Study: Cats wiping out backyard wildlife
Reptiles are easy prey. (Photo by Amy E. Ford)
Cats can be cuddly, but America’s second most favorite family pet is also an accomplished killer.
Researchers at The University of Georgia have concluded domesticated cats are wiping out neighborhood wildlife.
USA Today sums it up as mundanely as possible: “That mouse carcass Kitty presents you with is just the tip of a very bloody iceberg. When researchers attached kittycams to house cats, they found a secret world of slaughter.” [Video of the carnage]
While icebergs are largely homogeneous in structure, the wildlife gnawed upon by Fluffy is quite diverse.
Mammals’ eternal foe, the reptiles (and their slimy cousins, the amphibians), take the brunt of the feline assault — lizards, snakes and frogs made up 41% of the animals killed by the 60 Athens-area cats equipped with collar cameras.
Cute creatures, such as chipmunks and voles, made up 25% of the tiny corpses; insects and worms 20%; birds 12%.
I’d have thought birds, as tasty as they are, would have been killed more often, but, from a predator’s standpoint they have the annoying ability of flight.
Nevertheless, birding enthusiasts are upset at the nation’s 74 million cats.
“Cat predation is one of the reasons why one in three American birds species are in decline,” said George Fenwick, president of American Bird Conservancy.
Cat lovers are equally upset at the UGA report, which has been called “heavy on errors, misrepresentations, and glaring omissions, and light on defensible claims.”
Here’s some more details from the complete UGA study that will make you think twice about kissing Fluffy:
- About 30% of roaming house cats kill prey — an average of two animals per week
- Cats brought home just under a quarter of what they killed, ate 30% and left 49% at the scene of the crime
- Roaming cats are a lot like roaming people — males were more likely to take risks than females and older cats were more careful than younger ones.
- Favorite risky behaviors include crossing roadways (45%), eating and drinking things they found (25%), exploring storm drains (20%) and entering crawl spaces (20%)
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114 comments Add your comment
Roekest
August 7th, 2012
1:46 pm
I have a shoot-on-sight policy for the little buggers. My dog can haul the carcass away
D
August 7th, 2012
1:52 pm
If one of you double digit IQ rednecks shoots or poisons my cat (who would only be outside if he ran out – letting a cat run around unattended is something I don’t do) and they’re going to have a very, very, very bad day. Would it be alright if I shot your dog if found him in my yard? What about if he was barking all night long? And we wonder why the rest of the world looks at the south they way they do. Idiots.
billy bob
August 7th, 2012
1:54 pm
cats rule, dogs drool…
ClydeFrog
August 7th, 2012
2:00 pm
I’d think twice about the poisoning and shooting of cats…some cat lovers are armed as well and don’t take too kindly to that kind of activity.
In Europe a few hundred years ago people killed cats because they thought they were witches’ familiars. Guess what happened? Rat populations grew out of control and the fleas they carried started the plague and wiped out a major chunk of the population. Poetic justice if you ask me….
Cats were used by early civilizations to guard food supplies from actual dangerous rodents and snakes.
You morons that want to kill cats do so at your own peril. I’ll be damned if I stand by and watch though, that’s for sure.
John
August 7th, 2012
2:03 pm
Sorry to say but this is old news. Why hasn’t something been done yet is the real question. Maybe they will do a study on that next. Dogs are leashed because they are an identifiable threat. As usual the world begins and ends at the end of a persons nose, so there has been no response to these studies since they have put them out.
Meantime, everyone should kill as many cats as they can.
DogsRule
August 7th, 2012
2:04 pm
I don’t get it why dogs are always picked up by animal control, when cats are the real nuisance. My neighborhood is overrun with these nasty creatures causing havoc and all animal control seems to care about is dogs. Besides killing birds, lizards and etc., they also like to torture dogs that are inside by flaunting their freedom and they also like to get their stupid paw prints all over my car. My dog has busted out a window because of my neighbors stupid cat hanging out in my yard waiting to eat birds at my birdfeeder. Next time I see that f-ing feline over here I’m going to release the hounds! The predator becomes the prey!
Dirty Dawg
August 7th, 2012
2:16 pm
Had a neighbor once that didn’t appreciate another neighbor’s cat, claiming that said cat was killing birds. Whether or not she actually saw the cat kill birds nobody knows. What we do know is that somehow she lured the cat into her ‘fenced’ back yard – probably with something that would have had to have drugged the cat enough to not get away from her dogs that she subsequently let out of her back door and killed the cat. And since it worked so well she did it again to another neighborhood cat a few months later. Ever know of a cat that wasn’t able to avoid a couple of dogs inside a five foot fence unless they were ‘on something’? So who’s the villain here?
Dibi
August 7th, 2012
2:17 pm
In the scientific world where “Natural Selection” is the rule, Darwin would examine the scope of the species in balance with its neighboring animals. In the world of religious absolutes where God or Allah or Buddha or the Hindi Deities rule, killing of any of their creations has consequences for the killer.
kar
August 7th, 2012
2:25 pm
Didn’t they do a similar study in Great Britain? Even though kitty is not a natural predator, they summarized that the local fauna had more or less accomondated and adjusted for feline domesticus.
ericcatman
August 7th, 2012
2:26 pm
Well, this must be true. I haven’t seen a snake or lizard in my bedroom in over 10 years.