Do cats really need to go outdoors?

[emilymaywilcha]

I do have a problem with that, Tarasgirl, when it comes to native animals and birds. 

I'm a member of Bush Heritage in Australia, and the damage feral cats do to the ecology here is very well documented, both by interest groups and the government. Cats are introduced and create huge problems in our natural environment, along with foxes and rabbits, and in some cases, even more so. I know it is a really unpopular thing to bring up on a site like this, but it's a reality.  We have created this problem and the poor cats suffer for it.

I adore my cats, and consider myself to be a responsible carer for them. This includes preventing them from killing the colonies of blue tongue lizards that live in my garden which are in danger of no longer being an urban dweller due to domestic pets.

That is not just Australia's problem. Your country is taking it more seriously than mine, however. Americans don't care if cats eats lizards. The fact that lizards are everywhere makes people think, "We don't need all of them, so why should it matter if they are cat food?" Of course those people don't understand the importance of preventing cats from eating lizards (which do not have blue tongues here BTW).

But lizards are not the animals I am worried about. They moved very fast and can climb up walls. My concern is animals that live in trees. Can a cat disturb an egg-laying bird or her chicks? It is possible because they are unlikely to fly away.

 

[ldg]

That is not just Australia's problem. Your country is taking it more seriously than mine, however. Americans don't care if cats eats lizards. The fact that lizards are everywhere makes people think, "We don't need all of them, so why should it matter if they are cat food?" Of course those people don't understand the importance of preventing cats from eating lizards (which do not have blue tongues here BTW).

But lizards are not the animals I am worried about. They moved very fast and can climb up walls. My concern is animals that live in trees. Can a cat disturb an egg-laying bird or her chicks? It is possible because they are unlikely to fly away.

Emily, this is SO not the place to get into the cats-as-predators issue, but I am literally an expert on the subject of cat predation.

"Lizards" in the U.S. are NOT the blue-tongued urban-dwelling lizards of Australia. There is no reason cats can't eat non-endangered or rare lizards. There are a few endangered reptiles in the US - in TX, FL, GA, perhaps a few other places. Feral cats can be a problem for some birds too - again, in isolated places. I have helped work to relocate feral cat colonies threatening rare or endangered species.

I don't think people with PETS should let their cats roam for so many reasons. But other cultures feel differently, as already discussed. And in the UK, many people love to let their cats roam. And the UK's Royal Society for Protection of Birds position on this is:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/gardening/unwantedvisitors/cats/birddeclines.aspx

Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific evidence that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK-wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally every year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation. There is evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds.

We also know that of the millions of baby birds hatched each year, most will die before they reach breeding age. This is also quite natural, and each pair needs only to rear two young that survive to breeding age to replace themselves and maintain the population.

It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season, so cats are unlikely to have a major impact on populations. If their predation was additional to these other causes of mortality, this might have a serious impact on bird populations.

Those bird species that have undergone the most serious population declines in the UK (such as skylarks, tree sparrows and corn buntings) rarely encounter cats, so cats cannot be causing their declines. Research shows that these declines are usually caused by habitat change or loss, particularly on farmland.

The issues in Australia are VERY different. As an island continent, they have many species of animal found nowhere else, and they have no "natural" mammals akin to cats, so their native animal populations did not grow up in the presence of a cat-like predator. (There is a native carnivorous marsupial, the Quoll, but they're endangered, and one species has already gone extinct).

Continents like Europe and North and South America are VERY different. Our birds grew up in the presence of predators and with native cats (not domestic cats, but yes, felids).

 

[tarasgirl06]

Quote:

Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific evidence that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK-wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally every year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation. There is evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds.

We also know that of the millions of baby birds hatched each year, most will die before they reach breeding age. This is also quite natural, and each pair needs only to rear two young that survive to breeding age to replace themselves and maintain the population.

It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season, so cats are unlikely to have a major impact on populations. If their predation was additional to these other causes of mortality, this might have a serious impact on bird populations.

Those bird species that have undergone the most serious population declines in the UK (such as skylarks, tree sparrows and corn buntings) rarely encounter cats, so cats cannot be causing their declines. Research shows that these declines are usually caused by habitat change or loss, particularly on farmland.

 YUP!!! (And for the record, I love birds and lizards and mice and rats and voles and moles, and just about every species except canids and mean people.  But I don't feel the need to play power over nature.  Leave the cats alone.)

 

[emilymaywilcha]

OK, past the predatory argument, let's look at the chances a cat locked in the backyard will attempt to get out as if it is just another room in the house. Has anyone ever heard of this happening?

 

[ldg]

Of course. Thus the advertisements on TCS for things like Purrfect fence. http://purrfectfence.com/

 

[melesine]

Mine have no interest in escaping the yard, they keep an eye on where we are and if they seeing us heading for the door they generally come running back in on their own. If not, they come when called. One of our boys has no problems going up and down the huge ( 30' +) oak trees in our yard, he is the only one interested in them our other cats don't go up the trees. I don't think ours are probably not the typical cat though, the boys were both rescues that were caught outside as kittens, one of them in a parking lot. Neither of them has ever tried to run away, I think they know they have it good now. They enjoy playing outside sometimes but they don't want to live out there. 

 

[gibbly]

Cats are cats, and they don't belong in cages and they don't belong inside 24/7 that's just my opinion, we as humans feel the need to domesticate every animal we come across, yet the cat is one of the few we have failed to fully domesticate, only a cat (or a rodent) when allowed to do so will revert back to a wild state within a matter of days of being left on it's own and forced to fend for itself.

two of my three cats are indoor outdoor cats, and I am working on getting my three month old used to going out as well, they adore going out, the more bold of the two surprisingly chooses to stay around the yard/house but the more typically timid of the two is an avid roamer (both are females) and hunter.

both of my cats are healthy, and are much more active/happier than they were before I started letting them out full time.

I love this quote

"you can take the cat into your home, love it, feed it, spoil it, but you can never truely remove the beast it was born to be"

 

[emilymaywilcha]

I totally agree with the cage part 100%. Letting them go in every part of the house is a different story.

I am OK with letting cats sit on a covered porch with a fence. If you don't have that, I would hope you can train the cat to come when called.

 

[rad65]

This thread reminds me of a discussion I saw a while back, on Amazon of all places, except the original author takes the opposite stand. This person claims it is cruel to keep cats indoors. I don't agree with this person, but I thought it might help to see what some people with strong feelings on the opposite side of the issue believe. 

http://www.amazon.com/forum/cats?_e...&cdThread=Tx2JMBNOK0CIWEI&tag=&tag=thecatsite

 

[4catsncounting]

I should have delved into the minusia of N. American cat predation when a consulting forester colleague, if you will, (I used to be a field wildlife biology research tech) and I got into that very debate last year.

He maintained that a definitive study was <recently> published indicating cat are the leading cause of predation for songibirds.

But the only study I could find in the hour I bothered to look was the Journal of Ornithology study of grey catbirds  http://nationalzoo.si.edu/scbi/migratorybirds/science_article/pdfs/55.pdf  -

and it quantified nest success/juvenile mortality rates; not adults.

The New York Times picked up on the science, though, and with a provocative title and a photo of a bird being devoured, it drew international attention:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/science/21birds.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

79% mortality to predation, 47% of that predation due to domestics cats.

Those sub-populations not able to repopulate themselves were site specific.

So.

Is there a direct link to any and/or all declines of songbirds in North America to domestic cats?

I don't think there is a smoking gun, exclusively. Not unless Grey Catbirds are on a steady decline.

I haven't sat down and really researched exhaustively, I could be off base for sure.

But if this study is what people are hanging their hats on to damn cats as a clear cause, I would object. Further - catbirds are not indigo buntings who are not scarlet tanagers who are not hermit thrushes... there's interior forest dwellers, there's edge species, and they encounter cats at different rates than farm and suburban dwellers.

Anyway.

Having said that, a few of the studies I was working on back in the day were looking at nest parasitism by cowbirds on increasingly eastern species, and forest openings (due to anything from farm/housing creation to timber harvesting to wildlife food plots) effects on nest success, and with all the other human factors influencing mortality, windows and building collisions being paramount, poisonings, habitat alteration...

I will say I feel cat predation ... adds to the pot.

Put another way - cat predation, while likely not altering the next year's population #'s of songbirds overall on its own, can add what we in the natural sciences call "stress" to the proliferation.

I'll also say that I find dubious the statement that cats or any predators kill only or mostly the weak and sick, weeding out only those who'd have died without successfully breeding.

They do, but let's face it, they kill healthy and young too - it's all that split second timing and who's having a good day. And it's not only just the cream of the crop that breed in the bird-world, like alpha wolves.

 

[ldg]

Well, maybe we should move this discussion to the IMO forum. But given your background, you might find the entire Grey Catbird study both important and interesting. Peter Wolf at Vox Felina, as always, did a great job of putting the headline-making news into perspective:

http://www.voxfelina.com/2011/03/catbirds-cats-and-scapegoats/
http://www.voxfelina.com/2010/10/a-tale-of-two-cities/

And while this paper was written in response to a very specific claim in a publication (I was addressing the claim that cat predation costs $17 billion in the U.S.), the bulk of it addresses the various facets of cat predation, and reviews the studies that are SO often taken out of context (and discusses that as well): http://www.straypetadvocacy.org/PDF/17reasons.pdf

Of course, as you point out, the real question is - to what extent is cat predation additive as opposed to compensatory.

Let's not forget - a number of the most populous bird species in the U.S. are also introduced. (House sparrow and starlings).

I believe pet cats should be kept indoors for many reasons, among them bird predation. But I also support TNR.

 

[violetxx]

4catsNCounting makes some very good points about the effects of cat predation on birds. As a biology major myself, I feel that with any overpopulation issue their will always be some kind of effect on the pre-existing wildlife, not to say that we have cat overpopulation everywhere, but where it exists it can cause problems, even if its just the addition of extra stress to an organism as previously mentioned.

Another good point made, is that most of the birds living near humans (especially in suburban/urban areas) are edge species, not interior species. Interior species tend to be more at risk since they require a greatly specialized environment. Having said that, if a cat kills a crow or gull do we consider that okay, because to us they are seen as pests? Or we could look at the other end of the spectrum, should we allow cats to be eating mice and small rodents outside? 

I also don't agree with the statement 'Americans don't care if cats eat lizards' but we care if they're birds, looks like a case of preference for charismatic megafauna, you want to protect it because its cute and cuddly or pretty, not because of its value within an ecosystem. Again the outdoor/indoor debate is about maintaining a certain amount species-appropriateness, however we must also note that we have altered the natural environment of cats soo much and have created so many new dangers for outdoor cats on top of the usual (predators, natural disasters, disease). So comparing an outdoor life today for cat with its wild environment is like comparing apples and oranges. So again I am going to emphasize that its about how much control you want to have over your cats environment. If you feel its safe to allow your cat to live in an altered natural environment then that's your choice and I may beg to differ depending on the circumstance, but that's because I want more control over what my cats exposed to. Yes cats naturally live outside, but outside today is not what it used to be. There are pros/cons for both sides of the fence, but whats important is that you can justify to yourself and your cat what is best for them. Comparing little details like birds is pointless since it is one issue in a large list (and to nit pic, many of the pros and cons are dependent on location, population, etc. it is not the same for everyone). Whats important is the big picture.

 

[mani]

I hadn't realised that this was such a contentious issue. (which is a little silly of me as I've been on the site a lot). But LDG, with all due respect, to say that this forum is SO not the place to bring up the predator issue feels a little like censorship.  Move it to IMO by all means, but it should still be allowed.

I'm finding it a very interesting debate, and others may be as well.

 

[catbehaviors]

I hadn't realised that this was such a contentious issue. (which is a little silly of me as I've been on the site a lot). But LDG, with all due respect, to say that this forum is SO not the place to bring up the predator issue feels a little like censorship.  Move it to IMO by all means, but it should still be allowed.
I'm finding it a very interesting debate, and others may be as well.

I thought that she was just saying that many people would side with the cats? Now I'm not sure. :dk:

 

[ldg]

I thought that she was just saying that many people would side with the cats? Now I'm not sure. :dk:

No, I meant talking about the cat predation issue in depth was off-topic for this thread. Not an issue of censorship, IMO. But getting into a discussion of the Gray Catbird study, for instance, isn't really appropriate in this thread, that's all.

 

[ldg]

I thought that she was just saying that many people would side with the cats? Now I'm not sure. :dk:

Oh - and actually, when the cat-vs-bird thing comes up, it's often pro-bird. There are a lot of cat-haters out there, but who hates birds? I spend a fair amount of time commenting to news articles to help promote a better understanding of TNR (if Peter didn't get there first :lol3: ).

 

[emilymaywilcha]

Oh - and actually, when the cat-vs-bird thing comes up, it's often pro-bird. There are a lot of cat-haters out there, but who hates birds? I spend a fair amount of time commenting to news articles to help promote a better understanding of TNR (if Peter didn't get there first ).

Who are you calling Peter?

Some people say the bird part of this debate is overstated. In fact Cat Fancy ran an article years ago written by an Audobon Society volunteer about why we should not assume domestic cats are shrinking the U.S. bird populations. She had some good points: cats can't fly and rodents are easier to catch on the ground. But how do you explain the many times domestic cats do kill birds? Using her logic cats never try to kill any birds.

Of course, there is another side of the bird issue we have not touched yet: the opposite tragedy happens. Suppose a lot of owls live near you. Like cats, owls are nocturnal. Can you imagine a cat climbing a tree and coming nose to beak with an owl? Unfortunately, such a meeting will end with the owl killing the cat. If that cat is yours, it does not matter that there are too many cats on the planet; you don't want that end result.

My feelings about TNR (which I prefer to call STAR) differ a lot from what usually happens, but that topic is for the Strays and Ferals forum.

 

[ldg]

Who are you calling Peter?

Peter Wolf: http://www.voxfelina.com/ From post #91, above, the discussion of the gray catbird study?

Emily, here are examples of what I'm talking about: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarep...s-show-outdoor-cats-can-menace-songbirds.html (Read the comments. I'm posting as Laurie SPA in that paper; Peter usually posts as Pedro Lobo).

Another one: http://www.madisoncountycourier.com/2012/05/20/cats-killing-wildlife-people-killing-cats/

And again, if you would like a review of the cat predation studies and issues, a paper I wrote provides a pretty good overview: http://www.straypetadvocacy.org/PDF/17reasons.pdf The introduction then skip to section 4 if you're not interested in the part addressing the economic stuff.

 

[4catsncounting]

I'm tearing through those links LDG - thank you for providing them.

I'd like to respond, but I may not get my comments down before I have to travel for a week or so, so I may not get back to this thread for a bit.

One quick question while I'm in the midst though - Mr. Wolf writes:  "Maybe readers don’t expect Higgins to know (or care, even) how many free-roaming cats there are in the U.S."

Does he and/or the TNR community have a figure they point to?

But I do just want to give a one word response to the concept of the Cat-Bib:

http://www.catgoods.com/

and that word is - Ludicrous. 

 

[otto]

But I do just want to give a one word response to the concept of the Cat-Bib:
http://www.catgoods.com/

and that word is - Ludicrous. 

Good grief. The cat can't even walk in that thing, I watched the video. People just won't ever stop finding ways to torture cats, will they.

I suppose it wouldn't take a determined cat long to work around it, but why should the cat have to? It's....absurd and idiotic and downright cruel.