House cats kill more critters than thought - researchers use cameras to track the slaughter

[Liberal_in_LA]

House cats kill more critters than thought

That mouse carcass Kitty presents you with is just the tip of a very bloody iceberg. When researchers attached kittycams to house cats, they found a secret world of slaughter.

------------

Wildlife advocates say it is a frightening level of feline foul play. Based on a U.S. house-cat population of 74 million, “cat predation is one of the reasons why one in three American birds species are in decline,” says George Fenwick of American Bird Conservancy.


----

The cats brought home just under a quarter of what they killed, ate 30% and left 49% to rot where they died.

The carnage cuts across species. Lizards, snakes and frogs made up 41% of the animals killed, Loyd and fellow researcher Sonia Hernandez found. Mammals such as chipmunks and voles were 25%, insects and worms 20% and birds 12%. The researchers will present their findings this week at an Ecological Society of America conference in Portland, Ore.

Cats aren’t just a danger to others, they’re also a danger to themselves. The cats in the study were seen engaging in such risky behavior as crossing roadways (45%), eating and drinking things they found (25%), exploring storm drains (20%) and entering crawl spaces where they could become trapped (20%). Male cats were more likely to do risky things than female cats, and older cats were more careful than younger ones.


http://tucsoncitizen.com/usa-today-news/2012/08/06/house-cats-kill-more-critters-than-thought/

[warrior1]

1. Mew

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. lol. so cute, yet so deadly

[Kalidurga]

4. They are the most deadly predators per pound on the planet...

I read that somewhere and I don't doubt it. I had a three legged cat who would still drag home dead rabbits, birds, mice, ect... Losing a leg didn't seem to slow her down a bit.

[Liberal_in_LA]

8. I've watched cats watch birds and it amazes me how close they can get without

the bird noticing them. watch out birds!

[snooper2]

92. Last weekend we had a huge mama racoon and four babies in the back yard..

They were on the patio playing and eating the catfood we put out for the feral stray that lives with us. My cat Samy who is inside/outside cat was just laying sideways on the concrete a foot away watching them. No big deal, racoon three times his size LOL

[Sheepshank]

125. Yeah my dog, the missing twin of Odie, chases birds too

..the noise, the lack of stalking, the barking...not much of hunter there *roll eyes*

[no_hypocrisy]

127. I lived with a cat who could make his meow sound like a bird chirp.

He'd look out the window at the bird feeder and just chirp at them.

It was freaky.

[aquart]

15. Yes. That is why we agreed with them about domestication.

Right now there is a large bug my cat needs to kill so I can get near his dish. We are in negotiations.

[Inuca]

76. LOL!!!! n/t

[Chemisse]

152. Haha! Let's hope you can come to agreeable terms.

[gkhouston]

38. +1. My sister took in a three-legged stray who regularly brought home leftovers

from Mother Nature's Amazing All-Meat Buffet.

[TeamPooka]

142. I had a kitty who lost a paw and she remained the dominant cat in the house.

[0rganism]

55. if they looked like toads, we wouldn't put up with their behavior

cute and cuddly is their #1 evolved survival trait.

[Le Taz Hot]

3. So . . .

get rid of the house cats? Not sure what the point of this post is.

Ghostie, Henry, Erica, Xena, Dutchess and Loki all say: "Pffffftttt!"

[Kalidurga]

5. I think the point is to keep them inside?

That is what I read. My daughters have cats, they aren't allowed outside.

[Fawke Em]

9. Or make them wear bells.

Mine is an indoor cat, but, being a rescued Tom (now a "Tomette" LOL), his habit is still to escape on the heels of the dogs and roam around the yard.

I've never found a dead bird (well, except one my dogs got), so I'm guessing his little bells work.

[coalition_unwilling]

98. Cats are really good at finding scapegoats (or would that be scapemutts?) for

their perfidies

[1monster]

114. One of my rescue cats was getting into trouble, so we decided to bell him, and put a

harness on him and only take him out on a leash.

The first time I took him out on a leash, he managaed to distract me so I wasn't holding the leash tightly. Then he took off like a streak of lightning into the empty lots on the other side of the road. Within five minutes, I saw him wandering around sans leash, harness, and bell. I never did find those...

[JNelson6563]

135. I wondered if anyone would say "bell"

It's the obvious and easiest answer. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.

Julie

[Le Taz Hot]

17. Six cats inside?

Not gonna work. Five are female and very territorial. Ghostie and Loki are inside with a tentative peace worked out between them. Duchess lives on the south side of the house and on the roof. Henry lives in front, Erica lives in the patio and, at the moment, Xena is exiled to the back fence since Duchess became dominate female. They've got it all worked out between them and most days there is peace. I'm happy with that.

[Fawke Em]

22. Put bells on their collars, then.

See my post above.

I have five dogs and one cat. The cat sometimes sneaks out in the crush of doggie pee time and "cats" around the yard before we notice he's down by the fence.

[Le Taz Hot]

27. Did you want to volunteer for that one?

Henry and Duchess are both 25 pounds and have all their claws and teeth and can get a bit surly if you mess with them too much. I will ask that you sign a liability waiver first, though. You do have hazard insurance, right?

[XemaSab]

41. So you have cats that are so feral you can't even put a collar on them?

Way to be a responsible pet owner there. :golfclap:

[FunkyLeprechaun]

43. I don't have a collar for my rescue cat

I did for my old cat in the 80's/90's, she wasn't much of an explorer though. The rescue I picked my cat up from told us NOT to put a collar on him (he's chipped with our info though) due to the way they climb things and explore, there's a danger of the cat hanging themselves with the collar on fences/branches etc.

[Voice for Peace]

66. yah.. I've had a problem with collars

the breakaway is a good idea but they only last for a day.

[pstokely]

159. Some cats just keep losing them

on purpose probably

[Le Taz Hot]

52. Oh stop it.

They're not feral, a couple are just a tad temperamental, that's all. AND they're all spayed and neutered and they're all rescued from people who dumped them or dumped their pregnant mommies. I've spayed and neutered numerous feral cats in the neighborhood at my own expense so yes, I AM a responsible pet owner.

Now y'all stop hatin' on my kitties if you don't mind!

[Bertha Venation]

121. "Now y'all stop hatin' on my kitties if you don't mind!" Yeah!

I've done the same as you. And I've caught flak for it in similar threads. A lot of people don't hold with TNR because "it just puts the cats back out there to kill." I have yet to see anyone on DU advocate euthanasia for feral cats, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it's just below the surface of some of us.

Edit: I stand corrected on the euthanasia: " Indeed, catching, spaying, releasing feral cats is such a bad thing to do. Should instead keep them inside or maybe just kill them since they often don't tolerate being locked up inside."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1087986

Edit number two, a few hours later: I missed it that the post I linked to above was sarcasm.

[XemaSab]

139. If someone's rottweilers had gone wild, formed a pack, and were running around killing deer

and their owners could not handle them enough to put a collar on them, then I would advocate for euthanasia. Having wild dog packs running around is an ongoing localized environmental disaster and a public health disaster waiting to happen, and the shelter resources that would be used to make them into nice pets would be better used keeping someone's sweet 3-yo dog that they had to give up because their house got foreclosed on alive.

There are great dogs being put down every day because there aren't enough homes for them and the shelters are crowded.

If this is the reality for dogs, why should it be different for cats?

[Bertha Venation]

141. But I know that shelters are overcrowded.

I see your point, but wish to note that at least in the case of TNR, the cats are not only spayed/neutered but vaccinated as well. And in feral colonies that are particularly well cared-for, they are re-trapped every year for vaccination. Even though we can't get to every cat in the country, many are cared for in this way and so don't pose a threat as vectors of disease.

Cats aren't generally aggressive, and feral cats are afraid of humans. There is not the danger of attack from a cat as there is from a dog.

[vaberella]

100. Hey that's a bit off. I think s/he's allowing the cats to have their freedoms.

They all seem to be good pets. And cat's no matter how great a pet owner you are do have their own personalities.

[uppityperson]

106. Indeed, catching, spaying, releasing feral cats is such a bad thing to do. Should instead keep them

inside or maybe just kill them since they often don't tolerate being locked up inside.

[Bertha Venation]

123. Putting aside the topic of cats who kill for a moment,

why is "releasing feral cats is such a bad thing to do"? Do you find that there's another reason?

[uppityperson]

138. Dang, I didn't think the sarcasm icon was needed.

[Bertha Venation]

140. My bad.

Sorry I missed it.

Maybe you haven't been to the Lounge much, where in years past discussions have raged over this topic. I haven't seen one for a couple of years now, which makes me think one DUer in particular has left.

[LanternWaste]

95. I suppose it's often easier to find

I suppose it's often easier to find reasons why we're can't do a responsible thing rather than finding ways to do it.

[1monster]

115. Collars on cats can be extremely dangerous for the cats. I've had many cats over the years (we

rescue them) and I stopped using collars because they kept getting their teeth caught in them and could not get them free. If a cat were outside when that happened, it could cause them great injury and even a horrible slow death.

[Doremus]

28. Do they also have their toilet habits figured out?

The house cats allowed to roam free in our neighborhood used to use the bushes in our front yard as their favorite urinal.

You'll note the use of past tense in the previous sentence. The coyotes took care of the problem since the pet owners refused to and my front yard no longer stinks to high heaven.

[XemaSab]

42. We used to have hella feral cats around here

One day I realized that I hadn't seen a cat in months.

A week later I found a massive spoor in the driveway.

[loli phabay]

70. new meaning to kitty litter

[formercia]

103. The Kittehs were just checking their P-Mail

..an intranet cafe for cats.

[kurtzapril4]

44. Nine cats here, indoor only. n/t

[Maine-ah]

78. my Mom at one point had 16. All indoor.

When she got sick, we found homes for the 6 that were left. Mom died from lung disease (she never smoked) and the docs said that it was possible the cats contributed to her disease. She was so paranoid about them getting out, she wouldn't open windows either.

It cost us over $40k to clean and repair her house after the damage they did. And the smell...good lord. Pissing matches between the cats. After mine died, I swore off kitties. But I ended up taking in her two male (brothers) Maine Coons. They're good boys, and use the box. - But this is seriously the last time I have cats.

[Zoeisright]

129. I have EIGHT cats inside.

Divided into five areas. And it works.

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. no, keep them inside, particularly if you care about song birds

the cats in the study were allowed to roam outside.

[Doremus]

16. Interesting that you don't see a third alternative.

There's a very reasonable alternative residing between the radical choices of allowing cats to roam free and getting "rid of house cats." In fact, it involves simply following through on the moniker HOUSE cats.

We don't allow our children to roam unsupervised, even if they beg and plead. We shouldn't allow our cats to do so either. Mostly for their own safety, but for a million other legitimate reasons too.

[Zoeisright]

132. Outdoor cats live an average of three to five years.

Indoor cats live an average of 13 to 18 years.

That's a no-brainer.

http://cats.about.com/cs/catmanagement101/f/lifespan_cats.htm

http://animal.discovery.com/healthy-pets/cat-health-101/how-long-do-cats-live.html

[bhikkhu]

7. Explaining in part what I've heard called "the dead zone" around human habitations

In a study I read a couple of years ago they found the range of cats was 3 or 4 times as large as their owners imagined, involving primarily recreational hunting, and secondarily territorial disputes. The few species that remain living around human areas are reasonably well adapted to cats.

on edit - my family has two older fixed female cats, which are mostly indoors and too old to hunt (I think).

Most of my perspective on cat problems comes from my route cycling to work, which is along a canal and some fields, and there is a new crop of feral cats every year - dozens of them. They typically hunt from spring through fall, then die in winter. We get some good snows, the canal freezes, and I've never seen the same cats from one year to the next.

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. I had an outside cat as a child. one day we saw him running across a street further

from home than we imagined. I think my father called out "go home" lol

[coalition_unwilling]

99. What your cat heard: "blah, blah" (thereby demonstrating why

cat herding is not a degree currently offered by any accredited college or university

[1monster]

117. I had a Shetland Sheep Dog at one time. She tried, but was unable to herd the cats...

In fact, the cats herded her.

Now I have a Shih Tzu and HE is able to herd the cats. It is soo funny to watch. When we take the dog on a walk, several cats are always following. If we stop to talk to other in the neighborhood, the cats will snuggle up to the dog and/or play with him. Neighbors are often amazed to see that, but dogs and cats (almost any animals) raised together from babyhood will be family and love each other.

[aquart]

18. We feed the birds. We feed the cats. Squirrels, raccoons and possums tag along.

The birds are alert, watchful, not particularly nervous about the cats watching hopefully.

I don't blame the cats for eating the carefully buried turtle eggs, though. I totally blame the raccoons.

[aquart]

24. Two years is the average for ferals. Your area sounds a lot tougher for them.

I would think some must survive the winter to make the new litters in the spring.

[LadyHawkAZ]

53. Or some from a more sheltered area move in

and take over.

We had a colony of ferals in our neighborhood in AZ- beautiful pure-white animals with blue eyes, all of them. They lived by the river and ate fish and scraps from the restaurant. We adopted one (he socialized to us but never to other humans), and because he stayed with us he was the sole survivor when Animal Control rounded all those beautiful animals up and destroyed them.

A year later and there was a whole new colony. That's why they recommend TNR instead of euthanasia.

[NYC_SKP]

10. It's probably too late for a cat-licensing program to work.

It would have to be nationwide or more, with roving cat collectors who round up cats and neuter them before returning to their owners.

Fines paid for cats left unattended outdoors, and leash laws enforced.

I can't see that happening, though I do agree it's a huge problem.

[Fumesucker]

11. Doesn't surprise me a bit..

Cat bathing is a martial art.

If it takes three adults to wash one smallish cat and they still end up looking like they've been juggling chainsaws that's one mean little critter..

[aquart]

20. Tell me you don't use running water.

[Fumesucker]

23. A friend had a cat that somehow got into into a pan of used motor oil..

No choice in the matter, put it in the bathtub with a lot of dish soap..

I wasn't aware until then that cats could levitate..

The cat was fine after, the humans not so much..

[aquart]

26. Yes. Levitate. And fly. Seen it.

Small basin. No running water. Best results.

[spinbaby]

63. We use a hand shower

Per instructions from our vet, we put a towel in the bottom of the tub for the cat to stand on and use the hand shower. If cats aren't standing in water, they don't panic. We bathe our Sophie all the time because she's a long-haired cat who sometimes has litter issues that require a bath.

[LadyHawkAZ]

50. Oh yes.

Seeing a wet kitteh lift all four damp paws off the ground at once and hover is the one and only small pleasure of cat bathing.

[coalition_unwilling]

101. My wife and I call it 'walking on water' and almost fall down on the

floor laughing so hard. Dissin' our poor cat

[Warren Stupidity]

71. You just need thick elbow length gloves.

The cat wears itself out attempting to kill the gloves.

[1monster]

118. If a bathing program for kittens is started very early (before being completely weaned) the cats

will accept bathing with no problem. About thirty some odd years ago, I had a Siamese cat (rescue) who got pregnant. She had three kittens and we had a terrible time with the fleas. Since they were too young for any flea products, I started bathing them every other day when they were about four weeks old.

I found good homes for the three kittens. One of the kittens went to an older man who complained to me that he always had to make sure the cat was not in his bedroom or bathroom before he took a bath, because if he didn't, the cat would jump into the bath with him....

[MADem]

12. Good for housecats. A cat or two and a good ratting terrier, and you won't have ANY crap in your

house! nt

[Doremus]

19. Or you could just clean your house.

And perform routine maintenance, i.e. repair any holes in the foundation and eliminate other vermin entry points.

A much more permanent solution, and less costly in the long run.

[MADem]

62. If you live in a shack in the woods, you're always going to see a few critters. nt

[1monster]

124. Our whole neighborhood was overrun with marsh rats. My husband put up a bird feeder

haning from the trellis over our deck. One evening, we heard a lot of noise coming from the deck area and turned on the outside lights. There were literally hundreds of rats crawling up the trellis and fighting over the birdseed falling from the feeder that they had chewed through.

On the deck below, there were mince and other critters eating up what the rats dropped.

Neighbors complained that rats were climbing in through their dryer vents and nesting there, thus ruining their dryers, clothing, and wiring.

In a period of a month, rats got into the walls of our enclosed deck and chewed through the four by four roof supports.

Many of us got cats and the serious rat problem became an annoyance and faded to a very occasional happening.

Marsh rats, by the way, are huge and it is next to impossible to keep up with the damage they do.

[AnnieBW]

14. Keep Your Kittehs Indoors!

Better for them, and better for the critters. My three don't go any farther than our screened-in deck, and they love it. They can bird-watch to their hearts' content, and the birds are safe.

[Edweird]

21. .......

[Le Taz Hot]

29. ROFL!

Perfect!

[Kalidurga]

31. That is in my top 10

I love sniper kitty. I imagine him thinking "come on, Rover make my day".

[AtomicKitten]

25. My Ren is a 1-cat killing machine.

Renfield kills mice and gophers, fortunately not birds.

[Liberal_in_LA]

32. Are you sure Ren doesn't kills birds? the point of the article is that cats kill more

than their owner's know.

[AtomicKitten]

34. He hunts critters in the garage.

[kestrel91316]

30. HOUSE cats don't have access to prey to kill it, except perhaps

crickets and beetles and roaches.

OUTDOOR or IN/OUT cats are the problem.

[toddwv]

59. Not true.

My mother has various knick-knacks, houseplants, rugs, chairs and sofas to account for the fact that house cats DO have access to prey...

[kestrel91316]

119. True, that. My knick-knacks can also attest to it.

I hate having to keep them all in drawers and cupboards now.

[GoCubsGo]

163. I have met a few that prey upon human feet and ankles.

Hard to keep those in a drawer or cupboard.

[demosincebirth]

33. I think the biggest probem is not domestic cats, but feral cats that are allowed to live and breed

in the wild.

[freshwest]

35. Well, so much for that sweet, innocent face:

We had a cat who insisted on bringing his kill and placing it before my parents' bedroom door in the mornings. Much to my step-mother's disgust. One day he brought in a full-grown pheasant, not a feather out of place, very beautiful, but quite dead. My father thought it was in payment for his food and place to live and didn't mind. But we always buried the 'little gifts' he gave us when he wasn't looking.

[AllyCat]

47. A cat my husband had brought in a squirrel once.

Left it by the bedroom door. It still alive. Mayhem ensued. Cat took a bath while watching us try to catch rodent and evict.

[freshwest]

49. Oh, yes, he brought in squirrels, field mice, rats, birds, lizards and a mole once.

He was quite a character. We didn't suffer a loss of birds as far as we could tell, as we had plenty of them.

Where I live now, we have less songbirds due to habitat loss and falcons. Wherever there is sufficient woodland, they appear to do quite well. Tree haters seem to do more damage by cutting down the trees or topping them too much, forcing the birds to look for other places to nest, such as the upper parts of buildings and some owners get rid of them.

It sounds like you guys had a heck of a time getting rid of that squirrel. I had a couple of them move into my attic one winter and they kept on rolling their pecans on the ceiling, just playing with them, guess they had to do something for entertainment in the middle of the night. When spring came they left and we put up screens inside the attic gables to discourage them.

[Aerows]

65. Mine brought in a snake

Quite large one, too. It was still alive. She was so proud of herself.

[B Calm]

36. I saved a pond frog last night. Stepped out my

front door at 12:30 am to go to work and my two cats had a frog surrounded in the front lawn. I reached down and tossed the frog in my fish pond.

[coalition_unwilling]

102. You think your cats have forgotten and forgiven you???? :) - n/t

[B Calm]

107. They'll get over it! I enjoy listening

to my bull frogs during the summer.

[flamingdem]

37. My kitty pretended to sleep then a guest let Budgie out of the cage and upon flyover

snap with the claws and .. you can guess the rest.

[Loudly]

39. We just discovered a hawk nest overlooking our back yard.

Is our darling predator in danger of becoming prey?

[Le Taz Hot]

40. Only if he/she is a kitten

or catlett (not quite full-grown cat). If that's the case, then yes, he/she can and WILL become prey. It isn't likely that a hawk will go for a full-grown cat. We had hawks in my neighbor's palm tree for several years and they didn't mess with my brood. Ironically it was the crows that ultimately chased them away.

[SheilaT]

45. Cats that are allowed to roam outside

generally have a much shorter life span than the ones who live indoors.

Indoor cats are incredibly useful at keeping things like mice from taking up residence indoors. That's why we acquired the cat I currently have. I don't think she ever actually caught any of the mice who'd moved in with us, but within a month or so they were all gone.

Back when I had more than one cat and I'd let them out into the backyard, supervised, all the birds would start fussing a lot, clearly warning every bird and small mammal within hearing distance that a cat or two was outside. My cats would just sort of cower. Oh, and rabbits would come into the yard. If one of the cats noticed a rabbit, cat would start stalking. Every single time the rabbit would suddenly freeze, and after about five minutes the cat would totally lose interest. Wildlife was quite safe around my kitties.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

46. Gee, I wonder where they picked up that behavior?

[img][/img]

Here, kitty kitty kitty....

[NBachers]

48. I tried to get my cats interested in palmetto bugs in my Miami home, but they could care less

I figured if I put the cat right in front of one of those critters, the cat would enjoy chasing and killing 'em. But it was like, "Yeah, so, I don't care about that thing!"

[Daemonaquila]

51. Waaaaaaaah! Cats kill other animals!!!!!

Duh. They're part of the ecosystem, doing what they've been doing since before the first stirrings of domestication 8-12,000 years ago. I'm sick of the birdie-wuvvers and PETA-heads having a hissy as if this was anything new or unnatural. Next up: bears crap in the woods, and human activity dwarves all other types of ecosystem destruction combined.

[GoCubsGo]

83. Yes, the ecosystem of northern Africa and Europe.

But, the wild cats that are the ancestors of the domesticated at are NOT native to North America. Therefore, they are not "part of the ecosystem" of this continent any more than any other introduced species.

[uppityperson]

108. Bobcats, lynx, cougars are not native to North America?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobcat
The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is a North American mammal of the cat family Felidae, appearing during the Irvingtonian stage of around 1.8 million years ago (AEO).[3] With twelve recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to northern Mexico, including most of the continental United States. The bobcat is an adaptable predator that inhabits wooded areas, as well as semi-desert, urban edge, forest edges, and swampland environments. It persists in much of its original range and populations are healthy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx
The four living species of the Lynx genus are believed to have evolved from the "Issoire lynx", which lived in Europe and Africa during the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene. The Pliocene felid Felis rexroadensis from North America has been proposed as an even earlier ancestor; however, this was larger than any living species, and is not currently classified as a true lynx.[1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cougar
The cougar is the largest of the small cats. It is placed in the subfamily Felinae, although its bulk characteristics are similar to those of the big cats in the subfamily Pantherinae.[1] The family Felidae is believed to have originated in Asia approximately 11 million years ago. Taxonomic research on felids remains partial and much of what is known about their evolutionary history is based on mitochondrial DNA analysis,[24] as cats are poorly represented in the fossil record,[25] and there are significant confidence intervals with suggested dates. In the latest genomic study of Felidae, the common ancestor of today's Leopardus, Lynx, Puma, Prionailurus, and Felis lineages migrated across the Bering land bridge into the Americas approximately 8 to 8.5 million years (Mya) ago. The lineages subsequently diverged in that order.

[GoCubsGo]

116. They are not housecats.

The previous poster was claiming that housecats are part of the ecosystem. They are not. Bobcats, lynx and cougars are irrelevant to that point.

[LadyHawkAZ]

158. Maine Coons are native to this continent

and they are domesticated cats.

[GoCubsGo]

162. No. They are a breed of domestic house cat.

They are Felis catus, just like every other house cat on the planet. Their breed may have originated here, but they did not. They are still an introduced species.

[Gato Moteado]

120. wrong.

first of all, the domestic cat is not native to north america.

secondly, domestication has made the house cat an unnatural killer. wild cats kill to eat. domesticated house cats kill to kill because the instinct has been bred into them over the millenia by people wanting cats to control the pest problems in their living spaces.

sorry that you hate people that actually care about wild animals and biodiversity. please keep your domestic cats indoors where they belong.

in most municipalities, leash laws refer to cats as well as dogs. when i lived in austin, i had the most irresponsible cat owners (i know that's redundant) around me. i trapped the cats when they came into my yard and delivered them to the town lake animal center. if a cat was collared with tags, they would call the owner and fine them when they came to pick up their cat. if the cat had no ID, i have no idea what they did, nor did i care.

[octothorpe]

154. Why the hate for cats?

I'm not a big fan of cats, but I wouldn't even think of trapping cats with the hopes of sending them to their deaths.

[TDale313]

155. That's just effed up.

I hope fate is kinder to you than you were to those poor creatures.

Oh, and btw, you're wrong about there not being responsible cat owners. My cat is indoor only, tagged, fixed, and the most affectionate little guy you could imagine. If he ever did accidentally get out he certainly wouldn't deserve a death sentence for wandering onto the lawn of someone like you.

Smdh.

[azurnoir]

54. actually one of the outlaying suburbs in my area takes strays spays or neuters them

gives them the appropriate shots and then releases them as rodent control, something they are quite effective at

myself I've seen my female cat 'Sister' take out a squirrel like it was an after thought, she was walking through our yard walked past the squirrel when it chattered something at her, she turned on a dime 3 seconds later it was dinner I don't know what it said maybe it insulted her mother or something

[Behind the Aegis]

56. Is this true?!

[Hatchling]

148. Oh, my. Sniper kitteh all grown up

[Mojorabbit]

57. The UK is way ahead of this study

They found the same many years ago. A huge loss of birds due to felines. An article from 09 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/7892466.stm

[nadine_mn]

58. Our cat was a stray who is now an indoor cat

He showed up on a dark and stormy night way back when we rented an old house on 300 acres of farmland in the middle of Iowa. We let him out during the day and he killed mice and rabbits for sure (found part of a rabbit stuck in a hole he made in the screen porch..lovely sight).

When we moved to Minnesota 12 yrs ago and lived near roads with actual traffic he became an inside kitty only. He did not like it at first, as evidenced by the Scout-butt shaped holes in all of our screen windows on both floors of the rental house. He could get out but not back in so he would cry by the front door...once he started jumping at the bedroom window...I didn't have my glasses on so I thought a bat was attacking the window and screamed bloody murder.

He is now just over 13 and content to peek out side or take a few steps out supervised, but he is used to his lavish life of luxury...plus the occasional mouse sneaks in for his amusement.


I could never have an outdoor cat now...every time I see a dead cat on the side of the road I just get choked up...it could have easily been my Scout one of the times he escaped.

[rDigital]

60. I love cats!

They love to hang out and have meals together. They so sociable and friendly. I sit down to have a snack and my outdoor cat friend brings a mouse and sits right be to me. I chomp on the pizza. He chomps on the mouse. Eats the whole thing, head to tail.

Eats bugs, mice, rats, frogs, birds, rabbits and even squirrels. Ed Jr., the apex predator.

[Raine]

61. My two are strictly indoor cats only

they never go outside. I live on a busy street if they got out they would end up run over immediately.

[KansDem]

64. We have three cats...

I can't imagine them killing anything unless it's done with a string of zzzzzzzs

[Warren DeMontague]

67. Yes, but is the gender difference really due to biology?

Or societal conditioning?

Cats are bombarded daily with thousands of messages through the Patriarchal media. Cats are given gender-specific names and, often, forced to wear undignified collars with, many times, pink or blue depending on their sex.

Cats are well-known consumers of Cable TV, according to some research making up at least 70% of the viewing demographic on such popular shows as "Terra Nova", "Kim's Fairytale Wedding, A Kardashian Event" and "The Wealth Channel Presents a half hour of Dancing Red Laser Dots, Shiny bits of tin foil, and succulent cubes of Tuna in HD".

This has been confirmed repeatedly by numerous independent studies.

All this media programming has an effect on the impressionable feline mind - it MUST! By the time a cat is old enough to hide in the linen closet for 3 long, urine-soaked-towel days, his or her brain has been thoroughly saturated with pernicious messages about expected gender roles.

For cats.

So don't fall for that evo-psych nonsense about how "male cats are more likely to do risky things than female cats"!

[loli phabay]

72. omg for the complete win

[trotsky]

79. LMFAO

You, sir, win teh Interwebz.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

104. Well done!

[4th law of robotics]

111. +1

[Warren DeMontague]

134. Oh, come on.

You laughed.

[2ndAmForComputers]

149. Well, I did.

Mostly at the... repercussions.

(Not that your joke wasn't good. It was.)

[LadyHawkAZ]

153. Why, you...you...you...

Mascufelinist!

[opiate69]

156. That's gotta be a DUzy!!!

[Warren DeMontague]

157. I think they're on vacation this week.

Figures.

[Mr Dixon]

68. Sweet

I love cats, leave them alone and let them do their work LOL

[loli phabay]

74. lol yup plus my pet coyote needs to eat as well ;)

[flvegan]

69. Sweet, we haven't had one of these flamewars in a while. n/t

[Upton]

73. I own two strictly indoor cats..

outside cats aren't allowed on my property. Coyotes help keep the feral cat population down, but occasionally one will be hanging around where I'll have to trap it..

I don't understand people who normally care about the environment but let their cats outside to do anything they want because they're cute....

I don't get it at all..

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

75. Proposal a few years back...

in Wisconsin to allow the hunting of feral cats. They truly are a nuisance and a threat to native wildlife. There was a massive outcry from the cat-lovers -- and I have to emphasize that this WASN'T a plan to shoot people's pets -- and the initiative died. And that's too bad.

Full Disclosure: I have a cat who I would never harm (unless she jumps on my chest one more friggin' time in the middle of the night).

[coalition_unwilling]

105. Awww, she just wants to be close to her pride. What's really spooky to me is how I'll be

having a dream (nightmare) about a cat and then wake up to find our cat standing on the bed staring really intently at me.

I do wonder what she thinks as she watches me sleeping, but there's a part of me that doesn't want to know, probably b/c I would be terrified, if I knew

[Volaris]

131. Its not hard to know what your cats are thinking when that happens....

All you need to think about is the following:
The reason your cat doesn't kill you and (probably) eat you is because you're bigger than it is.

[coalition_unwilling]

137. Comforting thought. I swear sometimes I see the wheels

in her head turning in that direction

[catbyte]

77. That's why my beasties not only Ride Inside, they LIVE inside

Diane
Anishinaabe in MI & mom to Taz, Nigel, and new baby brother Sammy, members of Dogs Against Romney, Cat Division
"We Ride Inside--HISS!”

[Atman]

80. My cats are rescued feral cats.

When we lived in the 'burbs of Hartford, there was an old shed behind our house. And lots of cat fights at night. One day I heard this tiny peeping sound coming from under our porch. It went on for a couple of days. I had to use a camera on a broomstick to poke around the crawl space, and that was when I found kitten #1. Very small, cold and miserable. Crusty eyes, runny nose.

I lured him out with food. That when his brothers and sisters and cousins showed up. And then started showing up again every morning. I managed to wrangle up three of them and took them to the vet for shots and to be fixed. I fully intended to find homes for them. One woman came to take one and the kitty hissed and growled and clawed her.

Feral cats don't like people. But they thought I was their mom or something, because I had been caring for them and feeding them since they were barely three weeks old. They are still with us. They won't wear collars. The Tom likes to spend the night out, sleeps inside all day. One of the girls lives outside during the summer, never goes out once it gets cold. The other is a big sofa cushion who loves being inside...outside scares her.

We live in farm country. LOTS of birds. We have two families of cardinals and two families of blue jays, and countless finches and various other species. We have TONS of birds here. I've never seen our cats go after the birds. They make a lot of warning noises, and swoop and dive at them when they go outside. The squirrels make lots of warning sounds, too.

There is a big meadow in front of our house...I can't say the field mice fare as well as the birds, though.

[Atman]

86. HOLY CRAP! The cardinal just tried to attack my cat!

He must read DU! The tom is inside, as he is every day, sleeping in his usual spot in the window. I just heard a loud THUD, went over and there was the cardinal hopping around outside the window. Kitty was quite startled, didn't know what to make of it. The cardinal is just bopping around in the driveway, keeps going up to the nearby tree branch, then back to the driveway...he must be waiting for another opportunity to attack. There must be some new babies nearby. Crazy!

[auburngrad82]

81. So now instead of "blaming it on the dog" it's the cat's fault

I wonder if the drop in animal populations have anything to do with human encroachment and man-made pollution levels. I guess it's easier to blame it on house pets than to take responsibility for what we've done.

[joeybee12]

82. If they're outdoors, they're not "house cats"

For their own safety, they need to remain indoors.

That said, the Audubon Society is notorious for making shit up...they really hate cats.

[lapislzi]

84. I am surprised chipmunks are not extinct in my area

Sugar Cat is on the Chipmunk-a-Day plan.

For awhile it was bats. My little one has brought down weasels and squirrels. I would not be surprised if one of them brought down a bear cub or coyote.

Interestingly, bird kills seem to be rare with my guys.

[slackmaster]

85. This "Cats are Bad" craze has come up before. It will go the way of hula hoops and poodle skirts.

[BarbaRosa]

87. When it comes to indoor cats,

I challenge anyone to sleep, converse, or even think straight when Bill wants to go out.

[Marrah_G]

88. Our kitties only kill mice and maybe bugs

Mine and my guys cats are all indoor cats. I did once have an outdoor cat once, but he had been a feral and keeping him inside was impossible.

[Bluenorthwest]

89. I think this is something people indulge in so they can pretend humans building in animal

habitats are not to blame. Kitties are no match for us.
My father used to tell about a town he lived in many years ago which decided to make cats illegal, 'the poor birdies' and all that. My father had to hide his cats as he'd not dump a living creature for some idiot notion. I can't remember how long it was, but after several months the town moved to reverse the law, and began a program of cash payments to anyone who could show them they owned a cat. They had become rodent infested in a flash.
My kitty lives indoors because we both like it that way.

[Bigmack]

90. Coyotes love cats. They're smarter, too. eom

[Sylvarose]

91. my feline overlords are indoors only

...when I was growing up we lived in the country and we had an indoor/outdoor cat. He was quite the vole and chipmunk catcher. He had an ongoing war with the Blue Jays who would alert the "neighborhood" the moment he stepped out the door and would even occasionally dive bomb him. Occasionally we'd find a spat of bird feathers. He tangled with skunks a few times (had to bath him..pheww) and was quite the big cat. He lived that way for several years until I went to college, got an apartment and made him an indoor boy.

Since then, over the years, all my cats have been indoors. The alley cat I've rescued, the one who followed me home, the tortie who'd had a rough kittenhood to even the tabby boy found in my raspberry patch.

Up until a few years ago I never had more than two cats. Right now I have three (which is definitely my limit). I love them dearly.

These studies don't surprise me. Cats are amazing predators. The primary reason the human/cat dynamic began is when humans switched to an agriculture based society they had a problem with rodents eating their stored grain. When the wild cats came into the cities to hunt the abundant rodents gorging themselves..well you can see how this would be the start of a good relationship.

I don't condemn folks who have outdoor cats. I just urge them to put a bell on their collar to "even the odds" a bit. As for me, I've made the decision to keep my cats indoors. I know they are safer...and I know they take care of mice, spiders, moths and any other creepy crawly that makes its way into the house.

Plus they make excellent lap and foot warmers in the winter!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

93. My cat is not aloud outdoors. She remains inside. And I tell you: we no longer have any problems

with crickets, spiders, and other bugs and critters.

[snooper2]

94. My cat is aloud inside and outside..

Meow, Meow, Meow, at the back door,

We keep the garage door cracked for him so sometimes I'll hear it coming from there-

Meow, Meow, Meeeee wwo ee woo.. And of COURSE every time I open a can of anything-

Is that tuna for me, is that tuna for me- He just won't shut up LOL-


Wifes cat fat and just sleeps all day only moving to eat and poo Not aloud at all!

[coalition_unwilling]

109. LOL. We call tuna 'cat cocaine' in my household and our cat always

needs her fix. Must have . . . her fix.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

112. That's what I get for failing to proofread!! You got me!! You got me good!!!!! :)

[WI_DEM]

96. My cats are true 'house cats' and stay indoors. They do enjoy going after

insects, however. But thankfully we have no mice!

[coalition_unwilling]

97. Thanks for posting. Really cool thread - n/t

[Liberal_in_LA]

133. Thanks for reading.

[uppityperson]

110. People and cats live in different places, situations. Interesting study.

Where I live, our situation, they are in/out cats, typically living only 16-18 yrs before cancer or kidney failure gets them though to be fair I've had 1 cat eaten by a coyote about 14 yrs ago. For us and them it works.

[GreenPartyVoter]

113. My kitty babies live in the house. The only critters they have killed are

moths, spiders, and insects. (At my request!)

[patrice]

126. We have foxes, which also kill critters, so my furry-home-companion never leaves the house.

Too hot anyway.

[Broderick]

128. Save a critter!!!

[Butterbean]

130. My kitty is indoors only, and too lazy to even murder an insect.

She will lazily watch as house centipedes race by her (with me screeching after them with a shoe), then turn to lick her butt. So not the predator by any stretch of the imagination.

[coalition_unwilling]

136. Methinks you got cheated when the cat gods\goddesses dispensed their

feline favors

OTOH, we call our cat a bigger parasite than Mitt Romney, so there you have it

[Butterbean]

144. She's a white persian, hence the attitude. ;)

[coalition_unwilling]

145. Ah, feline royalty.That explains a lot. I'll bet she's a beautiful cat :) - n/t

[Logical]

143. Another reason to hate cats! N-t

[lonestarnot]

146. Bad, bad putty cats.

[rad51]

147. eating and drinking things they found

eating and drinking things they found (25%), exploring storm drains (20%) and entering crawl spaces where they could become trapped (20%)


Sounds like fun to me. Mine usually just chase chickens, lay in the gravel road, and follow or "help" me.

[Blue_In_AK]

150. My old cat. 17, just lays around the house

and occasionally goes out on the front porch to catch some rays. She killed a couple shrews in the kitchen two winters ago, which I appreciated. She never has been a bird chaser.

[Chemisse]

151. Sometimes it's just better to not know.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

161. We've known this for years. Grandpa shoots 'em on sight...

to protect his songbirds and squirrels that visit the garden.