This is a widely-cited myth, and almost impossible to measure in practice. What does "all the local wildlife" even mean? Is the threat here that birds are going to go extinct because of cats? Not likely, and the burden of proof is on the people repeating this mistaken belief.

Using "think of the birds" as a justification for imprisoning your cat for their entire lives is also pretty crummy. It's called wildlife because they exist in the wilderness. Even if cats kill a large number of birds, so what? Those birds don't have a happy, loving home with emotional bonds to an actual human.

If you think this logic is flawed, explain why you're fine with flies dying but not birds. I bet you've swatted a few in your time.

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Brybry 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Free-ranging cats on islands have caused or contributed to 33 (14%) of the modern bird, mammal and reptile extinctions recorded by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List [1]

Cats are probably a leading cause of mortality in birds. [2] Domestic cats are not native to North America. The birds here would not have evolved to avoid them (and beyond that, domestic cat numbers are not limited by prey availability because they're pets bred and fed by humans).

You'll find plenty of studies with evidence that domestic cats are probably bad for bird populations. [3][4]

But to be fair, buildings/glass windows kill a lot of birds too. [5]

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380

[2] https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds#:~:tex...

[3] https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/13/7/322

[4] https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wsb.737

[5] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

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sillysaurusx 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Thank you for the well-sourced reply.

Suppose it's true that cats are bad for bird populations. The implication is that just because birds are dying, it's okay to snatch a cat. More than that, that cats should be imprisoned for their entire lives, when they naturally want to roam.

Someone can take one side of this ethical debate or the other, and both sides probably won't agree. I personally find it sad that people would place the well-being of birds above that of a wonderful, furry companion that clearly belongs to someone.

The logic also doesn't quite line up: I was hoping someone would try to justify why it's okay to kill flies but not birds, since that's the real counterargument to this one. Especially when they kill flies with their own hands.

So much of life boils down to "we're the apex species and we do what we want." But such is life. I find it difficult not to call out the absurdities when they appear, though.

To the topic at hand, how exactly is this quantified? I suspect that word "contributed" is doing a lot of work here. [2] seems to admit as much:

> True estimates of mortality are difficult to determine. However, recent studies have synthesized the best available data to estimated ranges of mortality to bird populations in North America from some of the most common, human-caused sources of bird mortality.

The numbers in [2] are admittedly pretty startling. But it looks like they come from one report labeled "2013a". Any info on where to find it, or what it even is? Otherwise it's easy to call [2] a citation when in fact no evidence whatsoever is being presente.

[4] is much better. https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wsb.737 But cats are still only a contributory factor, not the main cause; the report says they're the second leading cause of admissions, not the first. So, high, and worth thinking about.

But again, the cost here is "removing, by force, someone's beloved pet." I'm not above saying that we should probably care about cats more than birds, because of the emotional bonds they form with humans. After all, that's why we're fine with flies being killed, right? No emotional bonds.

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kelnos 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The implication is that just because birds are dying, it's okay to snatch a cat.

I don't think anyone's implying that? It just seems foolish to let your cat roam about. Not only are they at risk of getting stolen, but the risks of getting injured/killed or sick (or poisoned) are so much higher than if you keep them at home.

Whenever I hear about someone who's distraught about an outdoor cat of theirs that died while outside, I feel super bad for the cat, and not quite so much for the owner. That death could have been prevented, trivially.

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john_strinlai 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>The implication is that just because birds are dying, it's okay to snatch a cat.

the implication is that if you want a cat, you should be responsible and keep it indoors.

>But again, the cost here is "removing, by force, someone's beloved pet."

no, the cost is keeping your cat indoors.

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sillysaurusx 5 hours ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

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john_strinlai 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>If you're not going to bother putting in any effort into the debate, please don't participate at all.

you are "debating" against a fictional argument. no one is saying that it is okay to steal or "remove by force" someones pet.

they presented you with several citations about how damaging house cats are (and there are several more, you can start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife) and you said... "nu uh".

>I'm looking after for my cat's wellbeing, not some bird's

wildly selfish statement.

	▲	sillysaurusx 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Once again: You kill flies. Sometimes dozens of them. Your conscience is clear. That's wildly selfish of you, yet you don't seem to care about the flies. Why not? They're just as much a part of the ecosystem as the birds. Also, this entire discussion is off-topic. The point was for vets to verify microchips, something directly related to the article.

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kelnos 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I'm looking after for my cat's wellbeing, not some bird's

What a selfish way to look at things. So you think it's fine to bring invasive species into a new environment and let them damage the local ecosystem? Cool cool cool.

If you were truly looking after your cat's well-being, you'd keep them inside in the first place. Their attachment to roaming about is not as strong or essential as you seem to think it is.

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sillysaurusx 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Suppose someone were arguing that you should imprison your own child for their entire life, because every time they go outside, they kill ants. Would you still consider it selfish to disagree?

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akerl_ an hour ago | parent [-]

If your child routinely wandered into my yard and messed with the animals there, I would also have a problem with that, yes.

	▲	sillysaurusx 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Except "the birds" aren't your animals. I don't know why there are so many low-quality comments tonight. It's as if people will address everything except my central point, which is: you routinely kill a bunch of stuff without batting an eye. Yet in this case, we're supposed to feel sorry for the birds, even though you don't feel sorry for flies or ants. It's my legal right to let my animal roam. You can have a problem with it as much as you'd like. Just don't put your hands on my cat, and we're fine. As far as I can tell, we seem to be living in an age where the entire world is a bit crazy on a certain topic. Slavery used to be legal, and normal. This to me is no different. You justify keeping them indoors for their entire lives on the basis that birds might die. That's asinine, especially from hypocrites that are happy to kill flies when it suits them. Cats don't harm you, and they don't harm your animals.

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nradov 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In my neighborhood some people let their cats run around loose. Then the local wildlife (coyotes) eats the cats, and the idiot cat owners whine that the city needs to "do something" about the coyotes.