Hi everyone, I hope all is well! I have a new open ecology article, and this one is kind of left-field! It's from the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
You can find the open access link here: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.2254
As always, please feel free to discuss this article in the comments below if you like. Questions, comments, or anything remotely relevant is fair game!
Abstract: Policy proposals to address predation of wildlife by domestic cats (Felis catus) include reducing cat populations, regulating ownership, educating owners, and restricting catsβ outdoor access. Such proposals rarely account for cat ownersβ perspectives, however, and are frequently met with strong, principled opposition. We conducted a Qβmethodological study to investigate the views of domestic cat owners in the UK on the roaming and hunting behaviors of their pets. We identified five distinctive catβowner perspectives: (1) Concerned Protectors focus on cat safety, (2) Freedom Defenders prioritize cat independence and oppose restrictions on behavior, (3) Tolerant Guardians believe outdoor access is important for cats but dislike their hunting, (4) Conscientious Caretakers feel some responsibility for managing their catsβ hunting, and (5) Laissezβfaire Landlords were largely unaware of the issues surrounding roaming and hunting behavior. Most participants valued outdoor access for cats and opposed confinement to prevent hunting; cat confinement policies are therefore unlikely to find support among owners in the UK. To address this conservation challenge, we argue that generic policies will be less effective than multidimensional strategies offering owners practical husbandry approaches that are compatible with their diverse circumstances, capabilities, and senses of responsibility.
Why YSK: Letting your cats outside may be great for their mental health, but it is worse for your local ecosystem. Cats are natural predators, and as a result are the largest and most abundant invasive predator of birds in the US.
Feral cats number over 50M in the US, equating to about 8 billion small game hunts per year, most of which are small song birds.(2.4 billion)
Why is this important to me?
a single mating pair of cats can produce 400,000 offspring in 7 years
cats kill about 50% of songbird fledglings (baby birds) they will never recover at this rate
a UNebraska study has pinned 33 bird extinction events on cat predation
Humans, almost 8 billion of us and our cars, are responsible for about 400M deaths of song-birds annually, cats are 2.4 billion
This issue is 100% to blame on irresponsible cat owners because they are an invasive species brought here by pet trade.
Source:Wintu Audubon Society - Feral cats drive songbird decline
You're going deep into the wilderness or at least Into the Woods which is the home to a lot of different species particularly species that would regard a canine such as your dog as a potential predator and a threat. For some species of birds and smaller mammals if they smell a predator within 10 miles of their nesting ground they will abandon that nesting ground for up to a generation you should which can be upwards of 20 years and with the scarcity of certain habitats endangered species have a limited range now and if they smell a canine in that area they will abandon that range which fundamentally could eliminate their access to a breeding ground
So please if a hiking trail says no dogs there is more than one reason for it so please respect the signs your decision to take your dog with you on a hiking trail can affect more than you and the dog and the other people using the trail it can affect the local wildlife severely to the point it will have a negative impact on some endangered species losing more range in their nesting grounds
I've seen a lot of posts on here arguing for indoor cats because of coyotes or because they kill birds, and, whilst these are valid arguments, I don't see why the sensible option is seen as "confine a social predator to never go outside," instead of "don't buy that predator as a pet, get a hamster."
