These types of die-offs are concerning, but probably more common than you'd think. People don't generally realize what a rough life birds, especially highly migratory species, have. A pair of song-birds (passerines) will likely hatch an average of ~4 babies each year, and yet the populations are generally stable or shrinking over time. Using rough math that would indicate that 2/3 of the birds that exist at the peak breeding season will not be alive the next year.
Weather-related events are pretty tough to predict and prevent. There are several things you can do that will have a direct effect on bird populations. I'm short on time, so I'll just list the two most impactful ones:
1. Keep your cat indoors. The low estimate for the number of birds killed in North America pet and feral cats is one billion birds a year. That doesn't include the many small mammal, reptile, and amphibian species which are the base of the food chain for larger species of birds.
2. Reduce your use of insecticides both directly and via store-bought foods. There's a lot of evidence that insect populations are experiencing a population collapse, likely due mostly to accumulated insecticides in the ecosystem.
If you have an outdoor cat, you absolutely need to put a bell or something that jingles on it's collar. The sound will alert the birds and give them time to escape.
I've seen that number before (1 billion birds killed a year) and I'm interested in how accurate it is.
There are appropriately 92 million cats in the US - so that is like 10 birds per cat - I've had a lot of outdoor access cats and most have never brought birds in, or like once or twice a year.
Do cats bring in only a tiny subset of things they catch, or are some cats killing far far more?
While cats are little murder machines, the focus on keeping them indoors seems not to ring true to me (in North America). We have systematically killed/displaced all of the natural predators (bobcat, lynx, coyote, foxes, wolves, etc...) how is introducing a predictor to help re-balance things a net loose?
Yes I know what they did in new Zealand but remember there were no indigenous predatory land mammals to replace there
Unlike wild predators or feral cats, domesticated, human-owned cats don't live or die by how much they kill. There's no feedback loop that would prevent them from hunting their prey into extinction. If they over-hunt birds one season and can't catch enough the next, their owners will simply supplement the difference.
It's not even clear to me that birds are a primary food source for domesticated outdoor cats. They might be hunting them just for sport.
We might consider it a bad thing to kill for sport, but why is it bad for animals like cats to enjoy hunting and killing other animals? Cats have no such moral restrictions.
I still don't see a condemnation at all. Other than the implication that sport is not constrained by hunger and therefor can have unbounded externalities, which again is not moral, it's a practical observation and concern for bird populations.
Maybe you could pinpoint further which part of the sentence you quoted brings in morality.
Keep your f%@#g cat indoors - or at least in your yard. Cat's don't "deserve" to be outside wandering free and I sure as hell don't need them on my property terrorizing wildlife, tearing up my garden and shitting all over the place.
And no, you're kitty is not a "natural predator" rebalancing anything. It's a pet and as such should be kept under you're control.
Entitled "free roamer" cat owners are the worst - and breaking leash laws in just about every jurisdiction out there. I have zero problems trapping trespassing cats and turning them over to animal control. Not sure why people feel entitled to get a pass on this - it's BS.
Why don’t they deserve to be outside? I disagree with that - I think they do deserve it because it keeps them happier. I find your description of cats (“terrorizing wildlife”, “tearing up my garden”) to be hyperbolic. Domestic cats don’t typically do things like eat through a vegetable garden. As for leash laws - that’s more necessary for dogs because of their potential for aggression and harm to humans. Cats are VERY rarely aggressive, non threatening to almost all humans, and are more likely to run away from humans than say a pit bull.
Frankly this "they do deserve it because it keeps them happier" reeks of sheer entitlement and disdain for personal property and boundaries. I have had terrible experiences in the past with neighbour cats. And if you don't think cats are aggressive you clearly haven't seen a caterwauling fight mess up the neighbourhood or scratch kids up badly.
Also, many people are allergic to cats. Some of them develop even serious health problems like anaphylaxis. Please restrict your cat strictly to your property.
Cats are a smaller problem in New Zealand than is often claimed. The possums and rats are far worse, to the point where NZ is engaging in bio-chemical warfare against them. However the worst thing for birds are not those small mammalian predators humans brought there, but the massive destruction of their livelihood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_New_Zealand
I don't know. I've been considering pets for several months since I'm now spending so much time at home and, as for many people looking for some at home companionship, it comes down to dog or cat.
I've read a reasonable amount of material that suggests that if your cat is kept indoors it's a lot more likely to be unhappy. So if you must own a cat then keeping it indoors may not be the best strategy for the cat. On the other hand, the point about environmental impact of cats - killing of birds and other small animals - might be a really good argument against having cat full stop. If you can't keep it in a way that ensures its welfare whilst also ensuring that it doesn't cause havoc amongst the local wildlife, maybe don't get one at all.
> If you can't keep it in a way that ensures its welfare whilst also ensuring that it doesn't cause havoc amongst the local wildlife, maybe don't get one at all.
I'm glad that you're taking the time to think through the responsibility that comes with getting a pet, but I think you are coming close to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here. just keep in mind that there are already more cats than homes willing to take them in (almost a million shelter cats are euthanized each year in the US alone). if we're talking adoption (and we really should be; deliberately breeding cats for sale is part of the problem, imo), you don't need to offer a perfect life for your prospective pet. you just need to offer a life that is worth living at all.
> I think you are coming close to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here.
Completely agree here. We have four cats plus foster regularly... the catio definitely created net positive happiness, but the key is really just the elimination of boredom. Cats need stimulation just like people. Some toys, a tower, a good window - just keep on top of their needs and they will be happy
My likely unpopular opinion, humans shouldn't have pets any more, i think its an overall net negative driven by peoples selfish need to take care of a thing, be loved and have attention.
Dogs are particularly bad. off leash owners cant control them, we have kill shelters, breeding for obscene prices, dog shit being left all over, dog fighting. Then people just don't know how to take care of them. I had a neighbor that left their dog outside for hours barking. such a nuisance for no reason, and that dog must have been living a miserable life. we keep breeding chihuahuas that no one wants, pitbulls that can't be adopted, and some of these pure breeds like bulldogs are just miserable, other pure breeds have health issues.
The main counter argument I usually hear when this is brought up is that many of these animals have been bred for hundreds or thousands of years to be dependent on humans.
To your point about kill shelters, I think the humane society has largely helped fixed this. There was an article on HN this week that claimed shelter killings was reduced from 20% down to 2% based on the efforts of the humane society since the 1970s.
I may be biased as a dog lover, but most of your arguments seem to be based on bad owners. If we can stop bad ownership we should do so but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. I don’t think bad parenting existing should be an excuse for abstaining from having children either, unless we regress to a misanthropic world view.
Thanks for this. In college I worked at the Humane Society and helped with the dogs. Very hard work. After working there I realized how most "breeders" are just random blokes with an AKC pure bread who get some dogs together. Some real breeders who monitor trace genetics and try to make the breed better exist, but these dogs usually cost a lot of money, and have specific purposes and customers. Sometimes I wonder if dog ownership should require a license and semi hefty fee (make it more a kin to adoption). But I am not sure...
Yeah most problems do stem from bad owners. But idk how to enforce good dog and cat ownership? At least with kids we have cps even if it isn't perfect and if a crappy kids grows up into a terrible adult we have law enforcement.
But what can you do about terrible owners? Are we going to take dogs away from owners that don't clean up poop or how do you handle communities that don't think their dog needs a leash.
Most municipalities already have laws against this. Hell, where I live there’s a law that can escalate to a 3rd degree felony if your dog looks like it can get out of its fence. What I suspect is an unsatisfying answer for you is that they aren’t enforced because they really aren’t a priority.
That’s unfortunately a part of living in a society. We can’t always agree on what priorities are worth our limited resources. We’ve generally agreed children are a priority and choose to enforce those laws more often. For every person annoyed by bad dog owners, there’s somebody who annoyed by laws not being enforced against noise pollution, poorly parked cars, yard maintenance etc etc. My only suggestion is to get engaged to try and get them enforced if you feel it’s a major problem
> But idk how to enforce good dog and cat ownership?
We have laws against animal abuse. Some of these laws have strong teeth and can put abusers behind bars for years.
I have two dogs, and they're both incredibly happy. They enrich my life, and I do the same to theirs'. I don't want the state telling me I can't have dogs. That's a kind of liberal fascism that goes against the grain of this country's ethos.
There are dogs suffering in shelters, but there is suffering all around, everywhere you look. Orphan children, homeless people, cancer. If you start passing laws against everything, we'll wind up living in a bubble.
Find negative externalities and tax them if you want a better way of dealing with problems. Don't ban dog ownership.
I highly disagree: humanity has co-evolved with animals and living together with them has always been normal. Reducing it to some "selfish need" is a cynical generalization. Denying pets will not improve the lives of these creatures, it will close their niche and pave the way for the extinction of their species. After millennia of living with them, that would be the ultimate betrayal of our most loyal friends and allies. We can already see that with horses: they are no longer useful and their numbers are dropping fast.
to an extent I kinda agree. I definitely don't think people should deliberately breed animals as pets. but we already have an unnaturally large population of cats and dogs and we have not been entirely successful at preventing them from reproducing on their own. just leaving them be is not an option, as that would devastate the prey population. if the alternative is euthanizing the majority of cats and dogs that currently exist, I don't think we have to feel bad as individuals about keeping a few in our homes.
And I still got a dog. Right before some unplanned surgeries. Now, I also totally believe the claimed personal health benefits. Can't stay in bed when the puppy needs to be walked. This dog probably saved my life.
We spend a lot of time at the dog park, so I see the cream of the dog owners. I try to not think too much about all the other dogs who aren't as lucky. I'll just start crying.
If you have previously let your cat outdoors on a regular basis, it will likely be unhappy if you stop letting it go outdoors.
Outdoor cats get in fights with other cats, spread disease via their waste, kill birds and wildlife. Neighbors also can mistake your cat for a feral one and call animal control or trap your cat: https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/carin...
We made it almost a year before our rescue got outside. He was instantly hooked. Would hide for hours under something near door. Bolt the moment it was open.
Seems logical. They are wide roaming predators stuck indoors. If I lived in a box my entire life and then got to go outside just once, my preferences might change dramatically.
We have 3 cats, and only one has any interest in prowling the yard, and we watch her like a hawk, only let her outside with us.
The other two (one born feral, one in a shelter) have zero interest in stalking birds. They're not lazy, just don't care about stalking birds, are more "dog-like" perhaps.
Point is, it's a proper subset of cats wreaking mayhem, and they have very varied personalities, which I offer as another datapoint.
It is absolutely a subset. I've had many cats who go outdoors and only one really paid any attention to birds at all. They seem to be much more interested in rodents like shrews and voles. This is only my personal experience though, but I really would love to see further study on this, since I have bird feeders and a ton of birds in my yard. I'm also curious how it might be different in urban vs suburban and rural situations.
I have 7 cats now and have had dozens of cats since I was a kid. Cats don't give a fuck about being outside if they've never been there. Now, trying to make an adult outdoor cat into an indoor cat is hellish. But if kept indoors from a young age they are quite happy.
And do you have a substantial body of conversations with other cats to be able to analyse so you can tell when one claiming to be happy is instead stunted and warped and brainwashed into declaring it's love for it's cult leader?
Cat was constantly sneaking out. Cat is much loved throughout neighborhood. Got really good at hunting. To the point a neighbor started shooting at it.
We finally got good at keeping the cat inside.
Cat became super depressed.
Got a second cat. second cat peed in every laundry basket and bed in the house in a couple of days. Oh and first cat hated second cat.
Things have calmed down, and cats are happy, and we now have a gate to bedrooms.
These have nothing whatsoever to do with cats or insectiside and they're not even remotely "common". The fact that die offs are happening more now, due, as the piece notes, almost certainly to effects of climate change shouldn't lessen the impact it has on people, on the contrary, it should heighten it.
You really don't know what you are talking about mate. Indoor cats live 13-17 years. Outdoor cats average 2-5. What's cruel is willfully exposing your cat to an environment that will very likely result in a reduction of their lifespan by 60-80%. There are plenty of ways to stimulate a cat that don't involve dramatic risk of disease, parasites, disfigurement or death by predator or vehicle.
What’s your source on the life expectancy of outdoor cats? I haven’t observed this having any impact myself. Cats that stay indoors and ones that free roam seem to have the same life expectancy. The ones that roam even seem healthier.
On the other anecdata, my parents have only had outdoor cats and every single one has made it past 5 - several past 10, one past 20. Of the 10 I can think of just now, only 1 died of "unnatural" causes (car).
The pet cat industry in general is evil. Keeping them indoors is the best way to protect local wildlife, there are still many ways to make an indoor cat happy. If it were up to me, breeding of cats would be banned and existing populations would be the "final" permitted generation.
> 1. Keep your cat indoors. The low estimate for the number of birds killed in North America pet and feral cats is one billion birds a year.
If your pet cat is spayed/neutered, it should be fine to allow them outside. They will not contribute to the feral cat problem and in fact could help slightly reduce it.
Weather-related events are pretty tough to predict and prevent. There are several things you can do that will have a direct effect on bird populations. I'm short on time, so I'll just list the two most impactful ones:
1. Keep your cat indoors. The low estimate for the number of birds killed in North America pet and feral cats is one billion birds a year. That doesn't include the many small mammal, reptile, and amphibian species which are the base of the food chain for larger species of birds.
2. Reduce your use of insecticides both directly and via store-bought foods. There's a lot of evidence that insect populations are experiencing a population collapse, likely due mostly to accumulated insecticides in the ecosystem.