- Stray cats are bad.
- Stray cats are negatively impacting the environment.
- Because of the influx of stray cats, many native wildlife species are being affected.
- Free-roaming cats are the reason native bird species have gone extinct on islands.
- On islands where cats aren’t native, they hunt seabirds because there are not enough natural resources in the environment.
- An increase in the population of free-roaming cats on islands where they are not native with the addition of a decrease in fauna populations has caused the free-roaming cats to prey upon seabirds; therefore causing some species to come close to endangerment.
Critics
- 12,114 Complaints
Search this Blog
Log In Log Out
The Gamer 2.0
SleepyCat
Coffee Lover 03
doglover7025
Snowman10
excellentstudent27
Gymrat
hockeyfan
holistic25
ilovebeesss
ilovemydog
The Gamer
Naturechild101
BreakingBad45
ravensfan8
temporal111
thatpersonoverthere
toetio
username1132005
Calm&Patient
webbwrestler135
Counterintuitive Spring 2024 
Fascinating topic, SleepyCat. I have heard startling details from birder friends about the number of birds killed by housecats every year.
What I don’t understand about your Hypothesis is the connection between feral cats and selective breeding. I think you’ve suppressed an important claim in your causal chain. Don’t you need to say that it’s the failure of cat owners to spay or neuter their animals that results in overpopulation? Even that requires another step, right? The culprits are un-fixed housecats that are permitted to roam free outdoors. Or am I missing something?
Tell me more about the motivation of the cat owners. You say Negligence and Selective Breeding. Are you saying some cat owners are just neglectful? Do un-fixed males or females cause more trouble in your estimation? Is the problem that males are impregnating feral cats? Is the problem that unspayed females are coming home pregnant? Which one results in the bigger population? Does a cat need to be feral to kill birds? Does a free-roaming housecat pose just as much of a menace? Are cats killing live birds or eating eggs?
So many questions.
Schedule a Zoom Conference. I’m eager to discuss this with you.
LikeLike
I’m very impressed that you’ve narrowed your hypothesis so significantly that now you’ll have to be very selective in what qualifies as evidence for your claim. You’ve set a challenge for yourself the results of which could be much more satisfying than the bald assertion that stray cats kill birds.
I wonder how much your proof, if you accomplish it, will apply to our domestic situation here. We’re not an island, but if you think BIG enough, we are a land mass mostly surrounded by water . . . I mean, what qualifies as an island, really? Australia, surely, but what about North America?
Also, are cats native to the US in the way you mean the term? For example, when Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, was it on a new land where housecats were common? I know it was me who first suggested that you find a test population and environment that would remove the noise from your available evidence, but you’ll still have to consider whether what you find on an island translates to a truth about cats and birds, or only where they’ve been studied.
Fascinating. Let me know if you need any more interference. 🙂
LikeLike