Cats Kill Billions Of Birds Every Year. It’s Time For That To Stop.

cats kill an estimated 2.4 billion Birds every year in the United States alone making them one of the leading causes of bird mortality can you see like right in there there's like a baby bird yeah that's it right there and you he chirping oh my God that's so depressing while cats may take the blame for declining bird populations if you're a cat owner who lets your friendly feline have free reign of the city then you just might be an accessory to bird murder oh my God you areen a menace hi I'm Danielle Duo this is my cat nebula and you're watching animal logic cats have lived with us for thousands of years but unlike our canine companions they still operate much like their wild ancestors and that's because when we consider their evolutionary timeline cats really haven't been domesticated for that long they've only been domesticated for about 10,000 years dogs for comparison were first domesticated about 30,000 years ago and there lies the great domestic cat debate to Ram or not to Ram according to a 2020 study house cats have a 2 to 10 times larger impact on Wildlife than wild Predators like Hawks and snakes even though cats stay within about 100 meters of their home they devastate the ecosystems in their vicinity and in places with lots of cats those small areas add up to Giant swaths of Devastation cats have contributed to the extinction of about 60 vertebrate species globally with more than half of them being bird species according to scientists in Canada the wild bird population has plummeted by about 12% since the 1980s despite efforts to protect forests wetlands and other habitats and some of the greatest declines we have seen have been in common backyard feeder birds like sparrows doves and finches these devastating statistics are truly heartbreaking and an indication that something needs to be done and thankfully nature Canada is doing something about it they have been fighting to protect wildbird populations for over 80 years and are the sponsors for today's episode and one of the learnings from their almost Century of EXP experience is that some of the best Solutions start at the local level in our own backyards cities towns and municipalities of all sizes have a lot of power to protect bird populations from declining nature Canada's bird-friendly City program encourages towns and cities to implement things that help humans birds and cats live safely together to achieve the highest bird friendly City certification cities and towns must have a no roam bylaw for cats cut the use of pesticides and incorporate bird-friendly building designs if you live in Canada and want to see if your hometown is a certified bird-friendly City visit birds. nan.com impact that birds have on our ecosystem I spoke with Dr Elizabeth GA a research scientist at environment and climate change Canada I like to think of birds they kind of like the blue color workers of ecosystems they are one of the main movers of seeds that help with plants being transferred they eat insects in some very very large numbers and if birds are not eating insects the insect populations start to get really big and that can damage our trees and crops and plants so when you remove an important player or important element of an ecosystem such as Birds it drastically changes the ecosystems and so our forests aren't going to be as healthy the air isn't going to be as clean and it really creases cascading effect this is a lesson China knows all too well in the late 1950s as part of their four pests campaign they promoted the killing of sparrows but sparrows were helping to keep the Locust population at Bay and without Birds to control them the locusts decimated rice crops limiting the food supply and contributing to a famine in China it's easy to see that birds play a vital role in our world and the health of our forests marshes and grasslands so they need to be protected but cats affect more than just Birds most of us probably think of cats hunting birds or mice but in fact they hunt a variety of animals including snakes frogs rabbits and butterflies we have all seen A variation of this picture and maybe have said a an unlikely friendship but little did we know that that butterfly's days were numbered and that number was Zero let's be honest cats are just trying to cat it's really about our place in the ecosystem as pet owners roughly 30% of all Canadians own a cat and conservationists estimate that if Canadians kept their pet cats indoors we could help save 200 million Birds each year if you own a cat that you let roam freely outside you might be thinking well my cat never brings home any prey so I'm good cinnamon is an angel well not so fast a study conducted by researchers at the University of Georgia found that cats brought home less than a quarter of the prey they killed that's right they have a whole secret life that you don't know about those foxy felines so today I have a Mr pet cam time tiny little camera for a cat CER and a little air tag and we're going to try and put it on my mom's cat who is an indoor outdoor cat she knows it's not supposed to be and we're going to see if we can track his position see how far he goes and then with the camera tomorrow morning we're going to see if he got up to any Mischief Georgia you have a fat neck oh are you Mr Handsome okay let's go outside and see how we do okay let's go [Music] boys oh oh my God I forgot to hit record on the cat so I'm a huge dumb Dum and I recorded nothing so now it's night time and we're going to try the nighttime mode Let's go try it all right let's do this you want to go outside buddy yeah you look really proper pissed let's go [Music] okay so it's almost 1:00 a.m. uh Giorgio just got back from his night walk you can see he's smacking his chops I really didn't think he'd do anything is the most you know predatory thing he's done so far in the camera is like eat a blade of grass and then I'm looking the footage oh my God he goes up in a tree goes into a bird's nest and grabs what looks like a baby bird and brings it to the ground and eats it alive while it's screaming you are a absolute mad man let's just watch going up tree okay okay okay there's the nest you see the nest can you see like right in there there's like a baby bird okay I think he has it now okay he's jumped down isn't that it it in its mouth you can see its leg Yeah that's it right there and you he chirping oh my God that's so depressing oh yeah oh that's the money shot thank you for that buddy sorry bird oh this is quite upsetting oh my God I think he's eating multiple Birds he just killed an entire family of birds if you could see him he looks really just happy with himself this is wild oh God the crazy thing is is he ate before he left then he came home and he just ate some more food so I don't think this has anything to do with feeding your cats well enough so they won't kill things cuz it seems like they're just Bottomless Pits of hunger okay looks like he's finally done his horrifying snack oh he also went super far he went like way further than he went last night he went all the way over to the major Street which is a lot further I've probably already woken her up but I am to and going waking up my mom to tell her that her cat is a absolute Menace all right so what have we learned don't let your cats outside because they're absolute murder machines but now we know I mean we knew before but now there's evidence and my family might believe me so kids don't okay oh yeah really you just ate like eight birds do not rub up against me with your little lips is it's hard to reconcile our love for our pet cats and the Damage they cause but there are ways to give your cat outdoor time without impacting our flying friends things like ctios cat proof fences and using a leash when you take your cat outside or indoor enrichment ideas like a window perch introducing some cat furniture or even bringing in some cat toys oh look at you not only are cats amazing amazing Killers but they're also great at making more amazing Killers so the problem can quickly multiply into a lot of very cute kittens that eventually grow into apex predators the instinct to want to let your cat Outdoors is understandable but there are clear safety benefits to keeping your cat indoors that warrant our attention a 2019 study found that outdoor cats were nearly three times more likely to be infected with parasites compared to indoor only cats plus indoor only cats tend to live over 10 years longer than our outdoor cats this could be due to risky behavior that cats May engage in when they're left free to roam things like Crossing busy roads predators and dust ups with other animals not to mention exposure to rat poison toxic plants and disease cats actually spread a lot of diseases from toxoplasmosis which is a parasite other diseases like fine leukemia or uh fine M deficiency virus which is kind of like HIV for cats and so they can spread it when they come into contact with other cats and there's even some reports of them spreading into wild cat populations like cougars and bobcats we spent some time with April Campbell a volunteer Trapper at the annex cat rescue so what do you think about the whole mentality that cats are meant to be outside and that they're just happier out there the majority of cats are quite happy inside they live great lives we can offer them lots of enrichment they don't need to go go outside and when we let our cats outside especially if they aren't fixed they're contributing to the feral cat population because those cats will either impregnate cats who are already outside or they'll get pregnant and they may not return home to have those kittens do you find that feral cats hunt a lot or would they just rather be fed cats I think are inherently lazy and they'll go for the free meal wherever they can get it but there's no doubt that they do kill birds cats are hunters and the bird flies by and it triggers that instinct and they chase it and they hunt it in partnership with nature Canada Dr GA set up a study in getso Quebec to try and Implement a system other cities could use to understand how many wandering and feral cats are in each neighborhood so that cities can tailor their approach to addressing the feral and wandering cat population one of the first steps that we kind of need to address the magnitude of the problems of how many cats there are is to actually count them so it's hard to know how big a problem is until you actually have numbers to tell you what that is and so this involved putting trail cameras up in people's yards for several weeks and then taking those trail cameras down and seeing if there were cats recorded on those cameras then a bunch of complex computer programs do you then get some numbers of of how many cats there were and and what sort of what neighborhoods that they tended to be in by identifying what neighborhoods have the most outdoor and feral cats cities can tailor their approach to reducing those numbers for instance if there are a lot of outdoor cats in lower inome neighborhoods there might be an opportunity to explore free spay and neuter programs some of the cats Dr GA was counting were free roaming house cats but others were feral and feral cats can live pretty hard lives something April and volunteers like her are trying to help with April let us come along on a mission to capture three feral cats in the hopes that they would be caught fixed and then find their forever homes today we're in the back alleys and yards of Toronto and we're joining the annex cat rescue for a special Mission we are here to try and capture three stray cats that a lovely family has been feeding for about a week now we need to try and catch all three of them at once in the drop trap because if only two or maybe even just one gets trapped the other ones will likely be scared and Scamper off let's try and catch some [Music] kitties TNR is done mostly by volunteers and most of us have full-time jobs as well feral cats are out most often early in the morning or late in the evening so a lot of the time it's getting up early to go and find the cats or feed the cats or trap the cats most of the traps are designed so that we never come into actual contact with the cat so that the cat is safe and that we are safe but the socializing can be a little dangerous because sometimes it means sticking your hands in with cats that don't necessarily want to be your friend so the TNR itself is not dangerous it's usually what happens after [Music] with the siren song of the treat bag this little feral Kitty came running and we already had dinner set up for him so he is mowing down oh here comes a few more oh oh this guy's so little take a look at this guy we got two wish us luck [Music] well that's two out of three oh they're panicking right now but they are definitely off to a better [Music] place oh boy covering them up will help them calm down these cats are going to be tagged and then neutered and then either released or rehomed depending on their temperament their health and a number of factors [Music] breaks my heart but he's going to a better place it's okay kiddo you're going to get so many treats and snacks oh this bigger male is definitely fighting the the cage he's not happy being free is all he's known but it also hasn't been good to him oh good yes he finally tired out a bit and he ran into the carrier oh good I'm just so glad they didn't hurt themselves so that's two out of three cats captured but there's one [Music] more oh my goodness we just caught the third cat this could have gone any number of ways but I'm so thrilled to know that these three cats are going to be in a better [Music] place so now that these cats are trapped and they're getting their vet care do you think that they have a prospect of being rehomed rather than being put back out on the street these ones definitely these cats are very friendly they're very used to people the male was rolling around on the ground asking for pets so he was probably someone's pet at some point the kittens were prob born outside but they've been socialized to humans enough that people have been feeding them that they have good Prospect of getting into homes now from April's perspective she has seen TNR in combination with placing homeless cats into foster or adoption programs really work and colonies no longer exist because cats aren't reproducing have aged out or have found a home but TNR as a method on its own can be controversial and critics argue whether or or not the method is truly effective one of the arguments is that TNR still doesn't address the effects feral cats have on Wildlife the Trap NE release is kind of like a shelter on the street which is a bit of a highly highly controversial management approach because there isn't the indoor space to house cats they're neutered usually vaccinated spade and then they're released usually back to either the same area or they return somewhere else and that certainly doesn't help birds it it doesn't help sort of these bigger problems it might help those individual cats from not reproducing but research is showing that you need like well over 90 95% of all cats to be SP and neutered some cats are rehomed which is a much better option but not all cats can be so it is a money thing it's super complicated and challenging fostering or adopting cats from shelters is a great way to be a part of the solution and if you already have a cat make sure you keep it inside as both a bird lover and a cat lover I hope that we as humans can start to take ownership of the role we have to play in changing ecosystems to ensure a happy ending for Our Feathered Friends I know that this is going to be controversial and I also understand that a lot of people have cats that live outside like Dylan's little murder mittens that's most of our cats we just don't get to see it they don't bring it home they just come home with a smug expression and mystery in their eyes but the truth is that we created this this problem and unfortunately the cats are suffering for it and Via them the environment is suffering for it I think it's important to make the case that just because a cat is happy going outside doesn't mean they can't also be happy inside I try really hard to make this place as happy and as livable for my cat as it is for me cuz let's face it cats aren't going anywhere they're staying we just need to keep them a little closer to home [Music] [Music] [Music] thanks again to Nature Canada for protecting birds and sponsoring this video so what should we talk about next please let me know in the comments and don't forget to subscribe for new episodes every week thanks for watching and see [Music] you nebs tell me you wouldn't eat a baby bird nebs you wouldn't would you

Channel: Animalogic

Views: 36,451

Keywords: animals, animal, logic, education, animalogic, crazy, ugly, weird, gross, beautiful, interesting, facts, about, information, school, research, learn, learning, smart, 4k, nature documentary, nature doc, floralogic, second nature, cat, indoor cat, outdoor cat, cat leash, cats hunt birds, domestic cat, feral cat, cats killing birds, cat camera, collar camera, hidden camera, secret life of cats, secret life of pets, cats cause extinction, curiosity killed the cat, deadliest predator, apex predator

Id: VrfXmyuzBAw

Length: 20min 52sec (1252 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2024