I so sad, (may offend cat owners)

[WildSam]

I hate cats to. We have loads of them around and they drive me nuts.

[theanimallover]

Could you chuck away the dog run and let the dog defend your garden?
We have a small garden, full of birds and no cats because they wouldn't dare with a lurcher about!
The front of the house is a different matter and infact it's where we feed the birds, but if I see a cat I tell the dog who stands on the window ledge and gives them a menacing look, and they scamper past. Never so far - touch wood noticed one of our birds go to a cat. Sparrowhawk sadly yes.

[batwing]

I love cats, although I don't have any at the moment. They do hunt for fun because ours were always well fed but still brought home the occasional mouse or bird just to prove they could and would cruelly play with it. It's their nature. If we want to blame anything for destuction of our wildlife look in the mirror.

[Bunyip]

Originally Posted by batwing

I love cats, although I don't have any at the moment. They do hunt for fun because ours were always well fed but still brought home the occasional mouse or bird just to prove they could and would cruelly play with it. It's their nature. If we want to blame anything for destuction of our wildlife look in the mirror.

So we should all sit on our backsides and do nothing,if you wish to see a fool you should also look in the mirror.

[Wightman]

Batwing, while I can see what you are saying I don't agree, you can feed them as much as you like but their instinct is to hunt and you can't stop this. What you call "cruelly playing" is just nature, and I don't think they do this for fun in the human sense. As I've already said in an earlier post owners should at least put a bell on the collar, and they should NEVER be "let out" at night, for this and early morning is when they do the most damage

[Alan G]

Just returned from a holiday in a small farming village in Turkey where we were literally surrounded by 1000s upon 1000s of songbirds (mainly House Sparrows - remember them?) - in fact whenever we travel abroad we see this phenomena.

And there were cats everywhere as well. It seemed that every household had at least one cat as well as a large feral population....free to roam wherever they wanted.

How do we explain that?

Although we all accept that cats do and have had an impact on songbird numbers in the UK and owners should take more responsibility, especially in breeding season) it needs to be remembered that the song birds plight is primarily down to habitat destruction............and there's only one creature on earth that can be blamed for that..........

[Wightman]

Totally agree Alan G.

[demicav]

Originally Posted by Alan G

Just returned from a holiday in a small farming village in Turkey where we were literally surrounded by 1000s upon 1000s of songbirds (mainly House Sparrows - remember them?) - in fact whenever we travel abroad we see this phenomena.

And there were cats everywhere as well. It seemed that every household had at least one cat as well as a large feral population....free to roam wherever they wanted.

How do we explain that?

Although we all accept that cats do and have had an impact on songbird numbers in the UK and owners should take more responsibility, especially in breeding season) it needs to be remembered that the song birds plight is primarily down to habitat destruction............and there's only one creature on earth that can be blamed for that..........

Good post, I agree totally.

[Ukwildlifeo]

Originally Posted by Alan G

Just returned from a holiday in a small farming village in Turkey where we were literally surrounded by 1000s upon 1000s of songbirds (mainly House Sparrows - remember them?) - in fact whenever we travel abroad we see this phenomena.

And there were cats everywhere as well. It seemed that every household had at least one cat as well as a large feral population....free to roam wherever they wanted.

How do we explain that?

Although we all accept that cats do and have had an impact on songbird numbers in the UK and owners should take more responsibility, especially in breeding season) it needs to be remembered that the song birds plight is primarily down to habitat destruction............and there's only one creature on earth that can be blamed for that..........

While habitat destruction is a major, if not the main reason for the loss of birds, there is no denying cats are having a major negative affect. And its not just on the birds. An article found on a blog by someone who knows his stuff (and bases his posts on scientific peer reviewed papers) here talks about the affect on other small creatures: "Britain’s 9 million cats are estimated to bring home about 5 million non-avian reptiles and lissamphibians, and of these about 12% are slow-worms (Woods et al. 2003). That amounts to about 600,000 slow-worms killed over five months, every year (if I’ve screwed up the maths, which is likely, let me know), which might be a non-sustainable number if we actually knew what the total population is (and we don’t)." I've had 1 frog and 1 toad in my pond the last few years, when I used have loads, with both breeding before. And I've looked all over my patch for slowworms in perfect habitat with no luck - and there are cats everywhere...

[Alan G]

What about the impact on all our wildlife of car strike which has a big impact on mammal and bird numbers every year?

The roads around here have been littered with birds over the past few months and that could spell curtains to a young brood if they've become a single parent family as it applies more pressure on one bird to do all the feeding and protecting - not easy in a breeding season thats seen almost unbroken wet weather over the last couple of months.

Are we all to walk to work to avoid colliding with birds..........

Going back to my comment about the Turkish sparrows that were seen in massive numbers (as well as huge numbers of hirundines, loads of buntings, shrikes, larks & warblers) - they're there because the locals aren't obsessed with manicured lawns, weed-free borders, tidy back gardens, the laying of patios or decking or gravel, complaining to the council when the patches of neighbourhood greenery gets more than 6 inches high, or planting that may look wonderful but isn't wildlife friendly........not to mention uPVCing our exteriors to within an inch of their lives?

And there wasn't a bird feeder in sight...........'cos the abundance of natural food around makes them obsolete.

All in all, we've created neighbourhoods where a lot of species struggle to find decent nest sites and natural food (not helped by cats I accept) but in that Turkish village the cat population couldn't have made a dent in the bird population if it tried as the birds are thriving regardless.

I agree, owners need to take more responsibility for their cats (avoid letting them out from April til August to avoid impacts on breeding birds perhaps?) but, and I'm not excusing cats here, I guess we've only got humans to blame (again!) here as it was us that domesticated them and allowed them into our lives in the first place?