Editor:
As a biologist I would like to add some numbers to the discussion about keeping cats indoors.
Roaming house and feral cats are killing an estimated 100 to 350 million birds every year in Canada and up to 3.7 billion birds in the U.S. This is a stunning number and cats exceed all other causes of bird mortality such as window collisions, powerlines and agricultural pesticides – cats are the No. 1 killer for birds. Worldwide, cats managed to already bring about 34 bird species to extinction. Cats also kill a staggering number of other small animals including frogs, flying squirrels and bats (actually five times more than birds). We live in a time of human-caused mass extinction and cats as human-induced predators are just too many to give birds and other small wildlife a survival chance. We see drastic and steep declines in bird populations in North America and all over the world – with the word “collapse” describing the situation more accurately – and we need to do something about it in a hurry. Several issues need to be tackled from the impact of habitat loss to the use of pesticides.
Fortunately, the remedy for the cat-induced crisis is easy in theory: Don’t let cats roam and keep them indoors or in a confined outdoor space. What we urgently need locally and nationally is cat owners to understand the devastating impact their free-roaming pets have on birds and other small wildlife and a push for more responsible cat-ownership policies and education campaigns.
Annette Clarke, Roberts Creek
