German tackles bird deaths with cat tax idea

[The Straight Story]

German tackles bird deaths with cat tax idea

German cat owners could be hit with a special bird-kill tax to compensate for the damage their felines inflict on bird populations - if a leading ornithologist has his way.

Peter Berthold, head of the bird keepers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell on Lake Constance, says cats kill around 50 million birds a year in Germany along.

Enough is enough, he told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.

"Sometimes they kill a wonderful red-coloured bullfinch, or a wryneck, which could be the last in the district," he said. An "ecological compensation tax" could be the answer, he suggested.

He referred to an American study published at the start of this year in the journal Nature Communications which showed what damage US cats do to the wildlife there.

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20130429-49433.html#.UX7roEr4KSo

[reformist2]

1. OK, but only if they get cat credits for all the mice they catch!