Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Cats - plea for responsible ownership of predators
As an ecologist let me first say that cats killing birds is about as natural as taking thousands of predators from another country, breeding them to look nice, and then dumping them into an ecosystem at a massive scale. Feeding them food transported many miles and releasing them into a habitat 'unevolved' for their presence at such scale (55 million birds per year in UK). That is not nature. That's putting a predator into an ecosystem which cannot support it. Hardly 'natural'.
http://www.mammal.org.uk/sites/default/files/Domestic%20Cat%20Preda...
As someone who enjoys nature, in particularly the rare biodiversity we have here in London, it saddens me to see armies of felines, mercilessly slaughtering young/parent birds at this crucial time of year.
I get the companionship and cuteness argument. And inside the house there is a mouse argument I guess. Hardly a blot on rat populations (but make me feel comfortable) - the presence is merely enough. But the statistics don't lie, these creatures are destroying biodiversity.
It's not the cat's fault, it's the owner.
Don't even get me started on the poo!
If you truly are an 'animal lover', then make it all animals please. Not just the cute furry salient ones.
Help those which have taken enough of a beating at our hands. If you must release cats into the wild. Please put a bell on your cat. A little effort goes a long way.
Just think of those little birdies.
Tags for Forum Posts: cats
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by michaelw on
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The other question is how to stop them pooing in your garden (I'm talking about other people's cats here). At the moment I'm trying netting when I have freshly dug soil/newly planted plants, as there are at least 3 or 4 cats desperate to poo in our garden....
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Permalink Reply by Finsbury Park Ranger on
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You need one of the these ...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/PestBye-Repeller-Motion-Activated-Deterren...
And one of these ....
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&am...
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Netting does seem to work though usually I break sticks and twigs and push them into the freshly dug ground which also seems to work. Grass has to be kept mowed otherwise that becomes a cat toilet too.
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Permalink Reply by Lisa on
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In the past I have thrown citrus peel on freshly dug soil to ward off cats (I have a cat, and he *hates* the smell of lemons etc).
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Permalink Reply by Lauren on
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Yes this is a problem, our cat doesn't poo in our garden but our neighbour's cat does :-/
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To throw another cat among the pigeons (ho ho ho), here's a research study detailing the impact of cats on biodiversity in the US:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n1/full/ncomms2380.html
One point worth noting, though, is that the study found that the worst offenders were stray / ferral cats.
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That's a 'data driven study'. When they actually place camera's on the cats and watch all the footage they find 30 - 50 % of domestic free range cats are regular killers and even the crap ones kill occasionally.
Find me a cat that walks past a fledgling flapping on the floor without killing it and I'll find you ten others that don't.
They often don't even eat them, often purely killing for the joy of killing.
That's before the known harm to Unborn children is considered or the suspected harm concerned about causing serious mental health problems in children and adults is considered.
The smell in your garden is the least of your worries.
The cost to the NHS could be astronomic.
They're cute, I don't disagree but if you let your cat out to live a free range lifestyle, you need to accept you are probably causing your neighbours (man and beast) a lot of very serious problems.
As the study said, they are one the the top 100 destructive non-native invasive species in the world.
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Harm to unborn children? Serious mental health problems?
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/toxoplasmas-links-to-schi...
When attached to the central nervous system of mice, this is what it does ....
http://www.nature.com/news/parasite-makes-mice-lose-fear-of-cats-pe...
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