The Three-Minute Outdoorsman: Wild Science from Magnetic Deer to Mumbling Carp

49. Five Million U.S. Residents Don't See the Problem with Their Cat Killing Just One Bird a Day

A N I M A L S A N D U S 191 nest to find it and dispatch the helpless young. Come on, cat lovers , don’t you get it? The Balogh study is welcome news in this debate because it provides solid data on cat depredation on wild birds. It shows how an entire local population can be changed from a self-sustaining population to a “sink” that cannot sustain itself via natural reproduction . And it’s the cats, pure and simple. We should be better stewards of our environment. Just like you don’t dump your trash out your back door, neither should you open it for your cat. 49 five million u.s. residents don’t see the problem with their cat killing just one bird a day I admit to adapting this title from an article in a well-known satirical newspaper named after a vegetable. But I had to get your attention , because hasn’t the cat-wildlife issue been visited enough times? Many have pointed out the problems caused by irresponsible cat owners who let their cats outdoors to kill native birds, rodents, and other creatures. It is pretty common knowledge that cats kill around a million birds a day in the United States. I liken letting cats outdoors to ecological pollution. Mostly, we need to bolster our rejection of Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) programs, where cats are sterilized and deliberately released in outside enclosures or natural areas. In a 2010 article in the prestigious journal Conservation Biology , Christopher Lepczyk and colleagues addressed the issue of cat depredation on wildlife, with some new or at least underappreciated twists. What impressed me most was that instead of just reviewing the problem, they made some concrete suggestions for action. I summarize them below and add some comments. t h e t h r e e - m i n u t e o u t d o o r s m a n 192 Conservation biologists, wildlife ecologists, and the like should have open dialogues with the animal welfare, sheltering, veterinary, and public-health communities. Why? People who advocate letting cats outdoors either don’t get it or are in denial. Or like the title of this essay says, their cat “only kills a bird or two a day.” Ninety million cats in the United States and many let outside to roam—do the math. Cats are the “leading vector of rabies among domestic animals .” Also, cats that are trapped, neutered, and released have “shorter lives, higher levels of parasites and disease, and generally poorer health,” all while they are out in the environment killing native animals. So, when TNR is presented as the “humane” alternative to reducing cat numbers, don’t be fooled. The wildlife and conservation communities should advocate for enforcement of requiring licenses for cats, decreasing unwanted breeding of pet cats through mandatory or subsidized spaying and neutering, and requiring cats to be kept under their owners’ control at all times when outdoors. In many cases, local ordinances requiring owners to keep their domestic animals under control are enforced for dogs, but not for cats. OK, this is a tough one but in my opinion the most important . People let their cats outside because they suffer no consequences for doing so. The problem is that most communities do not want to take on the issue of enforcing a leash law for cats. The argument is that a cat ordinance is “unenforceable.” After all, if your three-year-old kid opens the door and the cat runs out, should you be cited? What about farmers who have cats in their barns for rodent control? They’re likely to scoff at the idea that they should reduce or eliminate their barn cats because they are killing native birds. And the alternative, to poison rodents in barns, isn’t necessarily better. We can’t win all the battles. But we need to change the culture of letting cats outside. We should make it clear that if a neighbor ’s cat visits our property, we will call animal control and have it A N I M A L S A N D U S 193 removed, or at least file a complaint. Some will say that enforcing a cat ordinance will cost too much. The proper response is, why should the “blame” be put on those who make the call? Why not focus the blame...