If you have a cat you have to stop it scaring and eating birds

[lasagnelle]

Get a bell collar or something. Give the wildlife a chance. Can you train cats to leave birds alone?

A couple of weeks ago, a little goldfinch flew into our patio doors, and a neighbour's cat was sadly right there to pounce.

Cats are horrendous for wildlife

which proves zero, the fact is, the glass was already there, had humans not put the glass door there the bird would still be alive, cat just was an added complication, you need to start with the human species

Mine are too!!! They’re Ragdolls so have to be indoor cats as they are not savvy enough enough to steer clear of danger and would be ran over, got by a nasty dog or stolen!
However my mam has 2 moggies and they are also house cats.
All perfectly content and happy and healthy!

18 pages in....

So are humans

I was literally just sharing an anecdote of what you had described. I don't know if the finch would have survived if the cat hadn't happened to be there. My DH saw it and couldn't do anything in time. The wee thing was either stunned or had broken its neck.

According to this lady (2.50 minutes), you must not "scold" a cat for killing birds. Instead, her cats had their own bank account and sent "conscience money" to the RSPB

My dog presents me with dead rats. Never a mouse or bird, just rats.
I've asked him on numerous occasions, throughout his almost 11 years, to leave them by the outdoor bin and not in the middle of my kitchen floor.
He takes absolutely no notice, and to be perfectly honest, I'd rather see a dead one in the middle of the kitchen floor than a live one anywhere near our home.
So I'll be letting him continue his murdering ways.

mine is too. he loves looking out of the windows, and he loves his car trips (he comes with us when we visit my parents most weekends and stay over, and LOVES looking out the window on the way) he travels in his harness, and when we get home he DRAGS me to the front door and paws at it to get back in. if he's outside, he's only really comfortable with it if he's ON someones lap. he shivers if it's even slightly chilly. he even has a jumper for car trips in winter, because he's so pathetic about it.

he's a perfectly happy indoor cat. he's rarely even in a different room to us. he comes to bed with us. sleeps through the night ON the bed with us. he's precious. And he's no risk to my garden wildlife, as much as he loves to watch them

when we first got our cat, we still had our last rat. they were good friends. the kitten would sleep up against the bars, right next to where he was sleeping.
so when he first saw a squirrel, as far as he was concerned the squirrel was "friend shaped"
we heard this little prrrp? one morning and peeked behind the curtain to find there was a squirrel on the windowsill, and he kept rubbing his head against the glass and making friendly noises at the squirrel

Mine caught far more mice than anything else. One mouse can have 120 babies a year.

Good job we have cats.

I had one cat who made friends with a squirrel, and one who was intimidated by squirrels.

Whilst my cat has got birds before. This issue is massively over stated imo.

I have a Bengal x Siamese. He’s a hunter! We have a mouse gizzards atleast once a day left on the doorstep.

But I can only count the number of birds on my fingers in the 12 years we have owned him. Even ground nesting birds we have here have been fine. The mothers are absolutely vicious. Even I’m terrified to go outside during nesting season!

Ido believe they only get the sick, weak or abandoned nests. Which yes is sad. But having had to watch the slow deaths of baby pigeons who all died after their mother died that was horrific and the cat could have done them a favour.

its the circle of life

Perfectly reasonable @lasagnelle but as usual all the thoughtless cat apologists are out in force.

They remove them. Like it's been said a million times on this thread. They also have very little impact on their hunting

Cats and wildlife were fine when cats were kept for the proper reason; on farms to help control the rodents.

Now every suburban back garden has one and there are too many for the wildlife IMO.

It's not the cats' fault. As per usual the fault lies with humans!

'What did he say?'

I said, 'Tiddles, please stop hunting the birds'.

He said, 'Me? 'Ow?'

Putting a collar on a cat is dangerous for them. The collar could get stuck on something and get them hurt/stuck.

Also, they have sensitive hearing and it must be torture for them to have to listen to the constant sounds a bloody bell...

Would you like to go around wearing a collar and a bell all day? I guess not (unless you are into S&M), so why inflict that on an animal.

Outdoor cat will come in contact with birds. That's just nature and it is their normal instinct to hunt.

I also have foxes in my garden and they very likely do more damage to the wildlife than my cat does and also large, grumpy seagulls who happily attack other birds and eat their eggs, do you suggest I put a collar and bell on them as well?

No you can’t train them unfortunately. Bell collars aren’t very effective in my experience. We’ve stopped bird killing by enclosing our garden with cat fencing - birds still visit but the cats have a much smaller range of freedom and can’t catch them - I think they need much more space and a good area to actively hunt in to catch birds.
The odd mouse is still victim but in the 5 years of having cat safe fencing not one bird has been caught.
the only way to stop a cat is to keep it indoors, or have a catio or fencing to restrict access to wildlife.

You can’t train a cat not to hunt.

I agree OP and I have to chase at least 4 of the neighbourhood cats out my garden on a regular basis as we feed the birds every day.

There is one repeat offender we call "the ginger bastard" and my neighbours make absolutely no attempt to keep their cats within their boundaries (3 out of 4 belong to one neighbour)

If the cat is kept indoors and doesn’t go outside, it won’t come into contact with birds. If you have both a cat and a bird at home, I think it’s better to keep them in separate rooms.

Do you have any evidence for this @Herewegoago or is that just what you tell yourself to feel better?

@lasagnelle people who let their cats out don’t give a fuck about wildlife, if they did hey wouldnt do it, so they tell themselves lies. So YANBU, but they won’t admit it.,

I’ve shared links on this thread at least twice.

Wineat5isfine · 10/11/2024 20:54

Cats can be trained quite easily.

😂😂😂

Tell me you've never owned a cat without saying you've never owned a cat.

*owned, as in 'been a slave to'