Nebraska report stirs emotions with bird, cat lovers ( recommends killing feral cats)

[The Straight Story]

Nebraska report stirs emotions with bird, cat lovers



A report that recommends killing feral cats as a way to control the animals, including a primer on how to shoot a cat, is stirring emotions among bird and cat lovers.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln study found that neutering or spaying is ineffective at eliminating feral cat colonies, although itis useful in reducing the colonies' expansion.

One official from the American Bird Conservancy calls the report "a must read" for communities with feral cat problems.

But critics note the wild cats help control rodent populations, and they say habitat destruction, herbicides and other issues are a bigger threat to birds.

They also question the report's finding that feral cats' killing of birds costs the U.S. $17 billion, when accounting for how much bird watchers, hunters and others spend on the hobbies.

http://journalstar.com/ap/state/article_d9663217-74ae-5463-813d-0ea46a666720.html

[XemaSab]

1. Sounds like they need some coyotes there

:thumbsup:

[Angry Dragon]

2. I am still waiting for the report on how much idiot republicans cost this country

every year
I am sure it is more than $17 billion

[elocs]

3. The proposal for a feral cat hunt here in WI started from my city, La Crosse:

http://www.legalzoom.com/everyday-law/home-leisure/wisconsin-considers-legalizing-cat-hunting

Currently all cats are protected under state laws that prohibit cruelty to animals, but feral cat hunting is legal in Minnesota and South Dakota, Wisconsin's upper Midwest neighbors. Why? Experts estimate that, globally, feral cats may have brought about the extinction of more bird species than any other cause except habitat destruction. In Wisconsin alone, about 2 million wild cats roam the heartland, and they kill anywhere between 39 and 139 million songbirds per year as well as an underdetermined number of small mammals.

Proponents of feral cat hunting also note that because cats are a non-native species, they compete with owls and hawks for food, dipping into their numbers, and can also carry and spread disease to other animals and humans. Many hunters, though, shied away from publicly expressing their views at the Wisconsin meetings; some suggest a reluctance to do so in the face of an already controversial mourning dove hunt.

The legalization of feral cat hunting was first proposed by Mark Smith, a firefighter from La Crosse, in last year's (2004) meeting of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress. Every second Monday in April, the Congress holds public meetings to gauge opinion on various fish and wildlife issues. This citizen advisory group reports to the state Department of Natural Resources and the Natural Resources Board, who in turn forwards findings to the Wisconsin Legislature. Then the lawmakers decide whether to introduce a bill and vote, leaving the final say up to the governor, Democrat Jim Doyle, who signs or not—and he says he won't.

On the other side of the debate, cat supporters have had their claws out from the get-go. PETA wrote a letter on behalf of its 4000 plus members and supporters in Wisconsin urging the Congress to keep free-roaming cats protected. The animal advocacy group encourages the capture of feral cats and their removal from open society, but wants a solution to the problem "in accordance with humane standards and existing laws."

There was even a documentary made about it: http://www.prolefeedstudios.com/catalog/kitty/kitty.html

[WolverineDG]

4. Guess those folks have oodles & scads of money to spend on exterminators

folks in my neighborhood don't, so we've "invested" (in a way) in some stray cats. Haven't had a rodent problem since that decision was made.

dg

[Ikonoklast]

5. Guess the hunters that kill wildlife don't like the competition.

Farming is more lethal to songbird species than anything else through habitat destruction.

[amborin]

11. cats take a terrible toll on birds:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Publications/Birdscope/Autumn2007/cats_birds.html

and lots of songbirds do ok on farms; granted, native habitat is optimal; but farms are better than condos

[AngryAmish]

6. oooh, oooh, lemmie get in here

The feral cat thingy always brings out the loonies (or at least those infected with toxoplasma).

[Hissyspit]

7. Which loonies?

Killing Feral Cat programs don't work. Period.

[flvegan]

8. Anybody got a link to the actual report?

I hate calling bullshit *before* reading one.

[XemaSab]

9. I'm sure this is it

http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/live/ec1781/build/ec1781.pdf

[flvegan]

13. Thanks, Xema. It's a good report.

Sadly, the OP spins it way out of control (big shock). It contradicts itself (if viewed in the whirlwind of spin the OP supposes), and I actually started to chuckle when I saw The Wildlife Society was part of their process of drawing a conclusion. The Summary wraps it up well. Whole lot of "shock and awe" about how to kill teh kittehs with guns.

Otherwise, regurgitation of shit we all already knew.

Let the cats v wildlife war rage on.

[dpbrown]

10. Sounds like a start

The fewer feral cats run wild, the better.

[Fruittree]

16. Where I live, the SPCA will take in feral cats...

spay or neuter them then adopt them out free as barn cats - the program seems to work pretty well. I don't like seeing cats catch birds but honestly we've always had cats and of the cats that even hunted, they mostly get rodents.

[guitar man]

12. My Dad, after he retired

Was a bird fanatic. He had feeders hanging everywhere on the farm, his binoculars and his Audubon society book. He'd sit for hours and identify and study them.

If he saw a cat trying to climb up and get the birds, it was boom, bye bye cat. Not saying it was right or wrong, it's just how he was, he loved those birds and wouldn't let anything get them if he could help it.

[freeplessinseattle]

14. Humans are the number one threat to birds

"The major cause of bird species loss—indeed, all species loss—is habitat destruction. Habitat modification, fragmentation, and loss is caused by a myriad of human activities, including logging, crop farming, livestock grazing, mining, industrial and residential development, urban sprawl, road building, dam building, and pesticide use.

In a 2000 report by the World Conservation Union surveying 1,173 threatened bird species, habitat loss was the most important threat, affecting 83% of the bird species sampled. Across the United States, little land is left untouched by human development, modification, fragmentation, and pollution. Already human activities have led to the extinction of 10% of the world’s bird species—in some locales, that number rises to as much as 90%. Today more than a thousand bird species are listed as threatened, and scientists predict between 500 and 600 of those will go extinct in the next 50 years.

In the United States, much of the impact on birds is a result of America’s growing population and its even faster-growing development of land. Between 1990 and 2000, the U.S. population grew by 33 million people, the greatest numerical increase the country has ever seen. Future growth is predicted to add 27 million people each decade for the next 30 years.

More significant is that America’s demand for resources is growing disproportionately to its population. A Brookings Institution analysis reveals that urbanized land increased by 47% in the 15 years between 1982 and 1997, even though population only increased by 17%; population in suburbs, meanwhile, increased twice as fast as population in cities. Researchers at Brookings predict that by the year 2030, half of the buildings in which Americans live, work, and shop will have been built after the year 2000. With this level of development and population growth, the serious loss of bird species—due to habitat destruction, pollution, and fragmentation—will continue for decades to come."


Habitat Destruction Bibliography

BirdLife International (2004). Threatened birds of the world 2004. CD-ROM. Cambridge, UK: BirdLife International.

Brooks, Thomas M., Stuart L. Pimm, and Nigel J. Collar. "Deforestation Predicts the Number of Threatened Birds in Insular Southeast Asia." Conservation Biology 11 (1997): 382-394.

Dirzo, Rodolfo, and Peter H. Raven. "Global State of Biodiversity and Loss." Annual Review of Environment and Resources 28 (2003): 137-167.

Jetz, Walter, David S. Wilcove, and Andrew P. Dobson. "Projected Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Global Diversity of Birds." Public Library of Science Biology 5 (2007): e157, http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0050157’.

King, David I., and John H. Rappole. “Population Trends for Migrant Birds in North America: A Summary and Critique.” Defenders of Wildlife (2003).

Myers, Norman, Russell A. Mittermeier, Cristina G. Mittermeier, A. B. Da Fonseca, and Jennifer Kent. "Biodiversity Hotspots For Conservation Priorities." Nature 403 (2000): 853-858.

Pimm, Stuart, Peter Raven, Alan Peterson, Çagan H. Sekercioglu, and Paul R. Ehrlich. "From the Cover: Human Impacts on the Rates of Recent, Present, and Future Bird Extinctions." Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 103 (2006): 10941-10946.

http://www.alleycat.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=642

[Fruittree]

17. I suspect you're absolutely correct...

This going after cats sounds no different than the excuses used to destroy predators in the past.

[TexasObserver]

15. Nebraska isn't Manhattan or San Francisco. A feral cat is just a feral cat.

In many areas in the country, shooting a feral cat is how citizens kill them.

Feeding feral cats should be outlawed. They run loose, they kill birds and squirrels, they get into trash, they carry diseases, and they show up wherever they feel like. Why cats are the only species which can run loose is still a mystery. Cats are pests when they're off their own property.