Winter 2006
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Winter 2006 |
What about those neighbors' cats? A BWS manager wrote us last fall that the only problem with her sanctuary, which is visited daily by at least 50 birds of five species, is the neighbor's cats. "I wish the cats could read my sanctuary sign, or at least get their masters to," she wrote. "How do you tell your neighbors, ever so politely, that their cats should not be let loose to hunt?" We advise appealing to a cat owner's regard for their pets by relaying this information about cat health and safety from the Humane Society of the United States: Cats kept indoors have at least triple the lifespan of cats allowed outdoors. Free-roaming cats are injured or die from motor vehicle collisions, attacks by other animals, accidental poisoning or trapping, and parasites and diseases. If you can get your neighbors' attention with that information, maybe you can talk to them about the damage cats can do to wildlife. Studies have shown that a free-roaming cat kills at least one wild animal every month. With more than 60 million cats in this country, and Seattle neighborhoods averaging at least 30 cats per block, that's potentially a lot of wildlife kills. Cats injure far more birds and other wildlife than they kill, too. Washington wildlife rehabilitators report at least 17 percent of all injuries they deal with are caused by cats. Many cat lovers don't believe their pets hunt or hurt anything, or they believe that de-clawing or equipping a cat with a bell will take care of it. The truth is cats hunt instinctively and you cannot teach them not to hunt. De-clawed cats simply bat down their prey and bells don't work because wild animals don't associate them with danger. There's lots
more information about how to keep a cat happy indoors at the American
Bird Conservancy's webpage on their "Cats
Indoors!" campaign, and in both WDFW's books, "Living
with Wildlife" and "Landscaping for Wildlife," available
at WDFW offices and through http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/books_link.htm. |
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