raygun wrote:There are around 8.5 million cats in the U.K.
If each cat kills one songbird a week they collectively kill 425 million songbirds a year.
Why are they not on the vermin list for protection of songbirds ?
ATB
Ray.
What political party would commit suicide by bringing in that legislation?
I've had this argument so many times and I understand the frustration of non cat owners and bird lovers. Just for the sake of argument I counter with "survival of the fittest" and the example of the dopey blackbird that builds a nest 2ft off the ground and loses her chicks to a cat. The cat may have done blackbirds a favour by removing a clutch that carries the gene of a gormless parent.
Our cats have had very few songbirds, certainly not 4 a week between them, they do upset the crows, magpies and jackdaws though so maybe they have saved more songbirds than they've caught?
As for mammals? We trap, poison and shoot rats, poison and trap mice, kill moles, shoot, snare and ferret for rabbits, many people will kill weasels and stoats on sight. It's not natural for us to target these animals because we have no intention of eating most of them and they rarely pose a threat directly to us do they? Cats do what is natural to them, not out of cruelty, certainly most of what ours catch gets eaten with just a few bits left as presents for us.
I would agree with some kind of "cat control" though, Clare is well on the way to becoming "The mad cat lady!"
