That Cuddly Kitty Is Deadlier Than You Think

[XemaSab]

For all the adorable images of cats that play the piano, flush the toilet, mew melodiously and find their way back home over hundreds of miles, scientists have identified a shocking new truth: cats are far deadlier than anyone realized.

In a report that scaled up local surveys and pilot studies to national dimensions, scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that domestic cats in the United States — both the pet Fluffies that spend part of the day outdoors and the unnamed strays and ferals that never leave it — 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 rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat.

The estimated kill rates are two to four times higher than mortality figures previously bandied about, and position the domestic cat as one of the single greatest human-linked threats to wildlife in the nation. More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats, the report said, than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons, collisions with skyscrapers and windmills and other so-called anthropogenic causes combined.

Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and an author of the report, said the mortality figures that emerge from the new model “are shockingly high.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/science/that-cuddly-kitty-of-yours-is-a-killer.html?hpw&_r=0

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Rec for the thread title!

BTW, my little Schnoodle laughed at this, since cats run away from him...

[theKed]

2. Are we still on this kick?

Like, seriously?

[reformist2]

3. What's with all the anti-cat threads lately?

[Tunkamerica]

8. the vole lobby

[TexasTowelie]

4. Meow.

Pass the catnip.

[Uben]

5. Can you say "food chain"?

Given there are approximately a billion cats on earth (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_estimated_number_of_cats_in_the_world), that means each cat gets to eat 2.4 birds and 12.3 mammals each year. Doesn't sound like much to me at all...less than one bird a quarter and about one mammal a month! Dayum, cats gotta eat, too!

[Tunkamerica]

9. but to artificially inflate the population because of cuteness or some sort of

allegiance is definitely a topic to discuss. The population of cats would be much different if man didn't deem them pets.

[HappyMe]

6. Oh noes!!11

Dissing the catz!1

I'm just glad the strays that were plaguing the apartment complex are gone.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

7. More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats, the report said, than ... ... ... combined. WOW!

That's actually pretty impressive. Perhaps persons (of a particular societal subset that will remain undisclosed) are wise to hoard and collect them. Seems like a decent protection scheme; they self-groom, bury their own excrement, don't rust or require ammo, and are warm and fluffy. Even the criminal mastermind 'Claw' from Inspector Gadget kept one ready by his side.

Well played my cat-collecting community cohabitants... well played.

[appleannie1]

10. I keep my 3 cats inside on a diet of tuna and cat food. Cue for a cat's are responsible for the

deaths of fish thread. The answer is feed the feral cats in your neighborhood and do what my son did in his neighborhood. He trapped them in cages, took them to a vet and paid to have them neutered. The result has been no new feral cats in his neighborhood. There is no need for them to kill because food is available for them.

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. I believe the article contends they kill reflexively... whether they are hungry or not.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I read it yesterday at another site.

[MNBrewer]

13. makes them sound downright human

[MNBrewer]

12. "anthropogenic causes"?

Does this conveniently NOT include the death toll on animal life caused by HUMAN MOUTHS?

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. That's fairly absurd

since we're talking about wildlife and not domesticated livestock; if they weren't bred for meat, all those beef cattle and veal calves and chickens? Wouldn't have been born in the first place, wouldn't exist at all. Not so wild birds and squirrels and rabbits and so on.

[MNBrewer]

15. heard of habitat destruction for the purposes of raising beef, veal, chicken, etc?

I think that all pet cats should be neutered and kept indoors at all times, and a concerted effort should be made to humanely control feral populations. Arguing that pet cats should be banned is unthinking reaction.

But to say they're a bigger threat to wildlife than humans are (given our penchant for destroying wildlife habitat in service of our consumption of beef, pork and chicken, not to mention wild stock of fish and other seafood), is laughable.

[LWolf]

16. Since the feral cat population

went extinct on my 6 acres, after I trapped, neutered, and released them all, the rodent population, pack rats and rabbits, has exploded. The bird population remains the same. I've considered "adopting" more feral cats from the local rescue that vaccinates and neuters them to help keep the rodent population checked. Around there, the cat population is more at risk. Coyotes, owls, and hawks make quick work of them.

That's why my pet cat remains inside. To keep her safe. If it were safe for her to go outside, I'd turn her loose on the rodents. The owls and hawks don't keep their numbers in check.

[el_bryanto]

17. Damn the Voles!

I don't know what a Vole is but I don't like the sound of it. I'm glad that American Cats are protecting us from this unknowable menace.

Bryant