Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually
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Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually
#2Wait until you hear about humans.
Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually
#3And how many do wild cats kill?
And how many would wild cats kill, if we allowed them to multiply as they want?
Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually
#4Wait until you hear about humans.
Wait until they hear about bacteria and viruses
Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually
#5Wait until you hear about humans.
From the abstract:
Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals.
I.e. cats might kill more birds and mammals than humans.
Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually
#6And how many do wild cats kill? And how many would wild cats kill, if we allowed them to multiply as they want?
The paper is about the species of "domestic cats", which includes feral cats, strays, etc, with unowned cats making up the majority of the kills as compared to owned cats/pets
Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually
#7Lovely murder machines.
Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually
#8Wait until you hear about humans.
From the abstract: Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals. I.e. cats might kill more birds and mammals than humans.
Read that sentence carefully.
They're counting cat-caused as anthropogenic i.e. part of anthropos-caused aka human-caused. And "single largest group" could be 1% if there are a lot of groups and each happens to be smaller than 1%.
Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually
#9As a cat lover this only strengthens my opinion that they should stay inside the house, humans cause enough damage to the ecosystem without needlessly unleashing pretty efficient predators for no gain.
Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually
#10Wait until you hear about humans.
From the abstract: Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals. I.e. cats might kill more birds and mammals than humans.
Are they counting the loss due to human-induced reduction of biodiversity? E.g. wiping native land and replacing it with houses/cities/roads.
Humanity has a cost on nature, that should be mitigated.
Humans like domestic cats, which is one contributor to the overall human-induced reduction in biodiversity.
I wonder also whether there's something about towns/cities that makes birds flourish, compared to other wild animals.