We recently published an article in National Wildlife magazine on the enormous, unnatural toll that free-ranging domesticated cats take on wildlife, along with a blog post about how to keep indoor cats happy and healthy so they don’t need to go outside.
If your cat goes outside and you can’t keep it indoors — which is the only 100 percent effective way to keep birds and other wildlife safe from cats — there are some things you can do to minimize the chances of it hunting wildlife. Even if you keep your own cats indoors, your neighbors might not, or you might have feral stray cats in your neighborhood. If you participate in our Garden for Wildlife program and have created a wildlife habitat garden for birds and other backyard wildlife, it is understandably both concerning and frustrating when cats show up and kill the wildlife you’ve worked so hard to help.
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Here are some tips for keeping backyard birds and other wildlife safe from free-ranging domesticated cats.
Food sources for pigeons can include grass seed, berries from pyracantha bushes or olive trees, and dog or cat food left outside. Don't constantly put seed on a lawn if the seed isn’t germinating. Eliminating or controlling their access to the source of food will reduce the number of pigeons. We collected 70 of the best free online cat games. These games include browser games for both your computer and mobile devices, as well as apps for your Android and iOS phones and tablets. They include new cat games such as Cats and Trees and top cat games such as Cat Simulator: Kitty Craft, Funny Pet Haircut, and Talking Tom Gold Run.
Indoor cats live longer than their outdoor counterparts
Keep Cats Indoors
It bears repeating that the only way to keep birds and other wildlife safe from domesticated cats is to keep cats indoors. All of the other tips on this list are only going to be partially effective, and only address the symptoms, not the underlying problem of the negative ecological impact that our domesticated cats have on wildlife. Remember, it’s not the fault of the cats, which are just following natural instinct, but rather an extension of human impact on our environment. We created domesticated cats and have imported them around the world in places they don’t belong and in numbers that often far exceed the numbers of native predators. It’s up to us to prevent and solve the problem.
Provide Cover
Birds and other wildlife naturally use dense vegetation to hide from predators. A bare lawn doesn’t offer any cover. When you’re designing your garden or landscape include dense plantings of shrubs or trees, or a meadow or wildflower garden, where wildlife can hide. If you use native plants, not only will they provide cover for birds, they’ll also offer food sources and nesting places. Our Garden for Wildlife program has more tips on how to provide cover for birds and other wildlife in your yard.
Feeder and Birdbath Placement
Birds and small wildlife need cover and hiding places from cats, and at the same time they also need some open space around feeders and birdbaths to be able to spot cats before they get close enough to pounce. Place feeders and birdbaths at least ten to twelve feet away from any potential hiding places for cats.
Feed Birds Naturally
If outdoor cats are staking out your bird feeders as hunting grounds, the responsible thing to do is to take your feeders down to protect the birds. Focus on feeding birds naturally through native plants that provide seeds, berries and insects. Native plants won’t cause birds to congregate in high numbers in one spot every day like a feeder does, which is what attracts hunting cats.
Collars with bells and bright colors don’t work to protect wildlife from cats. Photo via Rochelle Hartman | Flickr Creative Commons
Bells and Collars Aren’t the Solutions
One of the oldest tactics to keep wildlife safe from cats is to put a bell on outdoor cats’ collars. Unfortunately, this doesn’t really work. The sound of a bell tinkling isn’t something that wildlife associates with predators or other danger. There are collars that have shown some promise in minimizing pet cats’ predation on birds. These collars rely on bright color to catch birds’ attention and so just like with bells, bright color isn’t something that wild birds associate with predators and many kinds of wildlife don’t even see in color, so as a result, these collars are only partially effective and aren’t a real solution, especially since they can foster a false sense that they are solving the problem of cat predation on wildlife.
Avoid Mothballs
Mothballs are often also recommended as a deterrent to keep cats out of your yard. Not only is this not an effective long-term solution to keep cats away, mothballs are made of toxic chemicals that should absolutely not be broadcast out in your yard.
Put Up a Fence
Cats are natural climbers so a fence isn’t going to be totally effective at keeping cats away, but it can help. A six-foot fence is too high for most cats to jump over and most won’t be able to climb it either if it’s made out of smooth wood or vinyl (vs. chain link). Avoid plantings right up against the outside of the fence, which cats will use as ladders to get over the fence.
Motion Detector
Like fences, motion detector lights aren’t going to be 100 percent effective at deterring outdoor cats either, but they can help. The sudden bright light can spook cats that show up in your yard. You can also experiment with motion detector sprinklers. A surprise blast of water is harmless but will make a big impression on roaming cats and teach them that your yard is a no-hunting zone.
Don’t Feed Strays
You’re an animal-lover and it’s only natural to want to feed feral stray cats in your neighborhood. While difficult, it’s best to resist the urge to feed stray cats. Feeding strays only exacerbates the problem of free-ranging cats killing wildlife. In the big picture, it’s bad for cats too. Stray cats live short, brutish lives and feeding them helps ensure that the stray population perpetuates itself and that more cats suffer from disease, starvation, and death from cars, dogs and wild predators.
Don’t Support TNR
Game Pigeon For Computer
As a wildlife conservation organization, the National Wildlife Federation doesn’t support Trap, Neuter, Release/Return programs simply because they don’t work to minimize the negative impact of feral cats on wildlife populations. Feral cats are primarily responsible for the 1.3-4 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals killed annually by domesticated cats in the United States and perpetuating feral cat colonies is incompatible with sound, science-based wildlife conservation.
Adopting can single-handedly save a life. Photo via Becky Lal | Flickr Creative Commons
Spay, Neuter, Adopt
You should always spay or neuter your pet cats–especially if they go outside. There are millions of unwanted cats in shelters and running stray as ferals. Don’t contribute to the problem by allowing your cat to produce new litters. When you’re looking for a new pet, adopt from a local shelter or rescue group. Even if you don’t have a cat of your own, support efforts to promote spay, neuter and adoption programs in your community.
Never Abandon Pets
It should go without saying that you should never abandon unwanted pets by dumping them into the wild. Often this results in the death of the pet from predators, starvation or exposure. Those that survive become part of the feral stray population that takes a major toll on wildlife. Instead, reach out to your community and find someone to adopt your unwanted cat, work with a local rescue group, or surrender it to the local shelter.
Be a Force for Positive Change
Passions rise between cat lovers and birds lovers whenever the topic of domesticated cats and wildlife comes up. If you’re a bird lover, resist the urge to demonize cats and their owners. If you’re a cat owner, resist the urge to write off bird lovers and wildlife conservationists as cat-haters. Cats are not evil animals. The science is clear on the impacts of cats on wildlife populations. Both of those things are true. Giving into your emotions on either side only exacerbates the problem and doesn’t solve anything. The only way forward is to work together to solve the problem. Talk to your neighbors. Be willing to compromise. Share your knowledge and love of cats and wildlife to affect positive change in your community.
Killer Cats: Much like the big cats, domestic cats are very effective predators. They ambush and immobilize vertebrate prey using tactics similar to those of leopards and tigers by pouncing; then they deliver a lethal neck bite with their long canine teeth that severs the victim's spinal cord, causes fatal bleeding by puncturing the carotid artery or the jugular vein, or asphyxiates it by crushing its trachea. The domestic cat can hunt and eat about one thousand species, many of them invertebrates, especially insects — many big cats will eat fewer than 100. Although, theoretically, big cats can kill most of these species as well, they often do not due to the relatively low nutritional content that smaller animals provide for the effort. An exception is the leopard, which commonly hunts rabbits and many other smaller animals.
Animal Trophy: Even well-fed domestic cats hunt and kill birds, mice, rats, scorpions, cockroaches, grasshoppers, and other small animals in the vicinity. They often present such trophies to their owners. The motivation is not entirely clear, but friendly bonding behaviors are often associated with such an action. It is probable that cats in this situation expect to be praised for their symbolic contribution to the group. Some theories suggest that cats see their owners gone for long times of the day and assume they are out hunting, as they always have plenty of food available. It is thought that a cat presenting its owner with a dead animal thinks it's 'helping out' by bringing home the kill. Ethologist Paul Leyhausen, in an extensive study of social and predatory behavior in domestic cats (documented in his book Cat Behavior), proposed a mechanism which explains this presenting behavior. In simple terms, cats adopt humans into their social group, and share excess kill with others in the group according to the local pecking order, in which humans place at or near the top.
Due to their hunting behavior, in many countries feral cats are considered pests. Domestic cats are occasionally also required to have contained cat runs or to be kept inside entirely, as they can be hazardous to locally endangered bird species. For instance, various municipalities in Australia have enacted such legislation. In some localities, owners fit their cat with a bell in order to warn prey of its approach. Sometimes,
the bell has the unwanted effect
of 'training' the
cat to be an
even stealthier killer.
The All Meat Diet: Cats have highly specialized teeth and a digestive tract suitable to the digestion of meat. The premolar and first molar together compose the carnassial pair on each side of the mouth, which efficiently functions to shear meat like a pair of scissors. While this is present in canines, it is highly developed in felines. The cat's tongue has sharp spines, or papillae, useful for retaining and ripping flesh from a carcass. These papillae are small backward-facing hooks that contain keratin and assist in their grooming. Domesticated cats eat fairly little vegetable matter. It is quite common, however, for cats to occasionally supplement their carnivorous diets with small amounts of grass or other plant matter to help their digestive tract. Whereas bears and dogs commonly supplement their diet of meat with fruits, berries, roots, and honey when they can get them, cats prefer to mostly feed on meat. All felines, including the big cats, have a genetic anomaly that prevents them from tasting sweetness, which, more than likely, is related to their meat-dominated eating habits, and almost certainly related to their aversion to fruits and berries. However, many domesticated cats are known to like vegetables. The majority of brand-name cat foods are primarily meat based, but often contain large amounts of corn or rice and supplemented with meat byproducts and minerals and vitamins. Cats are also known to munch on grass, leaves, shrubs and houseplants to facilitate regurgitation of whatever may be upsetting their digestion.
Cats are obligate carnivores, and cannot live on an unsupplemented vegetarian diet because they cannot synthesize several required nutrients which are absent or rare in plant food. This applies mainly to taurine, vitamin A (cats cannot convert the pro-vitamin A that is abundant in plants to vitamin A proper) and to certain fatty acids. The absence of taurine causes the cat's retina to slowly degenerate, causing eye problems and (eventually) irreversible blindness. This condition is called central retinal degeneration (CRD). Cow's milk is a poor source of taurine and adult cats are generally lactose intolerant. Lactose-free milk is perfectly safe, but still not a substitute for meat.
Picky Eaters: Cats can be fussy eaters, possibly due to the mutation which caused their ancestor to lose the ability to taste sugars. Unlike most mammals, cats can voluntarily starve themselves indefinitely despite being presented with palatable food, even a food which they had previously readily consumed. This can happen when the vomeronasal or Jacobson's organ becomes accustomed to a specific food, or if the cats are spoiled by their owners, in which case the cat will reject any food that does not fit the pattern it is expecting. It is also known for cats to merely become bored with their given food and decide to stop eating until they are tempted into eating again. Although it is extremely rare for a cat to deliberately starve itself to the point of injury, the sudden loss of weight can cause a fatal condition called hepatic lipidosis, a liver dysfunction which causes pathological loss of appetite and reinforces the starvation, which can lead to death within as little as 48 hours.
People Food: Additionally, cats have been known to develop a fondness for 'people food' such as chicken, bread, French fries, pizza, ice cream, tomato soup, bacon, carrot juice, olives, mushrooms, and carnitas burritos, as well as such cat diet exotica as corn kernels and diced cantaloupe or cantaloupe skin. A diet consisting of people food or unlimited access to normal cat food often leads to the cat becoming obese. This may lead to several health complications, such as diabetes, especially in neutered males. Such health conditions can be prevented through diet and exercise (playing), especially for cats living exclusively indoors.
He'll eat anything: Cats can also develop pica. Pica is a condition in which animals chew or eat unusual things such as fabric, plastic or wool. In cats, this is mostly harmless as they do not digest most of it, but can be fatal or require surgical removal if a large amount of foreign material is ingested (for example, an entire sock). It tends to occur more often in Siamese, Burmese, and breeds with these in their ancestry.
Laser Beams: Domestic cats, especially young kittens, are known for their love of string play. Many cats cannot resist a dangling piece of string, or a piece of rope drawn randomly and enticingly across the floor. This well known love of string is often depicted in cartoons and photographs, which show kittens or cats playing with balls of yarn. It is probably related to hunting instincts, including the common practice of kittens practice hunting of their mother's and each other's tail. If string is ingested, however, it can become caught in the cat’s stomach or intestines, causing illness, or in extreme cases, death. Due to possible complications caused by ingesting a string, string play is sometimes replaced with a laser pointer's dot, which some cats will chase. Some also discourage the use of laser pointers for pet play, however, because of the potential damage to sensitive eyes and/or the possible loss of satisfaction associated with the successful capture of an actual prey object, play or real.
Beware of Cats: Because of their small size, domestic cats pose almost no danger to humans — the main hazard is the possibility of infection (e.g., cat scratch disease, or, rarely, rabies) from a cat bite or scratch. Cats can also potentially inflict severe scratches or puncture an eye, though this is quite rare. Dogs have been known to be blinded by cats in fights, in which the cat specifically targeted the eyes of the larger animal with some accuracy.
Cats can be destructive to ecosystems in which they are not native and whose species have not had time to adapt to their introduction. In some cases, cats have contributed to or caused extinctions -— for example, see the case of the Stephens Island Wren.
Poison Control Hotline: The liver of a cat is less effective at detoxification than those of humans or dogs, which limits the use of pesticides and medications where they may be exposed. For instance, the common painkiller, paracetamol, is extremely toxic to cats. Because they naturally lack enzymes needed to digest it, even minute portions of doses safe for humans can be fatal. Any suspected ingestion warrants immediate veterinary attention. Similarly, phenol based products often used for cleaning and disinfecting, such as Pine-Sol, Lysol, hexachlorophene, etc., are more toxic to cats than to humans or dogs, and exposure has been known to be fatal.
Many human foods are toxic to cats; chocolate, for example, can be fatal due to the presence of theobromine (see theobromine poisoning), although few cats will eat chocolate.
Cats And Pigeons Games
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