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Old 07-31-2022, 11:08 AM
 
Location: Lahaina, Hi.
6,384 posts, read 4,823,637 times
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I can tell you from personal experience that the North end of Maui from D.T. Fleming Beach to Honokohau Bay is crawling with 100s of feral cats every evening. All of the schools I visit as well.

An old cat lady in a new Toyota Prius distributes cat food along a 10-15 mile stretch of road each night (and she drives about 5 mph. )
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Old 08-21-2022, 07:38 PM
 
Location: Inland California Desert
840 posts, read 772,320 times
Reputation: 1340
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tulemutt View Post
My observation of Oahu’s feral cats has been they are not a healthy bunch ... not sure how I could quantify or qualify whether they are ‘happy’ or not. But I don’t see much robustness to their lives ... they mostly seem quite sickly and miserable to me.
Cats that are intact often breed 2x to 4x a year . . . multiple kittens each time. You'd look awfully haggard too having to carry that many babies plus hunt for your & their inners while carrying them all within . . . multiple times per year!

My family TNRed a growing colony of cats in my neighborhood, and they became much less agressive & hungry once they weren't having to do everythng that comes along with breeding! Even the males get worn out finding all the females in heat & servicing them . . . plus fighting with other interested males!

The stresses involved do a number on both their health & their attitudes! Get them 'fixed' and their numbers become stable, the need to compete shrinks with being fed regularly to keep pests in check, and those of us who enjoy seeing them get a kick out of having them around, & helping them. . . .


Our neighborhood area had a bad gopher infestation for years. The dogs we'd had did nothing but dig holes & make a lot of noise trying to get them. . . .

After the dogs were gone from our yard, Mama Kitty from down the block decided to bring her then-current litter to our yard, & I began feeding them, eventually TNRing them all (Mama & Papa, & older kittens from a prior litter). The kittens had been born & grown so far living in a wood pile, so they were feral (as was an older brother who has now become my most affectionate lap cat) . . . The gopher mounds disappeared soon after . . . I could finally plant something & get to watch it grow up, shade &/or feed me!

Mama Kitty went back to her old stomping grounds (only visiting when someone forgot to feed her at home), while Papa & the others chose to stay with us. They all together protect much of the block's garden plants from gophers, rabbits, mice, & rats now. . . .


We quit putting out bird food in our yard, so there aren't very many birds now for the cats to catch in here.However, I know of 3 varieties here that are considered obnoxious, which are from European countries, and they themselves are known to kill some of our native birds! Even entire families, in taking over their nesting boxes!


I dare you to listen -without bias- to this video, about:

TNR:
Its Benefits for Cats, People, and the Community
- American Veterinarian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y23VS_kzP8
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Old 09-13-2023, 08:05 PM
 
966 posts, read 514,798 times
Reputation: 2529
Cats may kill birds (some may, most aren't that interested), but the numbers are overcooked badly. In truth, 1 out of every 10 attempts works, the other 9 times fail. So they're not very good hunters. The same ratio applies to the bigger cats, most attempts fail badly. A lot of places trap the feral cats and have them neutered, then re release them to the woods and feed them once a day. That sounds like the best way to handle it. I love cats, it makes me sad to see how people can be so cruel and uncaring to just abandon them.
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Old 09-14-2023, 04:04 PM
 
Location: Kahala
12,120 posts, read 17,894,590 times
Reputation: 6176
Quote:
Originally Posted by stephenMM View Post
Cats may kill birds (some may, most aren't that interested), but the numbers are overcooked badly. In truth, 1 out of every 10 attempts works, the other 9 times fail. So they're not very good hunters. The same ratio applies to the bigger cats, most attempts fail badly. A lot of places trap the feral cats and have them neutered, then re release them to the woods and feed them once a day. That sounds like the best way to handle it. I love cats, it makes me sad to see how people can be so cruel and uncaring to just abandon them.
Cats kill well over 1 BILLION birds per year just in the United States.
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Old 09-19-2023, 10:47 AM
 
Location: Southernmost tip of the southernmost island in the southernmost state
982 posts, read 1,161,875 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by whtviper1 View Post
Cats kill well over 1 BILLION birds per year just in the United States.
I (sadly) hit a few birds in my car every year. Given that there are 300 million cars in the US I woukd estimate that vehicle strikes alone kill at least that many. Then factor in those that fly into windows, poisoned (on purpose or inadvertently) and numerous other man-made causes and it's easy to see that cats aren't the problem.
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Old 09-19-2023, 02:42 PM
 
Location: Kahala
12,120 posts, read 17,894,590 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Grassyknoll View Post
I (sadly) hit a few birds in my car every year. Given that there are 300 million cars in the US I woukd estimate that vehicle strikes alone kill at least that many. Then factor in those that fly into windows, poisoned (on purpose or inadvertently) and numerous other man-made causes and it's easy to see that cats aren't the problem.
Cars are estimated to kill between 89 to 350 million birds per year in the United States.

Cats kill over 1 BILLION birds in the United States. I own cats and they do not go outside.

This article states:

Today, it’s estimated that there are 100 million feral and outdoor cats in the U.S. alone. They can make
wonderful pets, but cats roaming outdoors kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year in the U.S., making cat predation by far the largest human-caused source of bird mortality.

https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uplo...s-to-Birds.pdf
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Old 09-19-2023, 02:46 PM
 
5,948 posts, read 2,870,440 times
Reputation: 7778
Quote:
Originally Posted by whtviper1 View Post
Cars are estimated to kill between 89 to 350 million birds per year in the United States.

Cats kill over 1 BILLION birds in the United States. I own cats and they do not go outside.

This article states:

Today, it’s estimated that there are 100 million feral and outdoor cats in the U.S. alone. They can make
wonderful pets, but cats roaming outdoors kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year in the U.S., making cat predation by far the largest human-caused source of bird mortality.

https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uplo...s-to-Birds.pdf
They arnt killing enough, craping on my car every day...we need more cats.
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Old 09-20-2023, 01:36 PM
 
Location: Southernmost tip of the southernmost island in the southernmost state
982 posts, read 1,161,875 times
Reputation: 1652
Quote:
Originally Posted by ben young View Post
they arnt killing enough, craping on my car every day...we need more cats.
lol!
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Old 09-20-2023, 01:42 PM
 
Location: Southernmost tip of the southernmost island in the southernmost state
982 posts, read 1,161,875 times
Reputation: 1652
Quote:
Originally Posted by whtviper1 View Post
Cats kill well over 1 BILLION birds per year just in the United States.
Yet habitat loss is identified as the largest factor in bird decline.
https://abcbirds.org/3-billion-birds...%20of%20losses.

Not saying cats don't get a lot of birds, but it's kind of a catch 22. Get rid of cats and our rat population explodes. While rats won't predate on grown birds, they will eat a lot of chicks and more critically eggs (which cats don't).
So, pick your poison.
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Old 09-20-2023, 02:42 PM
 
Location: Kahala
12,120 posts, read 17,894,590 times
Reputation: 6176
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grassyknoll View Post
Yet habitat loss is identified as the largest factor in bird decline.
https://abcbirds.org/3-billion-birds...%20of%20losses.

Not saying cats don't get a lot of birds, but it's kind of a catch 22. Get rid of cats and our rat population explodes. While rats won't predate on grown birds, they will eat a lot of chicks and more critically eggs (which cats don't).
So, pick your poison.
Cats are terrible at killing rats - mice is another story.

Cats are contradictory creatures. A 2017 study found that domestic felines—deemed one of “the most ubiquitous and environmentally damaging invasive predators on Earth”—have contributed to the extinction of at least 63 global vertebrate species, but new research published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution suggests feral cats are embarrassingly ineffective when it comes to catching the prey most commonly associated with their urban jaunts: rats.

Researchers led by Fordham University’s Michael Parsons spent five months observing a rat colony housed at a Brooklyn waste management facility, Matthew Taub reports for Atlas Obscura. Although the team initially set out to study pheromones, or airborne chemicals that can influence animal behavior, they soon shifted focus to rat-cat interactions. The results were surprising, to say the least: Over the course of the 79-day testing period, local cats ambushed just three of the facility’s roughly 150 rat—killing only two.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...eck-180970428/
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