Domestic cats and wildlife...

SpainSte

Eight (8) cats - 5 owners
Why should I have to make the effort? Why I do I have to be the one to run round after them?

And I sign off from this thread after that comment, enjoyable with mature contributors, I didnt notice the kids had crept in!

Even funnier that the law wont be changed ref cats - so the last laughs on you my friend. Enjoy clearing out your garden!!

Wunnunda

Yes there are more important things than cats.

desweller

Genuine question - why can't cats generally be kept indoors? I have plenty of friends with indoor-only cats - what do people who live in flats with cats do?

Wunnunda

Probably something to do with feline-rights or something. But I think I've said enough... :roll:

laurentian

Interesting that there is a (panorama?) programme on cats tonight.

The lady who carried out the research was on the radio earlier today and said that they found that approximately 40% in their study were shown to predate on birds and small mammals. She also said that there are approximately 10,000,000 cats in the UK.

So, assuming (massive leap of assumption I know) that this is typical of the UK, that means that there are 4,000,000 predatory cats in the UK at the moment.

Someone earlier gave some empirical evidence of the predatory percentage being 16%, ie 1,600,000 predators.

If each predator killed 1 bird or mammal per week, using the figures above as a range, we would have somewhere between 83 and 208 million predated birds and small mammals per year in the UK - that's only if they killed once per week! Seems an awfully big price for our indigenous species to pay for people not being able or willing to control their pets.

pinno

So a cat sh!ts in a garden so effing what but...

There are too many cats and not enough done to control them, feral or otherwise.
We had a cat called midnight. Midnight was a sandwich short of a picnic having been scraped off the road and rescued by us as a kitten. She ran on pure instinct. The result was a furry, environmental disaster. She hunted every day and killed at least twice a day especially in summer, rain wind or shine. Rabbits, mice, rats, collared doves you name it - she brought them home.
Since her demise, the bird population in this garden has increased despite the fact that we have always fed the birds.
A single cat therefore, is capable of huge damage, never mind x million as calculated by laurentian.
You cannot say "thats nature" because it is not. 10,000,000 cats is un-natural and inflated directly due to humans and therefore the balance between predator and prey is skee wiff.
Keeping them in at night, neutering and sterilising both domestic and feral cats is a start. Having a law that limits the number of cats an individual owns would sound extreme but would be feasible.

Cleat Eastwood

I hate cats. I'll vote for him ^^^

graeme_s-2

laurentian wrote:

If each predator killed 1 bird or mammal per week, using the figures above as a range, we would have somewhere between 83 and 208 million predated birds and small mammals per year in the UK - that's only if they killed once per week! Seems an awfully big price for our indigenous species to pay for people not being able or willing to control their pets.

I watched the programme this evening, and I believe in their study they averaged 0.5 prey per predator per week. Also I've no idea whether that figure of 40% being predatory takes into account house cats that have no opportunity to predate.

It's also worth keeping in mind that domestic cats have been kept in the UK since the Romans brought them in ~30BC. In other words they're more indigenous to the UK than Christianity.

Mikey23

Quite an interesting prog I thought. A lot of owners seemed quite shocked that other cats were going in to their houses by the cat flap and pinching food and this seemed to be quite common. It seems that quite a lot don't hunt or aren't very good at it and most spend most of their time at home and only go out when they are bored. Some very weird owners ....

mfin

Two indisputably, 100%, true 'cat facts':

1. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
2. Cats are crap.

...or... four solid cat facts...

1. There's a way to skin a cat.
2. There's another way to skin a cat.
3. There might well be other additional ways that a cat could be skinned.
4. Cats are crap.

Giraffoto

mfin wrote:

Two indisputably, 100%, true 'cat facts':

1. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
2. Cats are crap.

...or... four solid cat facts...

1. There's a way to skin a cat.
2. There's another way to skin a cat.
3. There might well be other additional ways that a cat could be skinned.
4. Cats are crap.

And they're bl00dy freeloaders! True story now . . .
A former colleague was a bit upset about the neighbours' cat $h!tting in his veg patch (given that he eats the produce and digs there himself, you can see his point), and said as much at work. Someone else chipped in "I've had a similar problem. Grandkids came round the other day and I got out the sandpit, and some cat buried his cr@p in there overnight." This got the first chap thinking, so he dug out a few patches of his veg patch, put a blown up balloon in the hole, and topped it up with sand. A day or two later he noticed one of the balloons had burst, and it was months before he saw a cat in his garden

goonz

Mikey23 wrote:

Quite an interesting prog I thought. A lot of owners seemed quite shocked that other cats were going in to their houses by the cat flap and pinching food and this seemed to be quite common. It seems that quite a lot don't hunt or aren't very good at it and most spend most of their time at home and only go out when they are bored. Some very weird owners ....

Imagine what their cats are like then!

goonz

DesWeller wrote:

Genuine question - why can't cats generally be kept indoors? I have plenty of friends with indoor-only cats - what do people who live in flats with cats do?

Cats naturally need to roam and need space so keeping them at home can be deemed unfair and cruel.

I rescued my cat from a shelter and they put so much emphasis on the amount of space and whether you have a garden and access to one. If you do not they will not allow you to adopt a cat that has been used to the outdoors. In this instance we could only adopt a kitten that have always been indoor only.

All shelters will make these checks, its only inconsiderate pet owners that buy cats directly from breeders or pet shops who do not care where the cat has been or how it has been kept.

goonz

pinarello001 wrote:

We had a cat called midnight. Midnight was a sandwich short of a picnic having been scraped off the road and rescued by us as a kitten. She ran on pure instinct. The result was a furry, environmental disaster. She hunted every day and killed at least twice a day especially in summer, rain wind or shine. Rabbits, mice, rats, collared doves you name it - she brought them home.
Since her demise, the bird population in this garden has increased despite the fact that we have always fed the birds.

Sure you didn't rescue a lion???

natrix

[quote="Giraffoto"... so he dug out a few patches of his veg patch, put a blown up balloon in the hole, and topped it up with sand. A day or two later he noticed one of the balloons had burst, and it was months before he saw a cat in his garden[/quote]

Actually quite a sensible way to deal with the problem............

Mikey23

ive tried the haring down the garden path and shouting approach every time i see one ... some forums say they will quickly realise they are not welcome and change their itinerary. prob is the neighbours now think im a loon...

goonz

Just get a dog.

graeme_s-2

Or a feisty rabbit. When I was a kid we had a pet rabbit that used to keep all the neighbourhood cats out of the garden. They used to skirt round the fence peering in to see if it was out.

desweller

goonz wrote:

DesWeller wrote:

Genuine question - why can't cats generally be kept indoors? I have plenty of friends with indoor-only cats - what do people who live in flats with cats do?

Cats naturally need to roam and need space so keeping them at home can be deemed unfair and cruel.

I rescued my cat from a shelter and they put so much emphasis on the amount of space and whether you have a garden and access to one. If you do not they will not allow you to adopt a cat that has been used to the outdoors. In this instance we could only adopt a kitten that have always been indoor only.

All shelters will make these checks, its only inconsiderate pet owners that buy cats directly from breeders or pet shops who do not care where the cat has been or how it has been kept.

Why can't they be taken for a walk on a lead like a dog?

goonz

Because its a cat?

Mikey23

Don't be so pedantic ;-)

RichN95.

As the saying goes "Dogs have owners, Cats have staff"

And that Horizon program did nothing to dispel that notion. They will do what they please. We may think we rule the world, but cats pretty much have everything sorted - they get someone else to buy their house for them. You won't see a cat with a mortgage.

FatTed

Seems this is a problem in New York
http://nymag.com/news/features/cats-and-birds-2013-6/
and New Zealand
http://garethsworld.com/catstogo/
Beijing is worse no cats dogs or birds, just pollution.

Mikey23

Anyway, the adult male is now mentoring a young male, and the surviving chick seems to be doing ok by itself. The adult female has disappeared so I suspect she has more eggs to brood. So a 50% success rate is pretty good I guess. And the local cats are pretty rubbish at hunting. Have fenced off the stalking alley and chased off offending cats at every opportunity, peace and equilibrium has now returned to the locality... Thanks guys for all your input. A very interesting range of opinions ...

verylonglegs

RichN95 wrote:

As the saying goes "Dogs have owners, Cats have staff"

And that Horizon program did nothing to dispel that notion. They will do what they please. We may think we rule the world, but cats pretty much have everything sorted - they get someone else to buy their house for them. You won't see a cat with a mortgage.

Or "you love and feed a dog and it thinks you're God, you love and feed a cat and it think it's God". Reminds me of a mate who's cat went 'missing', he enquired around the neighbourhood and it turned out it was getting fed regularly in 3 different places all whom claimed and were convinced they were the owners of said cat as they'd been feeding it for so long.

Giraffoto

As I said so many times (it might have been twice): cats are a bunch of freeloaders.

And now for a hypothetical situation . . . .
Your neighbour keeps rats. He loves rats. He doesn't put collars on them, because he's scared that they'll strangle themselves (a hazard that dogs manage to avoid well enough) and because you can't get rat collars. He lets his rats run free in his garden. Being rats, they don't understand the significance of the fence between his property and yours.
1. Are you going to have a word with him about the rats coming into your house/garden?
2. How will you respond to his statement that his rats are certified disease free?
3. Will you accept that "rats just come and go" (like cats)?

Or, if you're going to say that this isn't an issue because your cat will get them, let's say he keeps ferrets. Same situation as above, except he also claims they're very sweet-natured and won't bite anyone

simonhead

SuperStella

I kept my cats indoors for years and even when i did eventually let them out they were so utterly inept at hunting they never caught a thing.

The cat I had as a child was a genius mouser - now who can argue with that? And definitely not a freeloader - he worked for his living!

There was that thing on tv recently where they camera'd up a village of cats and found only a tiny minority of them ever went hunting - most of them just went from house to house stealing each other's food!!

shortcuts

Fekkin cats!!

Seem to have a new tom cat started visiting my garden and spraying fence/gate post, pot planters etc. Now when I open the door onto my patio there is an overpowering stench of cat pi$$.
Why is it cat owners don't seem to give a sh1t about the feelings of us non cat lovers. God damn I am beginning to develop a hatred of the little bastards.

Mikey23

Just run up and down the garden shouting abuse at it ... Either it will go or you will be sectioned, either way sorted