From: usenet@only.tnx   
      
   On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 18:43:04 -0400, Boron Elgar    
   wrote:   
   >Can we paint the cats black, too? They get billion of US birds   
   >annually.   
      
   I just don't buy this at all.   
      
   I've looked at a couple of these studies.  A recent one was only based on   
   several other studies.  They looked at those studies -- some decades old -- and   
   revised the estimates given based on their own assessment.  In other words, it   
   was estimates all the way down.  (After all, how can you measure such a thing?)   
   I note also that these studies are touted by conservancy and birding groups --   
   hardly unbiased sources.   
      
   The numbers don't add up either.  There are about 95 million pet cats in the   
   U.S.  The number of feral cats is estimated at 60 to 75 million.  Taking the   
   high number, there are about 170 million cats in the U.S.  For each billion   
   birds supposedly killed, every cat must kill about six birds a year.  But there   
   are tens of millions of indoor cats, or cats like ours, which although she goes   
   outside every day, hasn't gotten a bird in many years.  This raises the average   
   for all the other cats.  In order to reach the three to four billion dead birds   
   suggested by some studies, every bird-killing cat must kill somewhere between   
   25   
   to 35 birds every year.  That simply doesn't comport with my experience of pet   
   cats.   
      
   I was raised in community that could be catergorized as largely rural.  There   
   was lots of small game, and in warmer weather our cats roamed outside freely.   
   And yet they rarely caught any birds.  Their kills were mostly rodents and   
   rabbits.  (And as far as I know, they never caught an adult rabbit.  It was   
   only   
   juveniles, particularly during rabbit population spikes.)  They simply did not   
   catch anywhere near one bird every two weeks -- or more frequently, if you   
   factor in the winter months.   
      
   I don't believe this claim about "billions" of birds killed by cats every year.   
   It simply doesn't match what I've observed over decades of owning cats.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)