Best way to save birds is lock up cats, says parks chief

Conservationist’s tirade against the feline ‘so-called pets’ he says are ‘spoiling other people’s enjoyment’

PET owners may wish to look away now, but a conservationist has hatched a radical plan to protect birds from an early death: namely, to lock up all cats in order to bring a halt to their killing sprees. Tony Duckett, conservation officer for the Royal Parks in London, believes felines should be banned from going outdoors.

Mr Duckett, who has been in charge of rare birds at Regent’s Park since 1978, has said that cats are a chief cause of avian deaths.

His remarks follow BBC presenter Chris Packham’s successful campaign against general shooting licences, which allowed farmers to kill birds such as wood pigeons and crows that cause damage to their animals and crops. Suffolk farmers Brian and Patrick Barker posted on Twitter that pet cats were more of a threat to birds, and that the revocation of general licences was a “shameful state of affairs”.

They wrote: “Getting rather fed up with all this general licence stuff so I’m going to suggest one more! Genlic 101: Required if you want to keep a domestic cat. It must be kept inside at all times and not left to roam free as they do more silent damage than corvids do to all bird populations.”

Mr Duckett tweeted in reply: “I agree, these so-called pets shouldn’t be allowed to roam freely, s------- in other people’s gardens, killing birds or just putting them off.

“The owners have no right spoiling other people’s enjoyment. I’d love to take their s--- back and scatter it over their owners’ garden[s].

“The law again fails to defend the homeowner. As well as killing millions of birds, they have brought the Scottish wildcat to the edge of extinction.” Battersea Dogs and Cats Home dismissed the bird officer’s suggestion. A spokesperson explained: “Cats are naturally independent and territorial animals that enjoy exploring their surroundings and marking an area as their own. Outdoor access provides great opportunities to display natural, normal feline behaviours including roaming and hunting.”

Meanwhile, the UK’S leading countryside organisations wrote a joint letter to Environment Secretary Michael Gove to “take control” of Natural England and stop the general licence chaos, after farmers were only given two days’ notice of the legal challenge in a joint letter.

The National Farmers’ Union, Countryside Alliance, National Gamekeepers’ Association, Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and British Association of Shooting and Conservation said: “This … has caused enormous problems … for everyone reliant on the general licences. Their withdrawal has come at the worst possible time, when lambs, young crops and nesting birds are in most need of protection from marauding ‘pest’ birds.”