When the crepuscular time is upon us, kitty will go out seeking prey. Apparently, they should be prevented from doing so.
Keep cats indoors at night and the lives of 100 million animals a year will be saved, says Chris Packham, the presenter of Autumnwatch on television.
Chris Packham can take his admonition and stick it up his crepuscular, quite frankly. And, of course we get the usual arse dribble from the cat haters in the comments.
That would all make perfect sense if this particular predator didn’t have its survival enhanced by kibble, gas heating, and veterinary care.
What is not mentioned in the above, is that this is counterbalanced by the neutering programme, thereby limiting their numbers. Cats have lived and scavenged alongside man for millennia to the benefit of both species. A good ratter or mouser will keep vermin down – and Felix gets a warm place to sleep and free meals into the bargain. Yes, they do take the occasional bird, but it is likely that these would have succumbed anyway. Life is like that; some animals kill others and predators tend to weed out the sick and feeble allowing the stronger to survive.
And we also get the usual ignorance about where cats go:
Unfortunately it seems my local cats do want to associate with me hence my running battle attempting to stop them using my front lawn as a toilet and my back garden as a hunting ground for the birds that we try so hard to encourage
Cats do not recognise human boundaries and are technically wild animals. Owners (and I use the term loosely) do not and cannot control where they go. We tend to encourage ours to use our garden for their toileting by having a sand pit for the purpose. It is also used by other cats wandering though. Meanwhile, of our ten, only three hunt with any degree of regularity and it is usually mice with the occasional rat. Maybe once or twice a year do we get a bird.
So, a non problem being stoked up by intolerant bigots, frankly.
In the 17 years our 2 cats were with us, the male only caught a bird once. A pigeon.
The female was a total house cat and couldn’t be arsed with all that male ego boosting hunting nonsense. Although she would sit at the window chattering at the squirrels.
I have two females, one is a very good hunter with a phenomenal ability to jump even by cat standards, her sister is one of the clumsiest cats I’ve ever known, she fell off a fence and on to my head back in the summer. The agile one does catch birds unfortunately but not a huge number, however I no longer feed the birds on the ground which is something I miss but in the great scheme of things I doubt if it makes any difference to overall bird numbers, certainly not compared to habitat loss. The most annoying thing about the hunting one’s habits is that she will insist on bringing in worms when it rains, although I don’t think anyone will be getting outraged by that or the considerable amount of insects cats catch.
We’ve always kept our cats in at night, and in fact, our two Siamese are indoor-only. Because it’s safer for them.
Cats are hardly killing birds in such great numbers, anyway, not compared to magpies and wind-generators, and, as Thornavis points out, habitat loss.
Louis likes to hunt house flies. He eats ’em too. Like we don’t feed him enough… 😎
One of my sisters lives in a very rural area and they have three cats, one, a female, is a voracious hunter the other two, males, only average, the female takes herself off every summer and isn’t seen again until the autumn, where she goes is unknown but when she’s around no rabbit or squirrel is safe, birds are way beneath her. The other two also catch rabbits, hardly an endangered species, it seems that if they have the choice birds don’t figure very highly on a cat’s menu.
I can’t keep mine in at night as they’d have the door off it’s hinges and I lock the cat flap to exclude other cats, they don’t come to any harm, both are very gentle and un-aggressive I’ve never seen any conflict with another cat so I’m not worried. I used to be a bit concerned about foxes but as the older non-athletic one often comes in reeking of fox I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she charms them as much as she does everyone else.
Our most voracious hunter is Berenike. She will hunt for small rodents and bring them back for the toms. We don’t have a mouse or rat problem around here…
This has nothing to do with cats.
Packham advocates reducing the human population. In older times he would be held in an asylum for such views. Today however he takes the taxpayers coin and then proceeds to tell his ‘funders’ what to do with their lives.
Something’s gone wrong somewhere.
So why doesn’t he lead by example?
My sister’s cat does something similar to Berenike, when she’s around, she isn’t terribly friendly even to the humans she patronises with her occasional presence but the youngest tom gets little presents from her although most of the time she can’t stand him and growls if he comes near, she was a barely adequate mother too with the one litter she had but there still seems to be some maternal instinct there. Interestingly the hens, which are free range, are left alone by all three cats.
We’ve had cats that have specialised, as individuals, in insects (wasps, bees, moths are all apparently tasty); frogs (fun to play with but no good to eat); mice (always eaten from the head down leaving only the tail and rear legs); leaves and other people’s plants dug up from their gardens (?!?); stolen food from other people’s kitchens, leftover chicken a speciality. We have had birds brought in, always alive, and most survived the shock. Especially the adult magpie they acquired one night and were found warily studying on its perch atop the cooker in the morning.
I saw a fascinating duel the other day between a fox and a blackbird. The fox couldn’t do much (or say much, unlike the blackbird who was giving it large!)
Nature regulates itself.
I wonder if the cat that comes home ‘reeking of fox’, has been ‘charming’ or just rolling? Perhaps scavenging a left-over kill – I have found half a pigeon in my garden, next to a stinking pile which I assumed was a “Mine – Keep off” marker?
Suggest looking up “Herne the Hunted” (‘The god of small furry animals that are destined to end their lives as a small damp squeak.’- Pratchett)
BTW – IF we did somehow manage to ‘save’ 100,000,000 animals a year – there would be around 50,000,000 more assorted adult (breeding) females next year. I hope they can all be educated in birth control BEFORE we run out of places to stand, and food to eat.
I was wondering about the comment about cats and human (property) boundaries.
My experience with our two cats is that while they do, of course, roam, they also guard their own back garden and chase off other cats who dare enter while they are present or in sight of it. We see no evidence of cats using the garden as a toilet either (so our own must go elsewhere too).
Past cats have acted similarly, so I think they do have some concept of their (our) property boundary and thus a territory they should protect and control. BTW I’m referring here to an urban garden with several other cats in the immediate neighbourhood in a similar situation ie. with their own gardens.
The complaints of cats using their gardens as a loo always come from the non-cat ‘owners’, which is logical since they presumably don’t like cats but also because I suspect all the cats use their neutral territory instead or their own, or that of other cats.
Ours have two conveniences, one in the back garden and one in the front. Both are under bushes and trees where there is loose soil or sand. Other local cats use it at the discretion of the residents. Ours take a liking to some neighbourhood cats and not others. A bit like people in that regard.
I am always suspicious when people complain about cats using the lawn as they tend to like loose soil rather than grass. If your lawn has been dug and there are faeces present, it’s much more likely you have badgers than cats in the garden as this is standard badger marking activity
Of our two,
Hex(adecimal) is now 10, and has virtually no teeth.
That didn’t stop her from bringing a squirrel down late last year – except she couldn’t kill it, of course.
We had to get her away amd let squirrel go.
Ratatosk, the UNSPEAKABLY CUTE lilac-point Birman tom, OTOH is very good on rodents – a fortnight ago he found a mouse-farm, so that was 5 less, that we know of. We still haven’t worked out where he found the Gerbil (!)
No rats, yet – we assume there arn’t any, since he brought a very dead squirrel in, earlier this year.
Last week he caught his first bird – a London pigeon.
Now THERE is vermin, they are vile flying disease-bags.
I can forward a pic of “sir” inspecting his pigeon, and obviously complaining that “it doesn’t go any more!” – if you like?
@Greg – reminded me of a mates’s young Alsatian who spent much time at the yard where we both worked, chasing bunnies in a nearby field. When he finally caught one, brought it to us with a puzzled look, which appeared to say “I think this is lunch, but can’t get the wrapping off”
BTW – Some years ago, our local paper carried a ‘non-story’ – woman walking her kids on open NT land, complained of the ‘health risk’ as fox droppings were not being cleared away.
Another; that a farmer had put some weaned calves in (fully secure) field that had been fallow/mown for hay for some years. Immediate complaints that people were in danger of being attacked – and of treading in cow-pats – whilst letting their doggies run free to have a crap.(It’s quite common hereabouts to drive your pooch several miles for purposes of defecation).
Greg, can you post a link?
Cats are cats are cats. Despite her 15 years, Dolores still drags rats / mice / shrews / birds through the cat-flap on a fairly regular basis, which she then eviscerates on the kitchen floor for my early morning delectation. A gift of love indeed.
I am always amazed by the names people come up with for cats; usually more inventive than Fang or Butch for dogs.
We have a cat and dog. The dog is incredibly friendly but nuts and the cat is regal and aloof, but allows the dog to lick his face. Very kind of him.
Here’s the link to a video of our dog with our cat’s tail… I really think the cat was ‘allowing’ this, or teasing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrCckDmzLNo
Lets get one thing straight, cats are NATIVE to Britain/Europe…..(ahhh THERE is the reason these commy shit T.V presenters hate them.) so if my moggy wants to kill something, I can only sympathise.
Actually FT the animal police generally look favourably on natives, as long as they behave themselves of course, it’s the dreadful ‘aliens’ that so pollute our ecosphere. I don’t know where they think the bees would get nectar from if it wasn’t for all the foreign plants we have in our gardens, urban gardens are now better for bees than the countryside. I also wonder what the party line would be if it was ever conclusively shown that there were big cats like Leopards at large in Britain ( I don’t think there are fwiw ) would they want them protected or not ? Obviously the potential threat to humans from large ambush predators ( what is Julia M’s take on this I wonder ? ) wouldn’t be considered an important factor but would no one think of the baby birds ?
I was with you, agreeing and nodding sagely, right up to where you said you had ten cats.
TEN?
Sorry, but that is well into “strange old lady” territory.
Anything you say after this, with reference to our feline friends, will need to be taken with more than a pinch of salt.
Ten cats, indeed!
So what? Cats tend to collect people like that. One of them just moved in. When we were in France, several of the tribe next door did it. We got up to fifteen for a while.
None of this changes what I have to say – merely that I know a thing or two about cats and their behaviour.
Ten cats is a very good number of cats to have. Knowing about their behaviour is an even better thing.
Too many people don’t understand the behaviour of cats, people like Chris Packham for instance who (like the RSPCA) has a vehement anti-pet agenda. Bill Oddie, another cat hater has openly boasted on television about killing cats.
I am currently training my cats to seek out Chris Packham and use his mouth as their sand box.