PETE WEDDERBURN Animal Doctor
cats affecting the bird and small mammal species loss that has happened in the past century. This includes mismanagement and loss of traditional wildlife habitat, climate change and the increased use of pesticides and fertilisers in modern farming. Cats have been part of the European ecosystem for thousands of years, and while there are more cats now ( just as there are more people), this increase has happened gradually, and nature has adapted to this. The RSPB has done research that shows that species of commonly hunted garden birds are not in danger of serious depletion because of cats.
There’s no doubt that there are specific circumstances where cats should be kept indoors, such as areas where there may be ground nesting birds with limited populations (such as certain islands or parts of New Zealand and the USA). But it’s just wrong to try to make this a globalised rule of cat keeping.
Apart from anything else, if cats stopped hunting, there would be a population explosion of rats and mice, and what effect would that have on wild birds?
A friend of mine recently kept a tally of the prey brought home by his three cats over the previous three months: Sid, Teabag and Murray had differing preferences for various prey items. It’s the ratio of rodents to birds that is most noticeable: between them they took 20 rats and mice, 6 birds and 10 frogs. So if those cats had been kept indoors, there would be many more rats and frogs, as well as birds.The entire ecosystem of the area would change, and not necessarily for the better.
Rather than looking for a complete ban on cats outside, it makes far more sense to ask people to take a reasonable approach to limiting the impact of their pets on wildlife. For example, if cats were only allowed out during daytime hours, they’d avoid the peak hours of hunting during dusk and dawn. A bell around the collar is another simple precaution. A recent study found that cats wearing a bell on the collar caught 34 per cent fewer mammals and 41 per cent fewer birds.
Some outdoor activity is good for cats: it keeps them fit and psychologically destresses them but they don’t need to be outdoors all the time. The newspaper headline would have been more accurate to say: “CATS SHOULD BE KEPT INDOORS SOMETIMES”. But that doesn’t grab the eye in the same way, does it?