Newsgroups: rec.birds
Path: utzoo!rising
From: rising@utzoo.uucp (Jim Rising)
Subject: Cats & WIld Birds
Message-ID: <1989Nov23.141826.24882@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 89 14:18:26 GMT

I like cats and birds too, and rodents, for that matter.  The problem
with house cats "doing their thing with the birds at your feeder" is
that they don play by the "rules" of wild predators.  When they strike
out with the wildlife, they come inside for a can of Whiskers.  So they
continue to knock off the odd bird, mouse, salamander, snake, lizard, 
etc., but are not in any limited by what they can catch.  Among other
things, this means that they can occur in far higher density than would
naturally occur--and can cause serious damage to the urban wildlife.

We keep our cat inside (where he gets the odd mouse and occasionally
one of our caged birds), but if he were to go out, I'd sure as h*ll
bell him.  

Note that the cats have very little success with the urban regulars--adult
House Sparrows, pigeons, and starlings--but really rake up during migration
(getting a variety of warbler and wrens, esp.).

--Jim Rising
-- 
Name:     Jim Rising
Mail:     Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada    M5S 1A1
UUCP:     uunet!attcan!utzoo!rising 
BITNET:   rising@utzoo.utoronto.bitnet