Your cuddly cat is a ferocious killer

feral catsEvery cat lover should read Cat Wars by Peter Marra and Chris Santella. Turns out that cuddly cat of yours is a devastating killer of birds and other critters. OK, Linda and I have a cat too, so we’re with you on this.

One well-researched and professionally reviewed study reported that “cats killed between 1.3 and 4 billion birds per year, with unowned (feral) cats causing the majority of the mortality (69 percent).”

“Annual mortality for amphibians and reptiles was in the hundreds of millions,” according to that study.

Our cat seems to be killing less birds as he gets older. This summer he did quite a job on chipmunks, though. In the past he’s brought two birds into the house and released them alive. One morning Linda got up and noticed a chickadee sitting on her computer!

I’ve been particularly alarmed by the problem of feral cats here in Maine. While Maine law is unclear, people are being allowed to capture feral cats, sterilize and clean them up, and release them back into the woods. Some local animal shelters are doing this. The Humane Society of the United States, in a program they call “Managing Community Cats,” is implementing a TNR program: trap-neuter-return.

I thought this was illegal, but was informed by State officials that this is legal. Maine’s law outlawing cruelty to animals defines cruelty this way: “Injures, overworks, tortures, torments, abandons or cruelly beats or intentionally mutilates an animal.” Note the word abandonment in the definition. And yes, feral cats are put back into the woods and abandoned. How can that be legal?

The authors of Cat Wars report that, “A case could be made that TNR makes life a bit more bearable for free-ranging cats, though it still leaves them to face all the challenges of living in an outdoor environment they are ill-equipped to face. But returning neutered cats to their colonies also returns them to preying on any animals they can catch and kill, an instinctive behavior they cannot resist. From a conservation perspective, this is unacceptable.”

“There is also the uncomfortable truth that TNR has repeatedly been shown to fail to reduce free-ranging cat populations,” they note. Even PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), a radical animal advocacy group, opposes TNR.

In Australia, more than 11 percent of the land mammal species endemic to that country have been wiped out – and another 21 percent are considered threatened – since European settlement there. The main culprits? Feral cats and foxes brought to Australia by the settlers. That country launched a five-year program last year to kill 2 million feral cats, mostly using a bait called Curiosity, a poison encased in skinless sausage designed to appeal specifically to felines.

In Minnesota and South Dakota it’s actually legal to hunt feral cats. But no, I am not advocating that here in Maine!

The authors of Cat Wars note that many people advocate, strongly, for keeping cats inside. “Indoor cats are healthier, less prone to disease, fleas and mites, and are much more sociable.”

I’m hoping to get this issue in front of the legislature in 2017, for discussion and action.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.