From: Beaver_Fever@live.com
On Wednesday, August 26, 2020 at 8:20:39 PM UTC-7, bil...@shaw.ca wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 26, 2020 at 12:59:28 PM UTC-7, Questor wrote:
> > 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.
> Feral cats might be significant bird killers, but I agree with you that
> pet cats usually are not. Only one of the three or four cats I have been
> owned by ever brought home a bird. We got a little bell to hang from her
> collar and she never got another bird. I think and hope that most cat
> owners would respond similarly.
>
> bill
One of my mom's cats would catch birds, bring them in alive and let them go.
Might have been related to the weird power structure and friction between the
cats and dogs inside and he was looking for allies.
When my mom and stepdad got married, her two cats (who hated and avoided each
other) moved in with his cat and dog. Elderly cat #1 never even seen a dog
before. Cat #2 used to belong to my sister and was attacked and nearly killed
by a dog. Cat #1 and
the dog became immediate friends and Cat #2 also didn't get along with Cat #3
(Cat #1 and #3 ignored each other) so he was completely frozen out. As a
matter of fact the people in the house didn't really like him either.
A friend of the family would occasionally come over and Cat #2 would be all
over him and eventually when he went to leave he found the cat sitting in the
passenger seat of his truck. So he and the cat went home together. But then he
got sick and died and
the cat came back. Now that in itself is a sad tale, he was a tow truck driver
who got Hepatitis C from a bloody accident scene.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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