Feral cats: Kill 1.3 to 4.0 billion birds annually;6.3 to 22.3 billion small mammals

[SUPERX-M1]

Yes, feral cats and house cats freely roaming kill-we all know this.

www.smithsonianmag.com for an extensive article .

Prominently featured in article is Pete Marra - author of book Cat Wars. Head of Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

USA has 20 to 80 million feral cats. 80 million house cats. The toll on wildlife is astounding.

Cats transmit plague, rabies, feline leukemia, T.Gondii, the very dangerous to animals and people: Toxoplasmosis with 10 to 20 % of people having-causes brain damage..., 1.2 million tons of feces.

New Zealand plans to kill 2 million feral cats.
Catch,neuter and release does not work well.

Pete Marra likes cats (as do I) but strongly feels that eliminating feral cats is the only workable solution. He receives serious threats and hate mail.

Feral cats are wild animals that are dangerous and cannot become socialized, lovable pets. They are not sweet kitty cats.They bring disease and death. They are miniature tigers that would kill you, if they were larger.

It is recommended that feral cats not be fed, or encouraged. That house cats be kept inside.

Well, this is sort of a free country, still. People will do as they will. But do you want to see birds flitting about, or a cat stalking one.

edit: Parents had a cat that brought home a rat bigger than she was. Another cat had a live rabbit that was frozen in shock but still not harmed.
edit: Mother fed a stray,took to a no kill shelter, cat was adopted, showed up 8 mo later at her house,traveled at least 20 miles, She kept cat in separate building, about half socialized, had to be careful around or risk being clawed or bitten. Cats are very bad kittys unless socialized when young.
Edit: New trend is to spend big bux on cat breeds from Africa, yes, real wild, not domesticated cats. Or hybrid cats. Imagine 80 million hybrids. Now, those would be killing machines. Some states prohibit owning. Like owning these very dangerous wolf-dog hybrids.

[bruce]

There is an excellent solution. It is inexpensive. It works. Used on all free roaming cats, will completely eliminate the problem. Contact me for my carefully developed instructional video. Accepted payment is cash (preferred) major credit cards, PayPal, etc. Sincerely. bruce.

[Tuna]

Lead sleeping pills do work well Bruce as I am sure you would agree.

[bruce]

Re: Lead sleeping pills. Tuna!!! You are reading my mind!!! Sincerely. bruce.

[tmark]

Well, there ya go! The cat's out of the bag!

[free1954]

they are a big problem where i live. "curiosity killed the cat" but for a long time in my neighborhood i was the prime suspect. i pushed that envelope as far as i could.

[Tuna]

They say they taste just like chicken?

[Art]

Animals don't have intentions. Only human beings have those. All animals from amoebas to chimpanzees are governed almost entirely by three things, eating, sleeping and reproducing, not necessarily in that order, so I've never understood hating an animal for characteristics it can't control.

With that out of the way, invasive species, including but not limited feral cats are a massive problem. I think the numbers in the OP are a SWAG but there is no doubt that cats kill a lot of songbirds, and indigenous mammals and reptiles. They also kill a lot of other invasive species, especially black rats and mice as well as European starlings and English sparrows. When I lived on a sugar plantation as a child the thing that concerned the landowner most wasn't cats. It was feral dogs pulling down his cattle, especially calves in the spring. He organized periodic dog hunts to control them. Since the rural locals back then seldom kept their dogs up pets were invariably killed in these dog hunts.

I'm a southerner who lives in Texas so here are the invasive species that are on my personal top ten list of shame in order from least damaging to absolute worst.

10. Exotic big game animals (I'm meddling here.) These critters compete with local big game. In the Texas Hill Country axis deer seem as common as rabbits in some places and they will displace whitetails. The good news is since they are not indigenous they can be killed any time of they year at any time of day at least in Texas. They are also yummy chow.

9. Tie - Rock pigeons, European Starlings and English Sparrows. These pest birds not only compete directly with indigenous species for food they can be destructive of crops. In New York City when I lived there in the 1970s pigeons were often referred to, appropriately, as "flying rats." These are some of the few birds that can be killed on sight in most states.

8. Boas and pythons, especially the Burmese python. These have been either released by or escaped from hobbyists. They have found a true home away from home in the Florida Everglades where they have no enemies except large adult alligators. They have been quite destructive of the local wildlife and the State of Florida is fighting a losing battle to control them, hamstrung in part by their own laws relating to wetlands.

7. Feral hogs. A plague on agriculture, including tree farming (they just love pine seedlings) they also will kill and eat livestock, especially poultry. They can also be very aggressive to people. Their only redeeming quality is they are good to eat. In Texas they are the only wild animal that can be killed without a hunting license.

6. Carp of any species. They vary from nuisance to unbelievably destructive. Another group brought in with good intentions. In Texas any grass carp caught has to be killed and gutted by law.

5. Feral dogs. They are numerous and destructive of both native wildlife and livestock. Landowners here will often require that hunters leasing their property kill any dog that isn't theirs on sight. Dogs, feral and other wise, also kill quite a few human beings every year.

4. Nutria, also sometimes referred to as nutria-rats. Very large semi aquatic burrowing rodents that were originally imported as a source of fur. Before alligators made a come back they had done incalculable damage to the vegetation of the coastal marshes in the south. They also largely displaced the indigenous musk rats. Nutria are also very aggressive. In Louisiana where rabbit hunting is a big deal many a beagle has mistakenly tracked an nutria and gotten severely cut up. In the New Orleans Metro area the police sometimes collect overtime at night patrolling canals in small boats and killing nutria that are undermining banks and roads.

3. Feral cats. See OP.

2. Zebra mussels, the most devastating aquatic invasive species in Texas and a whole lot of other places. They have no redeeming value and have a catastrophic effect on any body of water they are found in. They have severely degraded Lake Texaoma. Once they are in a body of water they are there for good.

1-A. The black or Norway Rat. Not only are these incredibly prolific rodents destructive of everything they come in contact with, but their reputation as a disease carrier is very well earned.

1. Fire ants. Not only do they mess up your yard and hurt when they bite but they have played a large part in the decimation of indigenous species from quail to horned lizards. They can be deadly to youngsters, both humans and livestock. Some of the animals on the list may have some apologists but fire ants should have stayed in South America where they belonged.

In my humble opinion anybody who kills anything on this list is doing a public service, so much the better if the critter happens to be tasty.

[clintonhater]

In New York City when I lived there in the 1970s pigeons were often referred to, appropriately, as "flying rats." These are some of the few birds that can be killed on sight in most states.

If so, it was a mis-use of the term. The true "flying rats" are sea-gulls, which is a gross misnomer as they can be found anywhere there's water, or a garbage dump, hundreds of miles inland. All species are voracious predators of other nesting birds (including other gull species), with mouths capable of swallowing whole prey far larger than you'd think physically possible, such as sea-turtle hatchlings. Not only do they THRIVE on human disruption of the environment, but they are a federally protected species!

[clintonhater]

Yes, feral cats and house cats freely roaming kill-we all know this.

www.smithsonianmag.com for an extensive article .

Prominently featured in article is Pete Marra - author of book Cat Wars. Head of Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

I have a large file of articles like this, because similar research has been conducted time & again over the last hundred yrs; their devastating impact on native wildlife is beyond scientific dispute, yet in many places bleeding hearts stifle all attempts by wildlife agencies to control them. (As with another destructive pest, feral horses, which drive native wildlife away from scarce food & water sources in the desert West; of all the federal boondoggles ever enacted into law, the Wild Horses Act tops the bill.)

And many of the cats doing this damage aren't truly feral, they're merely household pets allowed to roam free, but fed by their owners every day. A cat is driven to hunt by instinct, not hunger.

[Art]

I have a large file of articles like this, because similar research has been conducted time & again over the last hundred yrs; their devastating impact on native wildlife is beyond scientific dispute, yet in many places bleeding hearts stifle all attempts by wildlife agencies to control them. (As with another destructive pest, feral horses, which drive native wildlife away from scarce food & water sources in the desert West; of all the federal boondoggles ever enacted into law, the Wild Horses Act tops the bill.)

And many of the cats doing this damage aren't truly feral, they're merely household pets allowed to roam free, but fed by their owners every day. A cat is driven to hunt by instinct, not hunger.

Some animals benefit from a big fan base. Almost all birds, horses, dogs & cats lead the list. Here horses are sacred, in other places they're more utilitarian and are widely used as food. It's good to have an effective lobby on your side if you're a person or a horse.

Clintonhater: Sea gulls benefit from two things - they are a native species and they're birds.

[clintonhater]

Clintonhater: Sea gulls benefit from two things - they are a native species and they're birds.

Coyotes & wolves are native species, but they don't get the legal protection the flying rats have. Once upon a time, their numbers were held in check by Indians & others who raided the islands were they often breed for eggs, but of course that's now illegal; far more gulls inhabit North America now than when the Pilgrims landed.

[Art]

Coyotes & wolves are native species, but they don't get the legal protection the flying rats have. Once upon a time, their numbers were held in check by Indians & others who raided the islands were they often breed for eggs, but of course that's now illegal; far more gulls inhabit North America now than when the Pilgrims landed.

there are a whole bunch of animals that don't get the protection birds do, in Texas that includes almost all reptiles, and most predatory mammals. Birds just have a great lobby, raptors in particular are untouchable; in fact kill a hawk poaching you chickens and get caught....it'll be at best a very expensive day.

In Alaska and Canada the harvest of seagull eggs by the indigenous people is still legal which of course does folks where you live no good at all.

[bruce]

Rule SSS must be applied when necessary. Shoot. Shovel. Shut Up. Sincerely. bruce.

[AZshooter]

In high school, a buddy lived in an old home on some former orchard acreage. It was located on the county line, and not claimed for coverage by either county services. It was good-looking property with the home and a couple more, in addition to vintage barns and structures. People leaving town would use it as a dumping grounds for their cats on the way out of town - some barely slowed down & tossed kitty out the car window. As a result, there were always cat roadkills in that particular area. There was also a large community of feral cats infesting a section of orchard and barns. My buddy's dogs were fed outside, but eventually were attacked by diseased and starving packs of cats. Neither county would send sheriff or animal services to remedy the wild cat population.

One Saturday morning my Dad got a call from my buddy's Dad. The plan was to meet up early Sunday morning for a big farm breakfast. Several friends were there to participate. At days' end we had shot several dozen cats, enough that they had to bury them all using a back hoe. My buddy's little brother was in charge of loading up the wagon with carcasses to be buried. We never got all of the cats, but significantly thinned them out. Nevertheless, the remaining cats took little time in re-overpopulating the orchard area. It was necessary to go out every 6 months to thin out more. None were very healthy looking, many scarred from fighting, all had fleas and parasites, and it was a big nd merciful favor to kill off most of them.