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Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually

nature.com

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Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually

#11

Post by stnikolauswagne »

snvzz wrote: post #8
stnikolauswagne wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

I have read both the sentence and the abstract carefully, one of the other big antropogenic factors is "building colissions" which by itself is over one billion bird deaths.

Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually

#12

Post by stnikolauswagne »

platesmead wrote: post #10
stnikolauswagne wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 anim…

>I wonder also whether there's something about towns/cities that makes birds flourish, compared to other wild animals.

I would assume it has got do with the reason pigeons are sometimes called "flying rats", i.e. they can subsist on human trash, can survive in the environment and are not seen as negatively as rats and thus have less pest-control efforts pointed at them.

Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually

#15

Post by thelastgallon »

This fact will be used by climate change deniers, when you point out the deaths caused by climate change: "Cats cause infinitely more death, we do nothing about it, can't do nothing about it, climate change may also cause death, but we can't do anything about. Do you want (us) to kill your cat just because it does some mischief?"

Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually

#17

Post by thelastgallon »

> a systematic review and quantitatively estimate mortality caused by cats in the United States. We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually.

This is US only. I wonder what the numbers would be world wide.

Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually

#18

Post by platesmead »

stnikolauswagne wrote: post #12
platesmead wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 anim…

>I wonder also whether there's something about towns/cities that makes birds flourish, compared to other wild animals. I would assume it has got do with the reason pigeons are sometimes called "flying rats", i.e. they can subsist on human trash, can survive in the environment and are not seen as negatively as rats and thus have less pest-control efforts pointed at them.

If cats are killing wild animals that happen to flourish in human environments, is that such a loss to biodiversity?

(Genuine Q. I don't know anything about what biodiversity folk look for.)

Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually

#19

Post by aldanor »

And how can we tell for sure if it's good or bad? Does killing these birds and mammals help maintain the ecosystem balance (due to these birds and mammals not killing billions other animals down the food chain, or not spreading infections and viruses), or the other way around?

Re: Domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0B birds and 6.3–22.3B mammals annually

#20

Post by HelloUsername »

stnikolauswagne wrote: post #9

As 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.

> Cats should stay inside they house

Isn't putting them on a leash, or having them wear a bell around their neck outside, enough for all parties?

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