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  • From: "Bill Shoemaker" <wshoemak AT inil.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] RE: cats and birds
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 08:59:53 -0500

I think it would be assuming too much for me to comment on the situation in
other places, but locally, feral cats don't seem to be impacting bird
populations at all. We don't have quail, I'm not sure they ever did well
this far north in Illinois. They were marginal in central Illinois, where I
grew up. I was a hunter so I knew the potential for finding such birds. In
the 60's, we could find flocks of 40-60 pheasants at a time. Then we had a
series of very severe winters in the late 70's. After some of those
blizzards we could find piles of dead pheasants in the field that had frozen
to death. Farmers had removed hedge and fence rows to the point that the
pheasants couldn't find enough cover. After 3 out of 4 winters like that,
there weren't enough pheasants left to make hunting worth the effort. We
waited for the populations to rebuild in the 80's but they never did, even
though Winters weren't so bad. First, the birds didn't have cover. Second,
coyotes started moving in. We had never seen coyotes prior to that. We
didn't even imagine them as natives. But they came anyway and began to keep
the residual pheasant population from expanding. It never has recovered to
the level of the 60's. Interesting though, the coyotes began to feed on
feral cats, and pet cats, and pet dogs (small ones). They're feeding on pets
in the suburbs of Chicago now as well. I wouldn't believe at first but then
I saw a coyote carrying a cat off through the field as I was driving by. I
was convinced. Feral cats don't seem to be a problem around here much
anymore. And the bird populations seem to be in good shape.

By the way, Kildeer may be a pest in the field. They look innocent and
cute but they may be feeding on seed you plant. We have large populations of
them at the Research Center. We can hardly seed pumpkins anymore. I always
thought that mice or ground squirrels were feeding on the seeds. But then a
grower told me he saw Kildeer dig up seed and eat it. I was skeptical till I
saw bird footprints in wet soil going down a row where pumpkin seed had been
dug up and eaten. They leave the seed coat virtually intact but extract the
contents so the evidence of feeding is there. Anyone else see this happen?

Bill Shoemaker
Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
Univ of Illinois - St Charles Hort Research Center




>These conversations seem to ignore the effect that domestic cats have
>had on ground birds.
>
>As far as I know, the loss of our native population of quail, kildeer
>and pheasants (if I may say native in that case ;-) is due to the
>free roaming cats of suburbanites who have sprawled into rural areas.
>
>
>No fear of mowing up the nests of groundbirds in this area!! Cats got
>them all a long time ago!!
>
>-Allan Balliett
>Shepherdstown
>West Virginia
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