To think that if you've got a cat which hunts prolifically you should either

[ArseHolio]

Keep it in or put a fucking bell on it's collar.

I've just seen a neighbours new cat leap from the ground and grab a goldfinch from one of my feeders. Yesterday I found 2 piles of feathers and the day before a dead sparrow on my doorstep. In 4 years of feeding I've never had a cat problem untill this new one arrived.

I'm going to have to stop feeding them, I feel like I'm luring them to their deaths. Sad as it sounds I'm gutted, feeding the birds is something I get immense pleasure from.

I'm really quite pissed off

We put one bell on our cat she was unaffected we still had animals in every day, so we put 3 bells on the collar and then even if she got one of the bells off the others banged together.

They were also much harder to move without them ringing cut her hunting from 1 everyday to 1 a fortnight.

A lot of people don't like to put cat collars on (their cats!) because they think that the cat will get snagged on a branch and either choke or get stuck. But you can get cat collars which snap free as well as save the local wildife.

If I put a collar on my cat she hooks it off, never lasts longer than a day and I've given up replacing them. I'm not keeping her inside, sorry. If anyone has any ideas how to stop her hunting.

I have cats and feed the birds too! My moggy will do his darned best to catch them but we have the feeders high up so he hasn't got a chance. Collars can be difficult with some cats, they drag them off and sometimes it can be dangerous for them as they get caught and can end up trapping the cat. Also, I once read that as cats have super sensitive hearing the constant bell sounds can be harmful to them.

We were told that this is the time they need the food--their fat reserves are low after winter and natural supplies still aren't that prolific. We feed for a little bit longer.

If cats come into our garden I release our dog. She makes a lot of noise and hopefully scares them away from our birdtables.

I think that's it's just nature and nature's way.

Bird feeder or no bird feeder; bell or no bell...cats kill birds. Birds kill seeds. Fin.

aviatrix - do you not agree that the chief threat to wildlife is human beings? It's not cats that are destroying habitats. Cats have never pushed any species to extinction, while humans have been responsible for hundreds if not thousands. (Although QI did claim there was one cat living in a lighthouse on a remote island that killed off all the local birds it hardly begins to compare with the plight of the dodo and the number of species that are now at risk of extinction.)

How come this thread's been pulled back up?

I have two cats one has never caught anything and just doesnt seem interested....i have seen birds practically land on top of her and she has just given them a look like this .
we have another cat who has a giant loud dangly bell and he has managed to bring home a few mice and when he was younger a couple of birds although not so many birds now hes older. We did keep him in for a while but he is very much an outdoor cat.

Oh, didn't realise it was old, saw it in active conversations.

ask your neighbour to get a sonic collar, they really work. The best type have a rapid leap sensor that makes a noise only heard by birds just at the pounce, mice etc and also flashes a light to warn them. I had a problem with my cat killing pigeons that my neighbour was feeding and was worried about upsetting her. You are totally within your rights to object to this. You can also try catching the cat with a hose, squirting it with a water spray or borrowing a dog for a few days. They soon learn when an area is not safe. I have advised the people opposite to do this to my cat to stop him going in through their cat flap.

I've had cats for years (although sadly cat-less at the moment ) anyhow, it is a problem that does exist and we can only all do our best to minimise the effects as much as possible.

Collars - cats that don't want to wear a collar will get rid of it quick smart.

Bells - again cats have a way of even getting these off of collars and as has been rightly said on here, they get very good at stalking and not allowing the bell to jingle.

Sonic scarers - supposedly work quite well, I'd give these a go.

Water pistols etc - great idea even indoors and out. Cats hate water and I used a water bottle squirter in my house, to keep them off the kitchen worktops etc. It soon got to the stage where I only had to pick up the bottle and they ran. It was even better when just the sight of the bottle sitting on the kitchen work top saw them slink away.

Keep your cat in at night - this is the best one I have found. Cats love to hunt at night and it is the time when most damage is done to the eco system with regard to wildlife. Keep a litter tray for your cats to use inside (they're your cats, why should anyone else have to put up with their crap in their garden). They will use the litter tray as opposed to ever doing their toilet outside again, which also helps neighbour relations. Curtailing their night time freedom also, eventually, significantly cuts down their hunting habits of a daytime. It takes a while to get the cat into the routine, that night time is for sleeping, not hunting but they adjust quickly and it's a lot fairer on the wildlife than just letting your cat run amok.

I absolutely adore and love cats, have had many many over the years, have lost many to the road too . However, you can't just say 'oh well it's nature'. Being the owner of any pet comes with a duty to be an informed and responsible pet owner.

LibraPoppyGirl, well put. I have a zillion rescues in my house at the moment, I wish I could post you one!

edam - just need to correct you slightly! There is a very well documented instance of a cat causing the extinction of a species - one single cat. The lighthouse keeper's cat, in fact! There is a small island just off the coast of New Zealand which was the last piece of home for a group of wrens, a species distinct from all other wrens now known as the Stephen Islands wren. There was also a lighthouse on the island and the cats belonging to the personel from the lighthouse went feral, and are believed to have hunted the wren to extinction.

Cats are an issue for wildlife not just here but in many countries across the world - they certainly give the wildlife in Mauritius a hammering (I've been invilved in conservation work there - they have a massive impact on the bird population). They aren't natural predators, and that's why there's an issue. Natural predators have their numbers controlled by things like disease, and lack of prey, and cold weather etc. Cats don't - they are artificially introduced into a habitat by people, fed by people, kept healthy by people, have their numbers kept artificially high by people, and as a group they therefore have the opportunity to kill millions of songbirds a year. No-one is claiming that it is the only cause of songbird decline - modern farming has a good deal to do with it, for example, but we do need to accept that cats are NOT a natural element of the British landscape, recognise that they could well be playing their part in the decline of some species, and to look for ways to minimise that. Invasive species are one of the biggest reasons that animals are under threat, across the world, and I'm afraid cats fall into that category. It's not an anti-cat rant, just a plea for people to take it seriously and really think about how you minimise the effect.

jasminetom thanks

I will be looking to be a cat owner again in the future (hopefully near future) so I'll bear that in mind.

I've always only ever had rescue cats btw. I'd much rather give a loving home to a rescue cat

baby - yup, I mentioned the lighthouse in my post (and QI, where I heard about it). It's still one cat and one species v. billions of humans and thousands of species, though. Think on any scale humans are far worse killers than cats.

Btw, lots of things aren't natural elements of the environment. Rabbits, for instance, in the UK. If you want to get rid of cats, you have to re-introduce wolves, to maintain the balance. And wild boars. I know which animals I'd rather face on a walk in the woods!

JULY 2010 THREAD

LessNarkyPuffin okay this thread was started last year, yes. However, that doesn't mean that:

1. It isn't an issue that is still relevant.

1. It isn't something that we can discuss.

1. That it isn't something that is of genuine concern to some.

It is a problem that people are always going to encounter and for those of us who didn't see it the first time around or were not members of MN then it is still of interest.

edam - yes, sorry. I did read that you'd mentioned the cat thing from QI but somehow lost it somewhere in my brain while answering. Will regain brain soon.... - here's hoping, anyway.
I agree it's only one species that cats are known to have wiped out. But if you look at, for example, the wildlife in Mauritius, they are a big part in the decline of another half a dozen or so bird species, all unique to the island. And some of the reptiles, again unqiue to the island. Each one may be only one species but start adding it up and you end up with the sheer number of endangered animal species we have today. As someone who has worked in species conservation for nearly 15 years, I cannot tell you the number of times that cats appear on lists of introduced and significant predators for endangered species.
In Britain, for sure, they are not the biggest threat to songbirds or other wildlife, but they are a fairly significant part of the picture and we'd be idiots to ignore it if we want to be effective in proetecting our wildlife. Again, I'm not suggesting destroying cats or even keeping every cat as a house cat, but just advocating that we recognise there's an issue and look at ways of minimising it.

And yes, I also agree that the wildlife in the UK is far from completely natural. But, to take your case in point, rabbits, while not native here, have become fairly well part of the ecosystem, and they are subject to all the controls (eg disease) which does put some limit on numbers. Cats just don't have these checks, so the damage they can do, propped up by people, is huge. (And let's face it, if you were in Australia you'd be none too keen on rabbits). Reintroducing wolves - tbh, I'd love to , as plenty of folks manage to live alongside them. But wolves and cats don't begin to compare in terms of the prey they eat - cats take far smaller items ie songbirds. Wolves probably would if they had to, but would rather go for bigger things of which we no longer have any left.

Humans are far worse killers, tis true, but it's not just about the direct effects but also the indirect effects - to pretend that cats aren't simply one angle on that is like saying 'we don't kill animals, we just cut down the trees' and pretending that any effect on the animal population is not human induced. Cats are here and in vast numbers because of the humans that own them. It's just one way we affect our wildlife and we need to recognise that.

My Dad had to buy a pump action water pistol to squirt the cat that was terrorising his cats. Throwing small potatoes at the cat wasn't as effective! They have the problem of this bad cat eating their goldfish.

Mine is a pysco killing machine, we have had slugs,snails,mice - live and dead -a rabbit,shrews,moles,various birds and a sausage roll - still warm and in its bag.

"I bet cat owners would find a way to keep their pets indoors if there was a nasty species of cat-hunter on the loose.

I wonder if cat owners would just pick up the torn apart carcasses of their pet, shrug and say "well, its just nature I suppose""

Citrus - When I was 8 my pet rabbit escaped and my cat killed it and pulled it's head off (it was one of the babies). I was the one who found it, I was 8 and even then could see 'oh it's just nature'. Luckily the cat is now ancient and hasn't been able to hunt in years, amazed she even caught the rabbit tbh as she's always been a rubbish hunter, and she was terrified of the adult rabbits, she saw them in their pen in the garden and ran away hissing.

Nowt you can do to change an animal's nature.

I have tried teaching my cat to differentiate between bird species, but he wasn't having it.

Now I plant a bird to repopulate them. For every bird Pete (my cat) kills, I plant a new one.