I thought you may all be interested in this research which has shown that the amount of cats in the UK is reaching levels where starlings, sparrows and other town bird are in decline because they are too scared to breed.
There are nearly 9 million cats in the the UK, many more than I realised.
http://environment.independent.co.uk/wil...725725.ece
There are a lot of cats around, but I find it hard to believe that the birds decide not to breed because they are scared. Then again I'm not an expert, and its very interesting what the article says, but does a bird really think like that?
I think the gist of the article appears to be that there are so many OUTDOOR cats that they keep birds from resting and eating, which in turn means that they aren't going to be as eager to breed. or, if they do breed, they won't be able to gather enough food for the nestlings.
The simple solution would be to keep the cats indoors, but that's a difficult thing to put across. In case anyone was wondering, all three of my cats are indoors only
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Kingfisher
i disagree, i have 3 cats and a medium sized garden. when i threw a few slices of bread outside about 100-120 birds flew down to pick it up
I think that if you describe the birds as being "scared" as in the human emotion then the article is innaccurate, but what the article really means is that it is a lot harder for the birds to succesfully raise their offspring when there are so many cats around.
The simple solution would be to keep the cats indoors, but that's a difficult thing to put across. In case anyone was wondering, all three of my cats are indoors only
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Kingfisher
That would be the easiest solution, but I can't see it happening with most people unfortunately!
The amount of cats in our road alone that roam the streets is frightening. There is still a lot of bird activity, but I don't think it is unilikely that the large amounts of cats is causing a decline in town birds populations in this way.
We have a large number of cats in the area but it doesn't seem to have affected the bird population unduly, as I have noticed.
At the moment my garden is frequented by 3 cats. Because of the hierarchy in the cat social forum they are never in the garden all at once. They have to followed the prescribed routes at precisely the prescribed times. If they did meet, the cat with the right of 'trespass' would certainly fight with the 'wrongdoer'.
Whilst the presence of birds doesn't coincide with the visits from the cats it certainly doesn't seem to have affected numbers of visitors, in fact numbers have increased due to better feeding & the number of fledglings have increased.
That's good to hear tibbar. Its encouraging that the amount of fledglings has increased in your area even though there is cats around. I think that there needs to be a lot more research into the subject before any solid conclusions can be drawn.
Yes, so is the author of the article drawing the incorrect conclusion? It sounds that way.
Kingfisher
Not neccessarily, scientific research is usually on a better foundation than anecdotal evidence. Although anecdotal evidence can be helpful. I find that we have still had our fair share of sparrow fledglings but we do not have an starlings visiting. Considering that I would think that starlings & sparrows would be in great numbers the starlings do not visit our garden the only exception is when the rowan tree's berries are ripe then they come en mass strip the tree & then disappear almost as fast as they came.
Skippy says , he has at work a large flock of starlings that stay all year round possibly due to a large supermarket closeby. ( lots of spilled food in loading bays perhaps).
So is it the fact that starlings prefer scavaging round humans than looking for their traditional food source? Which would also lead to different kind of nest sites.
We have witness lots of starling babies when we go to Asda.
Food for thought.
So the question should be ... is it the way we live that affects how the birds behave??
You know, that's a really intriguing question. Here in the US, we have more starlings than we know what to do with. They are ferocious pests in farmer's fields--but especially in cattle feedlots. They have shown no sign of diminishing in the countryside. Where they have diminished is in the suburban areas, because they have been displaced by larger, smarter American crows. Who knows, perhaps it's not cats at all, but yet another example of the introduced Eastern Grey squirrel displacing yet another creature?
Kingfisher
I try very hard to keep cats out my garden and have seen a significant decrease ( although I see see a sneaky white one about half an hour ago but I think white ones are the worst at stalking birds luckily) in cats in the garden with £100 worth of ultra sonic cat scarers. If I do see them they get a shot of water aimed at them. I have seen a significant increase in starlings and especially sparrows in my garden, although this wmaybe due to the fact that I have let the hedges grow long, wild flower borders and lots of put out lots fat balls. I have only luckliy touch wood, seen one slaughtered baby starling (was so sad I cried, probably a cat) and evidence of a slaughtered pigeon in my garden (after which I found a horrid black cat stalking under the tree so that got a hosepipe and the tree had its lower branches ripped down to minimise stalking places. Have also seen dead mice in the garden (which are quickly swallowed whole by Brenda the chicken). I know it is only cat nature but not allowed in my garden in an area where no cat owners act responsibly and no cats are kept in and none wear collars with bells on them to warn the birds. Horrible needless torture and salughter! Can't risk it with the chickens either (although what would the cat owner think if their fluffy ball of joy came home with a chicken???
To give the opinion of someone involved 'on the front line' as it were.
During the spring & summer months, the breeding season for most birds, it is not unusual for us to take in 30-40 casualties every day. Around 80% of these are due to cats!!
Surveys have proved that there are some British species which are actually threatened with extinction because of cats, & the worst time for cats to be allowed out is during the night. This is when they do the most damage to our wildlife.
There are far too many feral cats roaming our streets & countryside & something needs to be done about it.
Cat owners should also be made to be more responsible for what their animals are doing & when they are out.
Thats is terrible. Poor little animals
I know they are building houses in certain areas of Britain and the people who will be occupying them are not allowed cats as they are being built next to nature reserves. Which is good news as long as it gets policed.
I am not up for genetic engineering - it is wrong, but if only cats could be modified to only hunt pests such as mice (not voles) then I would be all for it.
That's an awful lot of injuries every day, makes you wonder how many aren't so lucky to escape with injuries. Which British species are in danger wildliferescuer?
It's a good idea to not allow people living next to nature reserves to have cats, in a perfect world it would be best not to build houses so close to the reserve at all though.
The following extract has been taken from a survey carried out by The Mammal Society of almost 1,000 domestic cats:
Mammal Society findings:
'Our sample cats killed more than 14,000 mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. With a population in Britain estimated as in excess of 8 million, domestic moggies could be killing 275 million creatures a year.
True to the stereotype, mice are top of the list, followed by field and bank voles. Cats killed almost as many shrews, though these are rarely eaten because of their distasteful glands. Less-common species, such as water shrews, harvest mice and yellow-necked mice, along with protected water voles and dormice, were also taken.
Cats also took larger mammals, including high numbers of rabbits, squirrels, weasels and even a few stoats. Cats took a worrying number of bats, generally by waiting outside roost entrances and hooking them as they emerged at dusk.
The variety of bird species taken was astonishing and included jays, woodpeckers, gulls, treecreepers, goldcrests and swifts, although sparrows were top by a long way. As for reptiles and amphibians, frogs were well to the fore, followed by slow-worms. Rare sand lizards also featured.
Impeding predation
Bell-wearing cats killed fewer mammals, though bells seem to offer little protection to birds. However, a survey carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology showed that a sonic collar which emits a regular signal, reduced the number of birds killed by 65 per cent. The Mammal Society survey found that confining cats - nocturnal predators - at night reduced the numbers of mammals killed.
With 26 times more cats than foxes, it's hard to see how cats cannot be exerting a pressure on our native fauna. While the Mammal Society is far from being anti-cat, it has to be recognised that, just as mink have devastated the water vole population, already under pressure from habitat loss, so cats could be the final push for an as yet unidentified species led to the brink by some totally unrelated factor'.