the garage.

Our house came with a cat door, but it has to remain closed due to the cat bringing in its prey, both dead and alive. The cat has to be checked before I let him in because otherwise he'll run in and try to stash a headless bunny under my bed.

When we first moved here, I looked out to see the cat sitting in the middle of my neighbors birdbath. My neighbors are huge bird lovers, but the cat seems to stick to rabbits, chipmunks and mice despite all the bird feeders and bird baths around here. The bird population seems to be fine.

I know one day Salem (the kid named him) simply won't return home and that's fine. I'll feel a bit sad, but it won't be like losing one of my dogs.; 1/29/13, 6:58 PM
Kelly said...: Inga, I got my dog from a rescue. He was found tied up at an empty building on Fort Hood. I think they should ban military from adopting pets when they live in government housing. If you already have a pet that's one thing. I saw to many people dump their animals when they had to pcs.; 1/29/13, 7:03 PM
ricpic said...: I hardly get to know my backyard chipmunk before he's knocked off by the killer country cat who considers my property part of his hunting range. Happens every few months like clockwork.; 1/29/13, 7:10 PM
effinayright said...: Cats killing millions of poor birdies? bad!!!

Wind farms killing millions of poor birdies? Shut UP!!!; 1/29/13, 7:12 PM
MadisonMan said...: I'm looking at that cat carrying the rabbit and all I can think of is: Wow! The cat will now have fleas.

Reason #182 why our cat stays inside. It won't pick up fleas from outside vermin.; 1/29/13, 7:16 PM
n.n said...: so-called anthropogenic causes

I knew it! They have ulterior motives. They are not concerned about humans, animals, the environment, or anything else they proclaim.

They subscribe to the principles of instant (or immediate) gratification and out-of-sight and out-of-mind. I wonder how many "green" crusaders have honest convictions.

As for the cats, they are committing a "hate" crime. Indeed, the natural order is a villainous regime, especially when it contradicts the preferred narrative, and harshes people's mellow.

Speaking of priorities, elective abortion tortures and murders around one million captive human lives in America alone. How could The NYT miss that inconvenient truth?; 1/29/13, 7:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Bear and big cat really do keep down the populations of deer

I'm surprised, I thought that bears aren't fast enough to be effective predators of deer.

Peter; 1/29/13, 7:26 PM
David said...: Just who came up with those numbers?; 1/29/13, 7:29 PM
Unknown said...: "[...] most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat."

Anyone notice the native mammal missing from that list? It begins with "m" and ends with "e," and it's generally not something you want roaming round your kitchen. But as it's neither a (nasty!) "introduced species" nor something we think of as native wildlife (like a shrew, a chipmunk, or a vole), it's unmentionable.

OK, so I'll mention it: My mom emailed the other day to say that the cats had finally "earned their keep."

My parents had something of a mouse problem of late. They had done their best to plug all holes from outside and were trapping them inside (with live traps, if I know them), and after 31 mice trapped there was still someone in the walls. Then Mom found a dead mouse next to the cats' food bowl. Not eaten, not torn up, just dead. Since, no noises in the walls.; 1/29/13, 7:32 PM
Unknown said...: Howard,

I wish you were right. The 21st century cat lady no longer keeps 147 cats in her 1-bedroom apartment. Today, crazy women all over the USA feed feral cats in the field (ie. down the block) where they are free to breed, kill and shit.

The sensible thing to do with feral cat colonies is to capture the cats, spay/neuter the adults and kittens too old to tame, keep the kittens under 8 weeks or so, and release the rest.

My mom does some work in a trap/neuter/release program like this in MD. One of my two cats (who are both neutered, and aren't allowed outdoors under any circumstances) was a rescue kitten from a feral cat colony in MD.; 1/29/13, 7:38 PM
bagoh20 said...: G.W.B. again.; 1/29/13, 7:42 PM
Kevin said...: I'm sorry, but domestic cats let out to roam free are no better than feral pigs, released pythons, and other introduced or invasive species, and should be treated accordingly. They are called "house cats" for a reason.; 1/29/13, 7:42 PM
bagoh20 said...: We got a cat once to control a mice problem. She would just sit and watch them run by, but open up a can and woosh. They're big on recycling.; 1/29/13, 7:45 PM
Rocketeer said...: Listen, I hold no great love for cats, which I like to think of as nature-made Q-tips for cleaning between combine teeth - but the more shrews, chipmunks and voles they kill, the better. More power to the annoying little dander-bearing toxoplasmosis-spreading fuckers, I say.; 1/29/13, 7:47 PM
Rocketeer said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/29/13, 7:49 PM
Sam L. said...: Bet they leave eagles and bats alone.

Likely geese, too.; 1/29/13, 7:50 PM
gadfly said...: Yes indeed! Who didn't know? A couple of good critter-killer cats can save your house and yard from the damage by the likes of rabbits, chipmunks, moles, snakes, mice, rats, ferrets, ground squirrels, stray dogs, and yes, even birds. Unfortunately, they can't catch tree squirrels and they have a co-existence pact with every raccoon, woodchuck and possum.

When I lived in Wisconsin, I watched my six-pound tabby stop an eight-point buck from eating our decorative pine trees (it was a territory dispute). That she-cat feared nothing except hawks and owls.; 1/29/13, 7:55 PM
rhhardin said...: Even one garter snake taking up foundation residence eliminates house mice.; 1/29/13, 7:59 PM
bagoh20 said...: I think it's suspicious that they like to kill stuff that cuter than them.

What would be good would be a very tiny cat that would hunt termites. One for spiders too.; 1/29/13, 7:59 PM
Paul said...: Cats don't bark and dogs don't purr.

You can guess which I'm partial to.

Cats are greatest pets if you know how to raise them. My little female tabby sits on my shoulder and purrs in my ear. She comes when I call her, and is generally very obedient.

When I lived in Shady, NY, a few miles from Woodstock my cats at the time were bell trained...one bell to come and eat, and another higher pitched bell for hiking with me in the woods behind my house. They would follow me up over the ridgetop and to a lake (Cooper Lake) on the other side. They ran to that bell! They loved to hike with me.; 1/29/13, 8:00 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: Domestic cats — pet and feral — "kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year" in the United States — "most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles...

This must be stopped. I need more birdshit on my cars and more squirrels chewing holes in my house.; 1/29/13, 8:01 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: @ Inga,

Glad to hear your daughter didn't do the mutilation. Think about having all of your fingers lopped off at the first joint.

It is very sad to see people just abandon their pets when they are forced to move on either by job circumstances or falling on hard times. There is no excuse for this.

My step brother adopted a young dog that had been tied up in the back yard of a foreclosed home. A friend of his noticed the dog and after some days of biking back and forth to work decided that the owners were never coming back. They just left the dog to starve and die of thirst in the yard. After liberating the juvenile dog and taking it to my step brother, the dog is now living the life of Riley. You can almost tell that the dog is grateful and KNOWS that he has fallen into a good thing. Probably the best, smartest and most gentle big dog that I have ever known.

People have more sympathy for dogs, but just because it is a cat, that is more likely to survive than a dog, there is no excuse for abandonment.; 1/29/13, 8:01 PM
Cedarford said...: Human habitat destruction, inc roads w/vehicles, sprawl, housecats, powerlines, now stinking windmills and such is the biggest threat to wildlife.

Followed by human over-hunting and over-fishing targeted species. (Tigers, cod, bluefin tuna, sea turtles & eggs, etc).

If you want to maximize wilflife, believe in ecobalance, the approach that works best in having flourishing wildlife habitat is limited human impact, or past that and not practical, no humans. (Studies have shown that the most abundant, healthy, thriving wildlife populations are in nuclear exlusion areas like Bikini Atoll and the Chernobyl exclusion zone); 1/29/13, 8:07 PM
Cedarford said...: DBQ - It is very sad to see people just abandon their pets when they are forced to move on either by job circumstances or falling on hard times. There is no excuse for this.

There are plenty of valid excuses for it.
What would you do with a family that has lost their jobs to free trade with China and are now destitute and having a hard time living themselves let alone caring for pets with food and medical care?
Create a new version of Obamapetcare and Obamapetfoodstamps?

Families forced to move to seek employment elsewhere sometimes run into regions where "no pets in rentals" is becoming almost standard.
Shall we pass laws telling those Freedom-Loving property owners they MUST allow pets in their rentals??

See, when you say there is no excuse, then your solutions are either new government entitlements and laws forcing pets being allowed.....or the choice of euthanizing pets that can no longer be maintained. Kill them yourself via a vets visit, or send them to a PETA death camp and hope for the best...or some rationalize..abandon them and they might have a shot at living..; 1/29/13, 8:16 PM
bagoh20 said...: So it's not just the Jews then, and nuclear annihilation would be a good thing.

Just kidding C4. It's actually an interesting point, but to be fair there are also places, especially here in California that were nothing but sand and rock, before the people showed up, and now they are lush, green and full of fauna.; 1/29/13, 8:18 PM
Revenant said...: What would you do with a family that has lost their jobs to free trade with China

I'm not sure. I stopped playing with imaginary people when I was seven. :); 1/29/13, 8:27 PM
bagoh20 said...: I'd bet there is more biomass in Los Angeles today than there was before the city was here, and that's not counting the people. The place was an arid grassland with a pretty limited biodiversity compared to today. I live right next to the LA airport, in the middle of town, and I have hawks, owls, foxes, possum, raccoon and endless species of the things they feed on. For some there is more habitat here today, because of all the added water and it's better distribution. There is a lot of pavement and buildings, but also a lot of back yards and many, many more trees, shrubs, flowers and plant varieties. We mostly share the habitat, and we add a lot to it, despite the bad press.; 1/29/13, 8:33 PM
bagoh20 said...: DBQ, Our rescue saves dogs in that situation all the time. And Cedarford, I dont think you would be surpridsed to hear that we have yet to see them left behind like that by decent people who are just on hard times. These almost always are people you in particular would not have sympathy for. Gang members, welfare cheats, flop houses, crack heads, etc. who never should get a dog in the first place.

In my experience, they are never hardworking striving families. Values are values, and people who handle their responsibilities to a living creature so badly are not the type who are broke due to bad luck.; 1/29/13, 8:54 PM
chuck said...: Cats are whores.

One can learn much about nature and the world from cats.; 1/29/13, 9:15 PM
YoungHegelian said...: When we ran the model, we didn’t know what to expect,” said Dr. Marra, who performed the analysis with his colleague, Scott R. Loss, and Tom Will of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

When I see sentences like this, the BS meter starts clicking.

What's missing from this article is any mention of stomach content analysis. Needless to say, folks get upset when you grab Fluffy and open her up, but there was no mention of it being done on feral cats.

I bring this up because I remember an example from the Galapagos where a local tern population had taken a tern for the worse. The naturalists thought feral cats were to blame, until they examined the stomach contents of some feral cats and there was no tern meat.

The assumption that's made is that every critter that's caught by a cat (especially a bird) is in good health and would survive if not for Fluffy. That's not a good assumption. In the DC area, we used to have enormous flocks of crows. Then they all but disappeared due to West Nile, and their numbers are only now rebuilding. Humans paid attention to it because West Nile infects us, too. But do you think anyone pays attention if there's an epidemic among the grackles or sparrows?; 1/29/13, 9:37 PM
rcocean said...: So now we're supposed to "understand" some asshole who abandons a pet because blah..blah...blah.

Sorry. Can't take care of a pet, take him to the humane society.

I wasn't going to respond to C4's trollish bid for attention but since so many did...; 1/29/13, 10:02 PM
Unknown said...: "Oh, fer...I'm a CAT, you idiots! It's what I DO!"

Just sayin'...; 1/29/13, 10:24 PM
Unknown said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/29/13, 10:24 PM
Anga2010 said...: We keep them because they kill the varmints. Good for cats!; 1/29/13, 10:27 PM
Darrell said...: When the Left starts telling me that we've got to get rid of the cats, I start to think that we need more of them. Cats, not Lefties, of course.; 1/29/13, 10:35 PM
hombre said...: Cats suck. The Kiwi bird in New Zealand will be extinct in 15 or so years thanks to cats.

We need more cat-killing dogs.; 1/29/13, 10:36 PM
Darrell said...: Why do so many stupid ideas come from New Zealand?; 1/29/13, 10:44 PM
bagoh20 said...: "Why do so many stupid ideas come from New Zealand?"

The place is overrun with the new zealotry.; 1/29/13, 11:19 PM
sabeth.chu said...: The greatest liquidator of species - animal or vegetable - is homo sapiens.
The cats are all right.; 1/30/13, 1:09 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Bear and big cat really do keep down the populations of deer

I'm surprised, I thought that bears aren't fast enough to be effective predators of deer.

May be right there. It is weird though. I-70 west of Denver runs up to about 7500 feet, runs for maybe 10 miles or so, then drops back into Clear Creek canyon at maybe 5500 feet. North of the freeway, there are bear and mountain lion, but no deer, with the bear being much more prevalent, or at least noticeable. No deer, but some turkey. South, there is a serious deer infestation, but the bear and big cats are mostly kept out of the area. Same trees, but more houses to the south - one per maybe 4 acres. It is just weird - with so many deer to the south of the freeway, and none to the north.

That said, the black bear and the deer do seem to coexist fairly well up in NW Montana. Could tell from the food that I would leave out that both were feeding on it. The real deer infestation was in town though, maybe a mile or so away, where bear are not welcome, but neither is hunting. Last fall, saw maybe 8 or 9 at one time in the back yard of the post office. Something is taking some of the young though, as mothers seemed to start off with two or three, and by late fall, were almost always down to one - at least by GF's house. Definitely wasn't happening by my father's house in Colorado.; 1/30/13, 3:42 AM
jimbino said...: Where can I get some eagles, hawks and coyotes? My fenced yard on the south side of Austin is overrun with cats. Since I can't yet neuter the nature-hating cat owners, I trap the cats. I have been very successful, having caught 22 animals in 9 months after baiting the trap only some 30 times.

There are two problems with this:

First, for every cat I catch, I catch 1 skunk, 3 coons and 7 possums. I'd love to find a more selective trap.

Secondly, I have to either kill the cat or arrange to drop it off far, far away, where it may well die of starvation or in a fight for turf. The Socialist Commune of Austin gives me no alternative, since they will not come to pick up trapped cats, expecting me to deliver them, wasting my time and gas. If I did so, they would return the cat to the owner after charging a fee of some $100. What they don't have is a provision for compensating me for my service to humanity, and worse, now that the shelters are overrun, they sometimes waive the fee for adoption or return to owner. Feral cats they neuter and return to continue their depredations where they were caught !!!

A cat caught in my trap will probably never see its owner again--certainly not if I have to trap the same cat twice.

I would prefer the city to maintain an on-line registry of trapped and missing cats and require the owner of a lost cat to pay $100 for its return. In the case of a feral cat, ourTNR-ready city could offer $100 for its delivery to the pound. Then everyone would be happy: Austin could downsize its shelter, no cat would have to suffer or die, an owner could get his cat back, and I could make a fine living without having to leave my backyard. Even the songbirds would rejoice, since, once or twice fined, the cat owners might learn to keep their cats inside, though I fear that cat owners are harder to train than a cat.; 1/30/13, 6:36 AM
Larry J said...: The web comic "The Oatmeal" addressed this issue some time ago.

"Dogs are man's best friend. Cats are man's adorable little serial killers."; 1/30/13, 7:53 AM
Shanna said...: The web comic "The Oatmeal" addressed this issue some time ago.

Oh man I was just coming to see if somebody posted that because it is wonderful.

Cats kill vermin, like rats. That is one of their main selling points. Try to get rid of cats and you get fun things like the plague.; 1/30/13, 8:12 AM
TML said...: my roughish calculations show that every cat kills over 167 birds/animals a year. Is that even possible?; 1/30/13, 11:29 AM
Mark said...: Give those cats an assault rifle! Then lets see what they can do.; 1/30/13, 11:47 AM
Mark said...: Give those cats an assault rifle! Then lets see what they can do.; 1/30/13, 11:47 AM
Unknown said...: John Rhoades,

"Oh, fer...I'm a CAT, you idiots! It's what I DO!"

Just sayin'...

I'm surprised no one has linked this yet.; 1/30/13, 11:48 AM
Unknown said...: Bruce Hayden,

I must say that I've never heard of anyone successfully spaying a puddle.; 1/30/13, 11:58 AM
TML said...: C'mon people. Drop this into Google:

14,700,000,000/80,000,000=

It yields183.75 birds/critters killed PER cat every year.

No way.

80MM figure from here:

http://www.petfoodinstitute.org/Index.cfm?Page=USCatandDogPopulation; 1/30/13, 1:01 PM
gadfly said...: Michelle Dulak said...
Bruce Hayden,

I must say that I've never heard of anyone successfully spaying a puddle.

Perhaps you might want to read this article:

"The French puddle is one of the alternate names for the breed of dog known as the French poodle. The dog gets its name from its historical lineage that has to do with the German word 'Pudelhund'."; 1/30/13, 1:47 PM
Gene said...: TML: C'mon people. Drop this into Google: 14,700,000,000/80,000,000. It yields183.75 birds/critters killed PER cat every year.

I had the same thought and performed the same calculation. I admit it seems high but then I recalled the time I spent a night at a friend's open-sided sheep shed on a ranch in Sonoma County. The next morning the friendly feral cat that lived there year around had left a neat row of prey at the end of my bunk: one rat, one mouse and two baby mice.

That's four dead animals in one night and that figure presumably didn't include the ones he ate for dinner.; 1/30/13, 8:18 PM
kcom said...: I didn't read the article but did it mention the total prey population? Because a number without context is meaningless.; 2/4/13, 4:48 PM