Hi all, happy Easter and spring tiding sot you all.
I'm new on here so apologies if there is already a thread on this .. or if i have broken the rules in some way.
I just wanted to share my annoyance with what looks like another year of nesting failure where i live due to predation by the local gang of cats. within the space of 4 houses there are 9 cats. My neighbour and I seem to be the only ones not in love with our feline friends. I put a nest box up on the front of my north facing house last year but next doors cat killed one of the nesting bluetits. Needless to say only one of the chicks fledged. I think the same has happened this year too as i haven't seen the new pair of bluetits for a couple of days now. i've just tapped the side of the box but nothing. the last time i saw them they were very active nest building and (i think) feeding the young. Cats may not be to blame for their disappearance but i can't think what else has happened. Its very discouraging. i jet feel like taking the box down.
i know there is not much that can be done about this on a local level. I really wanted to gauge what people think about the problem of cats. i read somewhere that they kill something like 60 million birds a year in the UK. Is that true?! It's a staggering number if it is. Surely something has to be done about this at a national level, such as limiting each household to one cat .. or making cat alarm collars compulsory .. or at least a public broadcast about the damage they do to bird stocks.
Does anybody agree? I just don't know how you stop these pests.
All views welcome.
All the best Adrian
My opinions on some of the points raised in this thread:
- As has been stated, there is no evidence that predation by cats has any significant effect on anything other than some local bird population. However there is very good evidence that cats can have a significant effect on populations of other types of wildlife (notably reptiles), which are then unlikely to ever recover naturally because their populations are becoming severely fragmented.
-There is no evidence that eagles naturally prey on either foxes or cats (though if anyone can point me at any I would be happy to concede this point). Trained captive eagles are flown at, and kill, foxes in some countries, but this is not natural behaviour - and remains found at eagle nests is not evidence of predation (eagles are known to scavenge carrion and take this back to their nests).
-My opinion on cats, their effect on wildlife, and how it should be controlled? It should not be legal for cats, or any other domestic/pet animals to be released into the wild, even temporarily, without them being closely monitored at all times (which is effectively what is happening whenever someone allows their cat to roam freely). Quite a few people keep cats as house pets, which is not cruel to the cat in anyway, and ensures that the cat is always under control. Unfortunately I am well aware that this will never happen because people are too used to being allowed to let cats and other animals/birds roam free, and misconceived arguments about animal & human rights will prevent any change (even if it was proven that there were serious negative effects on all native wildlife).
�
Unknown said: - As has been stated, there is no evidence that predation by cats has any significant effect on anything other than some local bird population.
- As has been stated, there is no evidence that predation by cats has any significant effect on anything other than some local bird population.
Can someone provide some sort of factual evidence for this? Mammal Society figures just state, "This is the number of prey items that were known to have been caught; we don't know how many more the cats caught, but didn't bring home, or how many escaped but subsequently died". This frankly is nonsense. How on earth can they suggest it's only birds that weren't brought home or escaped? Did the Mammal Society count the mauled starling I saw up the road on Friday, or the four blackbird chicks from my dad's garden? Of course they didn't. The RSPB stance link is a very vague summary unfortunately. What proper scientific or non scientific evidence is being used to categorically state cats have no significant effect on birds. I find the sentence, "It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season" baffling. If there is one remaining pair of song thrushes (which used to also be a regular cat victim til the population fell off a cliff in this area of the UK), and a cat catches one of the feeding adults, that's it. How can it then be argued the cat has no significant effect on that thrush population?[/quote]
Basically, no-one can provide factual evidence that cats do not have any effect on national bird populations if that is what you are asking (and it's already accepted that they can have an effect on local populations of some species, under certain circumstances). But "cats do not affect national bird populations" is NOT what has been stated by myself or in the RSPB stance.
What has been stated is that there is no evidence that cats DO affect national bird populations (...and in the absence of any study that provides factual evidence that cats DO have an effect on national bird populations it is correct to say that there is no evidence that they do).
The problem is that while it can be shown that domestic cats kill a (seemingly) large number of birds, and doubtless cause the deaths of many more that aren't accounted for in studies like the one by the Mammal Society (which freely admitted that it did not account for animals/birds that escaped or were not brought home), it cannot be shown that the numbers killed would survive anyway and not die as a result of (for example) natural predators, disease, or starvation. It would be fairly typical for only one adult from a pair of small birds, and one of their young (out of perhaps 6-12) to survive until the next breeding season, and this would still maintain a stable population.
The Mammal Society study (which took place between 1st April and 31st August, so during the peak period for fledgling birds, can be found here:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/~nhi775/cat_predation.htm
Unknown said:On a very similar theme, RSPB (that I'm a long term member of) stated not that long ago that starling declines were related to farming methods and lack of nest holes. I'm not disputing that in many areas, but what about the areas where the farming methods are the same as they've been for donkey's years, and the same houses have the same nest holes, plus have new and old nest boxes put up that have formerly been used but no longer are? In these areas, it seems the research is found wanting.
Without looking in detail into the studies that have already been completed, it is impossible to say that areas where farming methods have not changed at all, and the same nest sites are available, have not been taken into account.
It would be extremely unusual for a species to decline at a uniform rate across it's range, and in many cases there can actually be local increases even though a species is declining over the country as a whole. If a study finds that Starling numbers are stable in areas where farming methods and the availability of nest sites have remained the same, but have fallen in otherwise similar areas where these have changed, this can usually be taken as suggestive that these are linked to the decline. However, even if a decline is also noticed in the areas where things haven't changed, this is not necessarily evidence that there is another reason for the decline, it just means that decline in the unchanged areas needs to be explained somehow. A good study will take all variables into account before reaching a conclusion.
For instance, in the Starling example changes in farming practises are thought to lower the survival rate of juveniles during their first winter. Starlings do not necessarily winter close to the areas in which they nest though, so changes in both winter and breeding areas can potentially affect the population trend in each area. Nest sites in an area where farming methods have not changed may end up unoccupied because the Starlings from that area are trying to survive the winter in an area where farming has changed - or because there is more winter competition for the food sources in areas without changes in farming because of birds moving in from neighbouring areas where the farming methods have changed.