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Give Birds a Break. Lock Up the Cat.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/sc...pagewanted=all
headline: Give Birds a Break. Lock Up the Cat. excerpt: Peter P. Marra, a research scientist at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center at the National Zoo, pointed out that cats were the only domesticated animal permitted to roam. “Pigs have to stay in pens, chickens have to stay in pens,” he said. “Why are cats allowed to run around and do what their instincts tell them to do, which is rampage?” It isn’t fair to the cat. Regular stints outdoors are estimated to knock three or more years off a pet cat’s life. “No parent would let a toddler outside the house to run free in traffic,” said Darin Schroeder, vice president for conservation advocacy at the American Bird Conservancy in Washington. “A responsible owner shouldn’t do it with a pet.” In the view of many wildlife researchers, a pet cat on a lap may be a piece of self-cleaning perfection, but a pet cat on the loose is like a snakefish or English ivy: an invasive species. Although domestic cats have been in this country since the colonial era, they are thought to be the descendants of a Middle Eastern species of wild cat, and there is nothing quite like them native to North America. As a result, many local prey species are poorly equipped to parry a domestic cat’s stealth approach. “People fool themselves into believing that by simply putting a bell on a cat they could prevent mortality to birds,” Mr. Schroeder said. “But a bell ringing means nothing to a bird.” Moreover, free-ranging domestic cats are considered subsidized predators. They eat cat food at home, and then hunt just for sport, a strategy that allows them to exist at densities far greater than carnivores achieve in nature. “It’s estimated that there are 117 million to 150 million free-ranging cats” in the United States, Dr. Marra said. “They’re the most abundant carnivore in North America today.” Yet for all their indefatigable stalking, cats will rarely take on the most cursed vermin in our midst. “The myth has been propagated that urban roaming cats do a lot to control the rat population,” Mr. Schroeder said. “But science has shown that cats don’t predate on rats, especially not the rather large variety seen in our cities.” Cats’ toll on birds is a less mythical matter. In one famous study reported in the journal Nature, Kevin R. Crooks of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Michael E. Soulé of the Wildlands Project in Colorado looked at the population dynamics among cats, coyotes and scrub birds in 28 “urban habitat fragments” of Southern California. In the developments to which coyotes had access, free-ranging cats were rare and avian diversity high. The coyotes ate cats but rarely bothered with birds. Where coyotes were excluded, cats ranged free and bird diversity dropped. .... |
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Give Birds a Break. Lock Up the Cat.
"chatnoir" wrote in message
... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/sc...pagewanted=all headline: Give Birds a Break. Lock Up the Cat. excerpt: Peter P. Marra, a research scientist at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center at the National Zoo, pointed out that cats were the only domesticated animal permitted to roam. “Pigs have to stay in pens, chickens have to stay in pens,” he said. “Why are cats allowed to run around and do what their instincts tell them to do, which is rampage?” It isn’t fair to the cat. Regular stints outdoors are estimated to knock three or more years off a pet cat’s life. “No parent would let a toddler outside the house to run free in traffic,” said Darin Schroeder, vice president for conservation advocacy at the American Bird Conservancy in Washington. “A responsible owner shouldn’t do it with a pet.” In the view of many wildlife researchers, a pet cat on a lap may be a piece of self-cleaning perfection, but a pet cat on the loose is like a snakefish or English ivy: an invasive species. Although domestic cats have been in this country since the colonial era, they are thought to be the descendants of a Middle Eastern species of wild cat, and there is nothing quite like them native to North America. As a result, many local prey species are poorly equipped to parry a domestic cat’s stealth approach. “People fool themselves into believing that by simply putting a bell on a cat they could prevent mortality to birds,” Mr. Schroeder said. “But a bell ringing means nothing to a bird.” Moreover, free-ranging domestic cats are considered subsidized predators. They eat cat food at home, and then hunt just for sport, a strategy that allows them to exist at densities far greater than carnivores achieve in nature. “It’s estimated that there are 117 million to 150 million free-ranging cats” in the United States, Dr. Marra said. “They’re the most abundant carnivore in North America today.” Yet for all their indefatigable stalking, cats will rarely take on the most cursed vermin in our midst. “The myth has been propagated that urban roaming cats do a lot to control the rat population,” Mr. Schroeder said. “But science has shown that cats don’t predate on rats, especially not the rather large variety seen in our cities.” Cats’ toll on birds is a less mythical matter. In one famous study reported in the journal Nature, Kevin R. Crooks of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Michael E. Soulé of the Wildlands Project in Colorado looked at the population dynamics among cats, coyotes and scrub birds in 28 “urban habitat fragments” of Southern California. In the developments to which coyotes had access, free-ranging cats were rare and avian diversity high. The coyotes ate cats but rarely bothered with birds. Where coyotes were excluded, cats ranged free and bird diversity dropped. .... nature = varied and some times dangerous. |
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