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?

I would be quite happy, as a cat owner, to pay a set amount of money for a service where people report this problem and people are sent out to clean up to no cost to those reporting it in their gardens etc.

One of the least sensible ideas I've ever read here!

Good luck with that one lol!!!

Do people not understand nature?

Are you for real or just too much time on your hands?
Are you vegetarian? Could you also ask foxes to stop eating my hens??

Alright, I won't bother in future.

My cat told me to sod off.

Our cats are buggers for killing baby birds, although admittedly they don't do it often. They don't kill mice they just bring them indoors and set them free!
They won't keep a collar on. One even managed to escape and lose a lampshade collar from the vets

Cats are not the only bird killers you know
rats, magpies and woodpeckers to name a few others
a cat does what a cat does

I should add that I did it for my cat and not for any love of wildlife or the neighbours. We had a spate of kids with catapults and there was no way I was letting the little shits anywhere near him. He'd also lost most of his teeth so while he wasn't a fighter he'd lost one line of defence. If he had caught anything he'd have had to gum it to death!

Magpies emptied out a nest box we had of blue tits by removing the long pin that 'locked' the nest box door.

They are clever birds.

We don't have cats, but I had them growing up. All but one were fairly peaceful sorts. That one was an assassin, saw her take a leap from the ground to the top of a fence then up to catch a bird mid air once. Mum used to have words but I don't think she understood... Saw her have a go at a seagull once which was a bit too ambitious. I also had to cut her collar twice to free her after she got her whole leg through up to the armpit and was half choking herself, so that was the end of collars. It's in their DNA op.

Only when it suits

No you can't don't be so bloody stupid. Also if my cat wears a collar he will either get it off or get tangled up in something

So keep cats in and let's see what happened.

I think Australia has an inkling after what happened on MacQuarrie Island.

Can you speak to the birds and tell them to stay out of my garden please?

I suspect habitat destruction caused by humans through urbanisation, industrialisation, industrial farming practices and pollution has caused a much greater decline in bird numbers than predation from domestic animals has.

I haven't got a cat atm but if I did I wouldn't HAVE to do what you say with it.

I do put bell collars on him. He comes back in without any on. We can’t use buckle collars, they’re dangerous for cats.

I think that's bullshit. Our own cats are indoors, but our garden is frequently visited by neighbours' cats. We feed a wide variety of birds, thrushes, blackbirds, robins, wrens, blue tits, great tits, bullfinches, gold finches, doves, pigeons etc. Now and again next door's bird killer helps himself to one. I think the principle of the 'greater good' applies.

Not every cat is interested in chasing birds either. The last three we had who had outdoor access couldn't be bothered. In fact, the birds used to totally ignore our last old man, and they seemed to know he was no threat to them. They'd fly away if another cat came into the garden, but they didn't bother if it was just him.

Yes but its not great advice for cat owners.

Your parents need to control their dogs then. I get loads of hedgehogs in my garden and the dog is trained to leave them the hell alone.

Of course you wouldn't.. I'm not saying you do

Our neighbour’s cat strangled herself in a tree when the quick release collar she was wearing failed to release.

My cats are too young to go out yet, but when they do, I’m happy to keep them in at dawn and dusk, feed them a high quality grain feee diet (which keeps them full for longer) and play hunting games with them to reduce their urge to hunt, all of which are recommended as make a big difference to the level of killing. But I could never forgive myself if I put a belled collar on and it caused their deaths.

It's when cats are most at risk too. Even when I had cats who went out, they were always kept in overnight.

Won't work. Gardens devoid of life is the modern way. We've lived in the same street for 30 years, when we moved here everyone had beautiful gardens filled with trees and shrubs. We had woodpeckers, treecreepers, nuthatches, redwings, all the finches and tits.... just an amazing variety of birds. Now there's nothing like. I haven't seen a woodpecker or nuthatch here in years.
In the last 10-15 years flippers have been buying up every house that comes onto the market in our village, paving the front gardens for parking, ripping out back gardens for decking, plastic sofas and hot tubs.
The mature garden next door to ours was gutted, they took every single plant, oak trees, massive holly tree, fruit bushes, apple trees and a beautiful maple. Ripped it all out and flattened it with a mini excavator.
A few doors up has also just had a beautiful mature garden ripped out by flippers and is back up for sale. Their neighbour watched them cut down a gorgeous magnolia tree. They too brought in a mini excavator.
There's now only 4 out of 14 houses on our close that still have a garden of any sort. The rest are utterly sterile. It's the same all over our village. We've watched it become urbanised over the last 10 or so years. It's happening everywhere.
A lot of the people doing this vandalism are families with kids and they don't seem to give a damn that their kids will never see a woodpecker.
Humans are far more guilty of decimating the wild bird population than cats will ever be.