Cats banned from going outside in Australia, could it happen here?

[JamBiscuitBun]

I'm interested to hear thoughts on this. Article here I can't ever see it working in the UK. I also remember Australian farmers having apocalyptic mice problems on some of their farms, so I'm not sure how this fits in with that. Though there are many people who'd love to never have the neighbour's cat pooing in their garden again. What d'you think?

@Swg

You're saying there are millions of dead tits? 27 million is quite a lot of tits.

And some other tits are responsible for the carnage?

Or are we looking at a few hundred fatalities here among the tits?

@CandleInTheStorm

The point was that cats are just as wild by nature as these other wildlife, but it's humans who have decided to keep them as pets. So why is it ok to lock one up out of their natural living habits and not the other?

You originally said:

If those species are in danger of being extinct, why not put them in enclosed spaces where they can't get out?

Cats aren't in any danger of becoming extinct, so your odd analogy is null and void.

Upthread the question was asked, "Why do people get so upset?"

My responses on this topic have, I hope, been measured, but actually I do get extremely upset about it. I get extremely upset because my various 'local' social media feeds are full of genuinely heartbroken people (and children, much more to the point) whose beloved cats have gone missing; pleas to check sheds, and look out for the poor feline. And then the follow-up, when the dearly-loved creature is found lying dead at the side of the road....

If you choose to keep animals as pets you have a responsibility to look after them in the best way that assures they will be safe. For the love of God, keep your cats indoors! They have no road sense, can't judge the speed of cars and, these days, are also vulnerable to some very unwell people who relish the opportunity to do them harm.

OK so I'm going to take off my debaters hat and put on my bird watchers hat for a moment so you'll spot the tone change because that's a good question that needs answering.

Firstly I should be clear that when we say "tit" we include some birds in that definition which aren't truly tits - the long tailed tit for example is utterly adorable but completely unrelated to the others.

There are - I just checked this - 3300000 breeding pairs of blue tits in the UK. Each of those will produce 8-12 eggs. It can be as many as 15. I'm going to let you do the maths on how many babies that is. Most of those will not survive to adulthood. So no, not just a few hundred. Literal millions of blue tits die yearly - and they need to. Because we cannot afford to support that many blue tits.

There's not quite as many great tits - about two million. But that's still an awful lot of great tit babies.

And yes they make up a massive proportion of cat killings - because they're bird table favourites. They hang around humans and so do cats. And you'll be unsurprised to hear we are part of the blue tit problem.

Blue tits and great tits are far more likely to get food from us than other birds. That gives them a competitive advantage. They are instrumental in the decline of the willow tit. There's the possiblity they're going to cause similar issues for Marsh tits (I have a few Marsh tits in my garden and they're lovely). They cause issues for flycatchers too.

Should we stop feeding? That's still under debate. Unquestionably feeding helps more birds make it through winter. Personally I try to vary the type of food and spread it out so other birds also get a chance but it's definitely something I think about - and bird flu might finally grt me tp stop, I don't know yet.

I look after my cats and their needs. And their needs are not met stuck inside.

This strange 'weakest birds' idea promotes the notion that cats are doing birds a favour by speeding up their evolution, and you are significantly overegging it.

As I said before, it’s not my idea; this is what the experts in the article said.

Try studying African wildlife and preferably go watch it in action. Read for instance “The Serengeti Lion” by G Schiller, or any studies on the big predators like leopards, cheetahs, hyenas…The predators always go for the smaller, weaker animals - the ones with cancer, the elderly, etc don’t suffer lingering deaths like we do. (As per a safari guide, while we were all looking at a dead kudu, clearly killed by lions - these people spend all day every day in the African bush watching the wildlife)

Study the effects of people putting enough food out for 196 million garden birds (the ones predated by cats) and how those birds, which use feeders are displacing the rarer birds, which don’t!

As a pp has said, blue tits are the
garden birds second most predated by cats and their numbers have increased by 25% since 1966. Blue tits are displacing willow tits, who do not breed as prolifically. It’s the willow tits, who are under threat, not the blue tits. See the BTO articles on bird feeders.

It is likely it is the quarter of a million stray and feral cats, that prey most on birds; and keeping pet cats indoors will do nothing to address that.

As we clearly have a lot of bird lovers here can I take a moment to remind everyons today to put a bit of food out? Nuts, cheese, seeds, oats, sweetcorn, peas - whatever you have in - and a bowl of water. Cold will kill a lot more today than cats will!

This.

I am out in the snow every morning putting seed mixes, sunflower hearts, mealworms, peanuts, apples, suet balls and pellets out for the birds. We regularly have 100 + birds feeding at any one time in our garden, while red kites, buzzards, kestrels, sparrow hawks and occasionally peregrines circle round, and the two silly cats are sleeping on our beds upstairs!

We don’t have cats but dh has a thing about feeding the birds. Loads of tweeting and birds in our garden

It's not null and void because the tone of the first post was missed. I don't want birds to be caged, so the tone was why not cage birds too where they can't get out like people want to do with cats Both are naturally happy outside to roam. It's just that we have decided to keep one as pets. It's not ok to lock one up and cruel to both.