NYT Quotes Biologist Likening Housecats to Environmental Threats Like Kudzu
New York Times reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal has found another unlikely environmental menace: Cats, an invasive species that disturbs the natural order, like kudzu. That’s the takeaway from Monday’s report on the grave danger felines present to birds: “Tweety Was Right: Cats Are a Bird’s No. 1 Enemy.”
While public attention has focused on wind turbines as a menace to birds, a new study shows that a far greater threat may be posed by a more familiar antagonist: the pet house cat.
A new study in The Journal of Ornithology on the mortality of baby gray catbirds in the Washington suburbs found that cats were the No. 1 killer in the area, by a large margin.
Nearly 80 percent of the birds were killed by predators, and cats were responsible for 47 percent of those deaths, according to the researchers, from the Smithsonian Institution and Towson University in Maryland. Death rates were particularly high in neighborhoods with large cat populations.
Mr. Marra won’t make friends among cat-lovers with thoughts like these:
“Cats are way up there in terms of threats to birds -- they are a formidable force in driving out native species,” said Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, one of the authors of the study.
The American Bird Conservancy estimates that up to 500 million birds are killed each year by cats -- about half by pets and half by feral felines. “I hope we can now stop minimizing and trivializing the impacts that outdoor cats have on the environment and start addressing the serious problem of cat predation,” said Darin Schroeder, the group’s vice president for conservation advocacy.
Rosenthal then offered a fact, inconvenient to environmentalists, that “440,000 birds are killed by wind turbines each year,” a number expected to grow as wind farms become more prevalent, before turning the mike over to Marra:
Household cats were introduced in North America by European colonists; they are regarded as an invasive species and have few natural enemies to check their numbers. “They are like gypsy moths and kudzu -- they cause major ecological disruption,” Dr. Marra said.
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Comments
The answer to this horrendous problem is simple:
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 2:28pm.
Feline gimp suits.
Don't like cats.
Submitted by Radical1979 on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 2:32pm.
I'm not a cat person but, cats are great. When we first moved into our home our neighbors had a cat that was outdoors and indoors. Never had a mouse. When that cat died, the mice started coming in. I was ready to buy them a new cat, luckily they bought their own. Hasn't the biologist heard of survival of the fittest? Only the strong birds are going to make it.Rad:
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 2:45pm.
Well, apparently catbirds bring a lot of this on themselves:
"Gray Catbirds are not afraid of predators and respond to them aggressively by flashing their wings and tails" (wiki)
They are relatives of and have the same habits as the most obnoxious, annoying and vicious songbird of all time, the dreaded 3 AM mockingbird. The two little bastards I've battling for three years have just arrived and set up shop in my backyard again in time for spring. Gotta get a new BB gun.
SOL
Submitted by Radical1979 on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 3:28pm.
Or a cat.
Of course BB guns are cheaper.
We have neighborhood cats all over the place
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 3:35pm.
Never once found a dead mockingbird, though.
The mockingbird is the official state bird of Tennessee,
Submitted by Jer on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 4:01pm.
my native state [and the greenest state in the land of the free]. Nevertheless, I have personally witnessed cats killing and eating mockingbirds willfully and without remorse. Cats are loyal neither to their families or their states. It's all about them!
Jer
Cats are---
Submitted by matthewdean on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 4:03pm.
liberal, then.
Cats are like liberals?
Submitted by Jer on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 4:14pm.
Only in the sense that poor hungry libs during the Great Republican Depression of the '30's found it occasionally necessary to eat mockingbird stew.
Jer
Yeah, Jer---
Submitted by matthewdean on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 4:19pm.
and these days, with your Messiah running the show, you libs only have to eat crow.
Is that an improvement over mockingbird?
MD
Touche`, Matthew...
Submitted by Jer on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 4:27pm.
As far as the taste of mockingbirds, I wouldn't know. The subject was not exactly a proud moment in our family's history, and we kids knew better than to bring it up.
Jer
Jer---
Submitted by matthewdean on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 4:36pm.
Nice touch w/ the whatchacallit, - tilde ```````````
Took me a while to find it on my keyboard.
I took typing in summer school, 1959.
My, how time flies.
MD
Well, Jer, maybe your mockingbirds have gone soft.
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 4:08pm.
We only get the gangsta migrant type up here, and those things will attack ANYTHING moving, including humans and cars.
True, they're not the nicest bird in the world...
Submitted by Jer on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 4:18pm.
but they don't deserve to be indiscriminately slaughtered by birdthirsty felines.
Jer
If Al-Q had a songbird division, it would be run by mockingbirds
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 5:35pm.
So I guess we disagree on that.
SOL...would this kitty wear one?
Submitted by Blonde on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 2:59pm.
I don't think so!
That is one of my all time favorite photoshops. Evah!
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
Ooh, that's a great one
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 3:35pm.
.
SoL---
Submitted by matthewdean on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 3:45pm.
I immediately pictured you measuring Andrea Mitchell for one of those.
MD
MD:
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 3:50pm.
Alan probably already did that.
Yeah, Obama Cat Rocks
Submitted by Blonde on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 3:58pm.
Y SO SRS?
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
The black cat I had growing
Submitted by MaximusBraveheart on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 2:37pm.
The black cat I had growing up caught most everything but normal squirrels. It could catch flying squirrels but not gray squirrels. It could catch birds, snakes, rats, mice & chipmunks. For some reason, dogs can catch gray/red squirrels sometimes. Guess dogs are smarter and/or faster than cats! I have a bobcat problem & have never caught it yet despite trying many, many times.
-- Maximusbraveheart -- Is TRUTH knowable? Moral Relativism is the abandonment of Truth. Truth is knowable. Truth conforms to Reality. Reality is observable by evidence & witness in this day & from history. Relativism is Sesame Street play land.
My cat can catch squirrels
Submitted by Blonde on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 2:56pm.
Not often, but she does. As well as rats, mice, snakes, (we don't have chipmunks). Payton, The Empress, is quite the hunter.
The Christmas cat (some rat fink dumped him Christmas night), the not so little Mooch, can now catch lizards, but not much else. He's still a baby cat.
Interestingly, my old dobie Spock could catch possums. He'd grab them and break their necks in about 1/100th of a second. He hated possums. They'd sneak onto the patio to eat the cat food, and the dog would zap them. It was nuts.
Wow, my rich text link icon won't work. Here's Mooch, the baby: http://blondephotos.org/BlondeGator/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/P1000137.jpg
And Payton, The Empress (named after Walter, not that guy with an "e": http://blondephotos.org/BlondeGator/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Payton.jpg
Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)
My dogs can't do anything. I
Submitted by Radical1979 on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 3:29pm.
My dogs can't do anything. I feel the parent of an average kid surrounded by parent's of gifted children. :)
I feel your pain
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 3:44pm.
I've recently come to the conclusion that my dog is a liberal. She's on a first-name with all the local squirrels.
Practice stupidity much?
Submitted by Red Jeep on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 2:37pm.
Advocate cat eradication to solve this problem brought by the evil white Europeans?
Ok, I can't stand a liberal
Submitted by bassndude on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 2:55pm.
Ok, I can't stand a liberal "Save the birds" champagne. After this, they will mount a "Save the cats" drive!
Cats are predators, birds are prey. Always have been, always will be. Personally, I use my pellet gun on the cats. I like the birds singing while on my patio in the mornings. Cats always want to jump on the table, rub on my leg or some other way, annoy me.
The birds let me read and drink my coffee. Cats are always underfoot.
Save a SeAL, club a liberal/troll!!
I like cats, birds, AND dogs---
Submitted by matthewdean on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 3:43pm.
and only find it necessary to use my bb gun on liberals.
Or cats, birds, and dogs who are causing problems.
Shooting them in the butt isn't too harmful, but IS rather difficult when dealing with the avian types.
Works well with door-to-door salesmen as well.
MD
I'm a dog person
Submitted by Dave. on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 4:23pm.
...which means I would rather have kudzu taking over my backyard than a cat in the house.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Dave---
Submitted by matthewdean on Wed, 03/23/2011 - 4:41pm.
I have seen that kudzu (on a trip to Gainesville in 1996) & I hear it is next to impossible to eradicate.
I'd still take kudzu over a Kenyan, any day.
MD
md, I have read that goats will eat kudzu
Submitted by Dave. on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 1:06am.
...but outside of that, the only option would be Agent Orange, as I doubt even a nuclear detonation would kill the stuff.
I spent twenty years of my life doing land surveying in the southeast.
Trust me - kudzu is out-of-control ivy on major steroids.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Bull. Bull. Bull. Bull.
Submitted by The Vet on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 12:57am.
Look at the study. Population demography of Gray Catbirds in the suburban matrix...
They admit to the biggest threat to birds in urban environments -
Urbanization has tremendous impacts on wildlife directly through land conversion or indirectly from human population pressure (Chace and Walsh 2004). Unfortunately, ecologists know relatively little about the factors that limit the productivity and survival of birds breeding in urban/
suburban environments (Chamberlin et al. 2009).
The biggest threat to birds in an urban environment is us. We take away the food sources and nesting habitats and put up this really deadly thing called REFLECTIVE GLASS. And yes we introduce species that do not do well on their own. Go to a national park or any wild area. If feral cats are so damn good at killing off everything around them, why don't they do well in areas humans do not inhabit?
Now let's try a little bit of truth -
Myth: Feral cats are responsible for bird and wildlife decline.
Fact: While we acknowledge that outdoor cats do occasionally kill birds and other wildlife, the main cause of decline is habitat loss, which is caused by humans, not cats. National Geographic News reports that the declining bird populations reflect growing threats to many bird species resulting from habitat loss and fragmentation caused by development and other human activities.7 Moreover, conservation groups and government biologists estimate that communications towers (cell phone, television) kill from 4 to 50 million birds a year -- and at least 50 species are threatened or endangered. The construction of new towers creates a potentially significant impact on migratory birds.8 Furthermore, two French researchers Moller & Eritzoe examined birds killed by cats vs. those that met accidental deaths by crashing into windows. They examined the birds for various factors, the most significant of which was the health of the bird. They found that while windows were non-discriminating and killed healthy and sickly birds equally, the birds cats killed were significantly sicklier than those who crashed into windows.9
A study in 2005 predicts that reducing cat populations would actually cause more harm to birds due to a resulting increase in rat populations.10
A Columbia University study found that "reducing cats'effect on the ecosystem may actually have a negative impact upon some native species due to the possibility of 'mesopredator release effect'. The study also recommended that we confront the cat population problem with a combination of methods: "enlist the "trap-neuter-return" style of feral management and combine it with incentives for owners to sterilize their pet cats."11
Wildlife biologist Roger Tabor, who is considered by his peers to be one of the world’s leading experts on cats and has studied feral cats for over 30 years, is quoted as saying, "The clear leading animal that’s really putting wildlife at risk is the human population. We just don’t like to acknowledge that it is our fault. It’s not a case of the cat being the worst offender. It isn’t even remotely the worst offender. It’s us."12
Most important of all: Even where cats might be observed hunting, killing the cats fails to address this issue because trap and kill does not set its sights on the long-term goal -- ending the homeless cat crisis.
If liberals really cared so much, they would follow The Vet.
We took in 3 adult stray cats. Yes, stray not feral, they were all fixed. Some liberal got tired of the responsibility of having an pet and abandoned them. We were getting ready to take in a fourth but it died on our doorstep. And we took in 3 kittens. All from our yard. And none of them are allowed back outside.
The Vet's solution - make strays and ferals non-strays and non-ferals. But that is too much for liberal whiners. Whining and making bull studies are all they do.
Before we get busy rounding up the killer cats.
Submitted by The Vet on Thu, 03/24/2011 - 1:05am.
Let's work on that whole REFLECTIVE GLASS thing.
The American Bird Conservancy estimates that up to 500 million birds are killed each year by cats...
From my link above ---
From 100 million to 1 billion birds are annually estimated to be killed striking clear and reflective windows in the U.S.
My 1 billion trumps your 500 million. What is it with bird brains anyway. It is a wonder the whole species has not been wiped out. One would think they have some kind of reproductive process to keep them going or something. But what do I know, I am not a whiny liberal.