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[road's end farm <organic101@linkny.com>]

On Feb 14, 2007, at 10:23 AM, Brungardt, Sam wrote:

> <x-tad-smaller>I find it difficult to accept your view that your cats don't do much harm to birds; it's been well established by studies both here in the USA and Britain that cats allowed to roam outdoors kill a lot of birds, both adult and juvenile. -- Sam Brungardt, St. Paul, Minn.</x-tad-smaller>
> <x-tad-smaller>
> </x-tad-smaller>

Some cats do. Some cats don't. I very much doubt that the studies focused on the habits and hunting abilities of individual cats. I think the person you're answering was referring to the hunting habits of her particular cats: 

> <x-tad-smaller>----[partial quote]-----
>
> </x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
> I would warn you that not all cats chase squirrels.  Mine have elminated mice, rats, moles, tree shrews, rabbits.  The squirrels, raccoons, and possums remain.   They don't do much to the birds, </x-tad-smaller>
>

Many areas with a lot of free-roaming cats no longer have most of the original predators who preyed on birds in that area. I don't know if anyone has ever done studies correcting for this factor, to try to determine whether the bird mortality rate from cats is higher than a natural background rate with no cats, but with other bird predators in the area.


--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly