FWIW We live at the edge of town. There is a 'cat lady' a few doors away so we've tended to get a fair number of cats in the past. But more recently these have become rarer as our new neighbours have retrievers. Most recent 'bird incident' was - judging by the noise - the dogs finding one of the pheasants from the fields in their back garden. No idea if the neighbours kept and ate it. :-)
We had a cat like that. We called the vacuum cleaner 'the evil carpet snake'.
Funny sequel. We were visiting my sister-in-law and her husband. She is an accountant, and loves board games (you get the picture). We were persuaded to play Pictionary for the first time.
My wife and I were on one team, SIL and husband on the other. We had one of those points where you have to describe an item to your partner and they must guess it before the opposition. SWMBO drew a scared looking cat and a vacuum cleaner. I said "snake", which was correct. I don't think SIL has ever forgiven us.
But the probability of the domesticated cat collecting items which either died by themselves (heart failure, disease etc) or killed by something else is surely much less likely than if it was killed by the domesticated cat, especially as domesticated cats sometimes lose interest in what they kill themselves.
And in the case of feral cats, they are surely going to eat whatever they kill if they have no other source of food?
The city with the biggest feral cat population, over 100 000 homeless street cats, is the City of Toronto.
Spoken like an expert in that topic. :-) I look forwards to you presenting your statistical evidence to show that they *don't* hunt at night and that any text that calls them nocturnal hunters is - to use your technical term
- "bullshit". But then I'm still awaiting the stats for your other opinions stated as 'facts'... :-)
You might also like to investigate the biology and physiology of the eyes of cats. No cats need be harmed. :-)
Yes, I'm sure that is true of *some* of them. Some may even realise that you don't "own" a cat, but the cat may decide to favour you with its presence. :-) Indeed, we used to be so favoured when I was young. So although you may think otherwise, I have no blanket objection to either cats as pets or their (self-styled) 'owners'. I just don't seem to share some of your beliefs about their behaviour. Nor do I accept your claims just because you make them. I'm waiting for your evidence, though
- as dist> The trouble s cats are carrion eaters. For every 100 birds that cats
...or almost any other of your personal beliefs that you might prefer to think are facts. :-)
So where's the assessable statistical evidence for the various beliefs you keep presenting using vague sweeping claims about "probably", "chance", etc?
Maybe you should be posting as "The Unnatural Theologian" since you seem to be just expecting us to accept your assertions as articles of faith. ;->
A friend of mine once had his cats bring a rabbit in through the bedroom window to leave on his bed as a gift. But the jump across from the shed roof to the window was too much holding a whole rabbit, so they had to chew it in half first.
(Ours mostly just catch mice, with the very occasional bird. I've seen them with live ones often enough to know that the "99% carrion" thing is bollocks, unless you count pet food as carrion.)
Ours once brought home a Moorhen. Blood and black feathers all over the kitchen.
No stats. but my belief is that cats pose the biggest threat to nestlings of those species nesting within jumping distance of the ground. Of course Foxes and Mustelids may also be blamed.
By a strange and amazing coincidence there was a sequence of loud yowling in the small hours, resulting in my turning on the lights in the sunroom in time to see two cats departing rapidly in opposite directions, one through a rose bush and up and over the shed (with difficulty, it was fairly obese). I suspect such mechanical problems plus the neighbours' Jack Russells and ferrets may keep them away.
Most of the non-accidental bird deaths I've seen evidence of involve plucking, almost certainly the sparrowhawks.
You just reminded me I haven't seen pheasants or partridges in the garden for a long time now, though I hear and see them in the fields. Some years they've been such regular visitors I put out a casserole to get them used to the idea.
Oh it didn't eat it, just played with it for a while :(
They mostly ate or partly ate the mice and other rodents they caught. Domestic cats retain a lot of kitten behaviours, chase and sometimes catch stuff just for the hell of it rather than for food. I've seen them attack a bird's nest without actually killing any of the young, just using them for target practice.
Are you sure the cat did that? I've found half rabbits which were amputated by a fox, maybe the cat just picked such a half rabbit up and made like it had caught it itself?
Nowadays petfood is mostly Healthy Whole Grains? which is why there's an "epidemic" of pet obesity and diabetes alongside the human equivalent
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