AN ECOCENTRIC POSITION ON FREE-ROAMING CATS by Ian Whyte, CACOR member
Cats are an alien species and kill native wildlife. According to an article in the September 20, 2016 edition of Smithsonian.com (1) “outdoor cats killed somewhere in the ballpark of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion small mammals in the U S A. per year—far exceeding any other human-influenced cause of avian death, such as pesticides or collisions with windows”. The death rate in Canada is no doubt similarly large, but modified by the fact that feral cats are a proportionately smaller part of the total number of outdoor cats here. Note that a billion is a large number 12.3 billion = 12,300,000,000; it’d probably take you the rest of your life to count that high.
In recent years two things have changed which make cat control both more urgent and more possible: wildlife numbers, including birds, are crashing (- 60% between 1970 and 2016), so solutions are more urgent, and; dog control issues have lead the way – a generation ago who would have forecast that all outdoor dogs would be tied up or that millions of dog owners would pick up and carry around little bags of dog shit. Additionally, one should realize that no decision is really a decision. In this case it is to continue with the destruction of billions of birds and small animals.
There are two parts to the cat problem, one much easier to address than the other. Domestic cats are the easier problem. There is a simple, and bloodless, solution: keep them inside. I know, they want out, but then, a generation or two ago, so did the now universally under-control dog. If dogs, and more importantly, dog owners, can be under control, so then can cats, and their owners. This part seems obvious, and every cat-owning Citizen should keep their cat indoors. This should be implemented immediately.
The feral cat problem is harder to address because the only solution that works requires their removal. The book review in The Canadian Field Naturalist (2) of Stephen Spotte’s Free-ranging Cats – Behavior, Ecology, Management quotes: “In the final chapter, Spotte is unequivocal about the solution to the problem of feral and stray cats…eradication. Neutering and releasing is a highly vaunted strategy that makes some people feel good (that is, they don’t have a death on their hands, but in reality, they have the deaths of many small mammals and birds blood-staining them), but those same people ignore the facts.”
For those who lack the courage of their convictions, a less effective way to protect birds, (the protective effect for small animals is not known) is a special reflective collar.(3) The results from one, too small to give valid results, study are ~ 6% of bird deaths in the spring and ~ 30% of bird deaths in the fall.
So, the ecocentric position on cats is: Keep house cats indoors and control, lethally if necessary, feral and stray cats. Exemptions for ‘working’ farm and barn cats could be made on a case by case basis.
(1) http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/moral-cost-of-cats-180960505/#mwVXUT5YfhHUB4l2.99
(2) http://www.canadianfieldnaturalist.ca/index.php/cfn/article/view/1849/1808
(3) An article in Global Ecology and Conservation (Vol. 3, 2015, pp. 359-366) offers a solution to the massive killing of birds by free-roaming cats: “Birds be safe: Can a novel cat collar reduce avian mortality by domestic cats (Felis catus)?” (1.15 MB), by S.K. Willson, I.A. Okunlola, and J.A. Novak
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