Keeping your cats indoors won't solve anything. Housecats aren't destroying the bird population, feral cats are. If you want to help, volunteer with your local vet or animal control to capture, spay/neuter, then re-release stray cats.

[–] Paraponera_clavata@lemmy.world 36 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Not true. Pet cats are about a third of the problem, according to a 2013 nature paper. Feral populations vary a lot by location - some places have almost no ferals but lots of pet cats.

Sauce: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380

[–] Lizardking27@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

"About a third of the problem" So, not the primary cause (or solution.)

https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2380

"We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality."

The article also states the following regarding more popular studies in the media involving pet cats: "The magnitude of mortality they cause in mainland areas remains speculative, with large-scale estimates based on non-systematic analyses and little consideration of scientific data"

[–] Paraponera_clavata@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Read the whole paper though. It has percentages. Just sayin

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (6 replies)