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From: rcb33483@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (ArchTeryx)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Bird feeding Station
Message-ID: <1991Apr18.020707.11822@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 18 Apr 91 02:07:07 GMT
References: <1991Apr15.225115.3695@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> <1991Apr16.191709.29728@NPIRS.Purdue.EDU> <1991Apr17.072124.3028@nmt.edu> <1991Apr17.163718.27746@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> <1991Apr18.005951.4489@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>
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sid@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Sid Johnson WB6VWH) writes:


>Especially at this time of year, even if you don't have feeders out right
>now.  It is nesting season as well as lots of migratory birds passing
>throught the area right now.  Our youngest cat got an Orange-crowned
>Warbler today, even though belled.  Karen was furious and I'm afraid the
>kitty will be confined to the hous for a week or so as punishment for 
>such a deed.  She managed to get it away before the cat did much
>damage but Sam Conroy's messages from a year or so ago tell me that
>the bird will die anyway.  One of her cage birds died today also, so 
>she is not fit to even call on the phone.

Probably the reason is that I have heard from more than one source that 
feline saliva contains bacteria that is a powerful avian pathogen, that
the birds have little or no defense against, and is fatal very quickly.  So
that even if the cat gets a scratch in with it's teeth, and gets a little
saliva into that scratch, most birds are doomed.  I heard a story of a falconer
of a cat that managed to nip a Red-Tailed hawk; the hawk came within an inch
of dying from the resulting infection.

--
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R. Cody Buchmann                             ^.^  
  "ArchTeryx"                 
                                      "Of *course* I understand you--I speak 
email: rcb33483@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu       1406 intergalactic avian dialects!"  
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