Abstract from scholarly article...cats in Britain est to kill ~92 million

[HereSince1628]

Posting here because, although not on my ignore list the person who requested this information drops off GD when I log in...

The article is available online so it can be critically read, and if desired can (and I expect will be) criticized for problems with design.

The national estimates for Britain are of course extrapolated from the samples examined. In this case the extrapolations were based on back-transformed means.

If the estimate of predation in Britain approximates predation by cats in the USA, where there are roughly ten times more cats...the billion number begins to be approximated.



Mammal Rev
. 2003, Volume 33, No. 2, 174–188.
Printed in Great Britain
.
© 2003 Mammal Society,
Mammal Review
,
33,
174–188
Blackwell Science, LtdOxford, UKMAMMammal Review0305-1838Blackwell Science Ltd, 2003
? 2003
33
2174188
Review Article
Predation of wildlife by domestic catsM. Woods
et al.
Correspondence: Robbie A. McDonald, The Game Conservancy Trust, Forest in Teesdale, Barnard Castle
DL12 0HA, UK. E-mail: [e-mail]
Predation of wildlife by domestic cats
Felis catus
in Great Britain
MICHAEL WOODS*, ROBBIE A. MCDONALD†‡ and STEPHEN HARRIS†
*
The Mammal Society, 15 Cloisters House, 8 Battersea Park Road, London SW8 4BG, UK,
†
School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UG, UK,
‡
The Game Conservancy Trust, Forest in Teesdale, Barnard Castle DL12 0HA, UK
ABSTRACT
1.
A questionnaire survey of the numbers of animals brought home by domestic cats
Felis
catus
was conducted between 1 April and 31 August 1997. A total of 14 370 prey items were
brought home by 986 cats living in 618 households. Mammals made up 69% of the items,
birds 24%, amphibians 4%, reptiles 1%, fish
<
1%, invertebrates 1% and unidentified items
1%. A minimum of 44 species of wild bird, 20 species of wild mammal, four species of reptile
and three species of amphibian were recorded.
2.
Of a sample of 696 individual cats, 634 (91%) brought home at least one item and the
back-transformed mean number of items brought home was 11.3 (95% CI 10.4–12.2). The
back-transformed means and number of cats retrieving at least one item from each prey group
were: 8.1 (7.4–8.9) mammals for 547 (79%) cats, 4.1 (3.8–4.5) birds for 506 (73%) cats, 2.6
(2.2–3.0) herpetofauna for 145 (21%) cats and 2.2 (1.8–2.7) other items for 98 (14%) cats.
3.
The number of birds and herpetofauna brought home per cat was significantly lower in
households that provided food for birds. The number of bird species brought home was
greater in households providing bird food. The number of birds and herpetofauna brought
home per cat was negatively related to the age and condition of the cat. The number of
mammals brought home per cat was significantly lower when cats were equipped with bells
and when they were kept indoors at night. The number of herpetofauna brought home was
significantly greater when cats were kept in at night.
4.
Based on the proportion of cats bringing home at least one prey item and the backtransformed
means, a British population of approximately 9 million cats was estimated to
have brought home in the order of 92 (85–100) million prey items in the period of this survey,
including 57 (52–63) million mammals, 27 (25–29) million birds and 5 (4–6) million reptiles
and amphibians.
5.
An experimental approach should be taken to investigate the factors found by this
descriptive survey to influence the numbers of prey brought home by cats. In particular,
investigation of potential management practices that could reduce the numbers of wild
animals killed and brought home by cats will be useful for wildlife conservation, particularly
in suburban areas.

[SheilaT]

1. I've been reading this stuff for a good ten or more years now.

Oh, look. That's an article from 2003.

There's already a thread today about the slaughter of innocents done by cats. I just keep on wondering how truly accurate this is. My three cats were highly unsuccessful hunters. One brought home a baby rabbit quite alive and unhurt on two different occasions. One apparently survived by hunting while she was on her own for some unknown time before she adopted us. She was very close to death by starvation when we started feeding her. Once we did, I don't believe she hunted again. The other was too ditzy to nail anything.

Of course, we mostly kept our cats indoors, and then completely indoors after a time. Which is the responsible thing to do in any case.

[HereSince1628]

2. Decades ago when I was an undergrad Zoology student I had an ornithologist for Vert. Zool.

He was citing similar numbers from older studies.

These sort of studies get done on a regular basis, but for different places.

As a student in a graduate courses in ornithology and in wildlife conservation I ran into citations of this sort of study again.

When I was teaching Wildlife Conservation myself, I ran into the idea again...I remember a paper on the topic from Australia.

Ornithologists/bird lovers are well indoctrinated to cat predation.

I think this particular article -- in a publication focused on mammals is interesting in part because it suggests birds are a large part of wildlife known to be killed by feral/domestic cats.

[Laffy Kat]

3. I've been reading these studies for a while now.

Many years ago there was a segment on one of the TV news magazines about pet kitties and predation. It was in the UK somewhere as well. Anyway, I totally believe it. We have a cat that is a sweet pet but just blood-thirsty. He's overweight and still hunts although he doesn't eat what he kills, he just drags the dead things into the house. Snakes, he usually brings through the doggie door uninjured and watches them slither around the kitchen. Sigh. And he's just one cat, so I imagine all the neighborhood cats in aggregate make a huge dent in our community flora and fauna. We will NEVER let another cat outside.