Tabbies Take Toll on Wildlife
The sharp squeal of an animal in pain pierced the silence of a recent Alaska summer night. I bounded up from the couch and looked out the window. Harriet, my girlfriend's cat, sat on the lawn with a serene look on her face. In her jaws, she held a struggling snowshoe hare by the neck. The hare kicked convulsively, then died. By conservative count, Harriet has killed (and at least partially eaten) three hares and one red squirrel during the past two weeks. If Harriet, who is at least 10 years old, puts that much of a dent in the local animal population, what are the combined effects of cats on wildlife?
Researchers in places as divergent as England and Wisconsin have asked that question at least twice during the past few years. All seem to agree--house cats kill a staggering amount of wildlife.
To conduct one experiment, British scientists Peter Churcher and John Lawton gave the townspeople of Bedfordshire plastic bags in which they saved whatever their cats dragged in for a year. The 77 cats in the study brought home mice, voles, shrews, birds, and even an occasional bat.
Churcher and Lawton concluded that cats were responsible for one-third to one-half of all the house sparrow deaths in the village. By multiplying the village cats' carnage by the total number of cats in England, the researchers estimated that British cats kill at least 20 million birds each year. When rodents and other victims were added to the death-by-feline toll, the researchers figured that cats kill about 70 million creatures each year.
Birds seem to fall prey to house cats just as easily in the U.S., according to a study done by Stanley Temple and John Coleman of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. They followed 30 radio-collared farm cats on sneaky stalks through fields and around barns and farm houses. The researchers found that in Wisconsin alone, cats may kill 19 million songbirds and 140,000 game birds every year.
How and why do house cats kill? Egyptians began making pets of cats around 1600 B.C., but the word "domesticated" still doesn't seem to fit. Domesticated is defined as "tame" in Webster's Dictionary.
"Felis catus (the Latin name for the house cat) has been described as the most perfect carnivore because its entire body is geared to predatory life," wrote Texas A and M Associate Professor of Veterinary Medicine Bonnie Beaver in her book, Veterinary Aspects of Feline Behavior. Beaver pointed out that the scissors-like cutting action of a cat's teeth help it kill prey quickly; sharp claws allow a tabby to snag moving meals effectively; the pads on feline feet allow for stealthy approach; and a short digestive tract allows a cat to process food quickly.
Hunger doesn't seem to be the only trigger of a cat's hunting instincts. In the July, 1989 issue of Natural History, Churcher and Lawton wrote, "well-fed and apparently contented cats are often ruthless killers."
These killers-by-night, cuddlers-by-day earned a spot on the Nature Conservancy's recent list of "Ten Things You Can Do To Save Life's Diversity." A plea to "Curb Your Cat," was near the top of a list published in the July/August 1996 issue of the magazine Nature Conservancy.
How can an instinctive hunter be stopped? The Sherbrooke Shire Council, near Melbourne, Australia, initiated a cat curfew in 1992 because cats were killing rare birds in a nearby forest. If a cat was caught outdoors at night, the owner was fined $100, according to an article in National Wildlife. Other control methods, such as belling or declawing cats, are dismissed in the article because felines can stalk smoothly enough not to ring a collar bell and a clawless cat can box its prey into submission before delivering a fatal bite to the neck.
Like many cat fans, Harriet's owner is proud her elderly cat is a skilled hunter. I admire Harriet's talents too, but watching her kill that hare gave me the creeps. I guess I'm too domesticated.
