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To kill a mockingbird, just get a cat
In urban areas, cats are the primary predator of mockingbird babies.

By

LiveScience
Fri, May 06 2011 at 1:22 PM
 7

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Birds, Science
Cat eying from bird eggs

Photo: Gianna Stadelmyer/Dreamstime.com

Housecats are a scourge to urban mockingbirds, a new study finds, killing the birds' nestlings and eating their eggs.
 
While it's no shock to researchers and bird-lovers that roaming cats can wreak havoc on birds, the finding that cats are stalking mockingbird nests came as a surprise.
 
"I thought the cats probably really hammered them [the birds] when they were fledglings, but when they were in the nests, I didn't really expect the cats to be a huge problem," study researcher Christine Stracey, a former doctoral student at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, said in a statement. "But I was really wrong about that."
 
Cat attacks
Stracey and her colleagues put video cameras on mockingbird nests in both rural and urban areas. They found that in urban areas, cats are the perpetrators of more than 70 percent of nest attacks.
 
Snakes, crows and swallow-tailed kites also hunted nestlings and eggs in urban areas, the researchers reported in May in the journal Biological Conservation. In rural spots, flying squirrels, opossums, raccoons and blue jays were all threats.
 
Stracey said the videos couldn't determine for sure whether the cats were pets or strays, though some were wearing collars. The American Bird Conservatory estimates that cats kill hundreds of millions of birds in the United States each year.
 
The familiar Northern Mockingbird, or Mimus polyglottos, is listed as a species of "least concern" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, meaning their survival isn't being threatened. Even so, the cat predation is a concern for several reasons.
 
One, Stracey said, is that there are many other birds in the area whose nests are likely all-you-can-eat buffets for cats.
 
"We only put cameras on mockingbird nests, but there are a number of species that nest in similar places," said Stracey, who is now a professor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. "We don't see any reason why cats wouldn't also eat cardinal nestlings, brown thrashers, towhees – anything else that is nesting in similar locations."
 
Secondly, understanding mockingbird survival may be important for the conservation of at-risk species.
 
"Here's this native species that is able to not only live with us, but do really well living with us, and so it represents kind of the opposite of what we normally think about the effects cities have on native birds," Stracey said. "If we can figure out why and how it succeeds, maybe there's ways and things we can do in terms of city planning and management that could promote the success of some of these other native species that aren't doing as well."
 
Keeping cats inside
Many people deny that cats are urban predators, Amanda Rodewald, a wildlife ecologist at The Ohio State University, said in a statement.
 
"But this study shows clearly that cats were the dominant predator in this Florida system," said Rodewald, who was not involved in the research. "And that wasn't presumed, it was recorded on video, so it was a fact."
 
If pet owners want to protect birds, the best thing they can do is keep their cats inside, Stracey said — especially at night.
 
"All but one of these cat events occurred at night," she said. "People should not let their cats roam outdoors at all, but at the very least, keeping them inside at night will cut down on nest predation. Beyond that, we need to think hard about the feral cat problem."
 
This article was reprinted with permission from LiveScience.
 
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Comments: 7
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anonymous
Woodsman Jul 25 2011 at 4:57 AM
Moral of the Story: I wasted 15 YEARS of my life arguing with demented cat-lovers. During which THEIR CATS DESTROYED ALL WILDLIFE ON MY LAND. It wasn't until I STOPPED arguing and did what needed to be done -- SHOOT ALL CATS -- that my land, all the wildlife on my land, and my life itself started to return to normal. I no longer have to go out twice a day on cat-patrol to shoot more cats nor waste more time and energy burying them to protect wildlife from the diseases they carry. I hope the rest
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of you learn from this lesson. You can argue with the Toxoplasmosis parasites in the cat-lovers' brains until you are blue in the face and your whole planet is destroyed by their cats, but it'll never get rid of the cats that have destroyed your life and all wildlife. JUST DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE -- DESTROY THEM. Only later, AFTER your land and life are 100% free of cats, can you have fun educating the ineducable. Use the time you got back from their cats taking over your life to share the best ways to destroy all cats. (Without harming any other wildlife nor humans.) Then if you want, make YOUR life THEIR problem. Just as they made THEIR cats YOUR problem for all these many years. It's only fair! Because that's what it's really all about, it's not about cats at all. THEY ONLY WANT TO CONTROL YOUR LIFE WITH THEIR CATS. You can put a stop to that immediately BY DESTROYING THEIR CATS. And there's not ONE THING they can do about it if you do it right. They'll no longer have any part of your life.
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anonymous
Woodsman Jul 25 2011 at 4:56 AM
Here's another Fun-Fact that trap-advocates fail to realize, in their infinite ignorance of how animal-behavior and evolution works. Those cats that have learned to avoid and evade all trapping methods are the next generation to survive. Ever hear the old adage, "If you invent a better mousetrap nature will just invent a better mouse."? So now, thanks to the supreme stupidity and ignorance of trap-advocates, we have a race of freely roaming cats in all countrysides of every continent which are passing
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on their "how to survive" behavior to all their offspring, both genetically and behaviorally. Now the next phase of millions of feral-cats won't even be able to be trapped. This is just how amazingly stupid trap-advocates are. You thought 150,000,000 feral cats was bad? In colloquial terms, "You ain't seen nuthin' yet!" There's a reason the phrase "hunted to extinction" is so well-known in all cultures across all lands. It is the ONLY method that is faster than a species can breed and adapt to.
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anonymous
Woodsman Jun 28 2011 at 9:32 AM
Here's a few questions that I (and EVERYONE) need to ask all TNR advocates and feral-cat caretakers ... though they never answer these questions, for ANYONE. Don't be shy, TNR people, any of you are free to answer any of these questions for once in your lives ... Once you have claimed ownership of these cats through your actions, do you carry enough liability-insurance for all the damages YOUR CATS will do (not if) when you release them? Or for all the health-care costs YOUR CATS will cause to all
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humans with all the diseases YOUR CATS now carry? Like Toxoplasma gondii, which becomes a lifelong illness once YOUR CATS infect a human with it. Or, should one of YOUR CATS contract rabies during its lifetime because you were unable to trap it again to vaccinate it. How many $MILLIONS in liability insurance do you carry if one of YOUR RABID CATS should bite a human? How about anyone who has lost business due to YOUR CATS running off customers because of the diseases they spread everywhere? Like what happened in Miami where YOUR CATS spread hookworm on all the beaches where YOUR CATS defecated. Can you repay everyone for their $MILLIONS, if not $BILLIONS, in losses of health, life, business, and property? Do you even know what the charge is if YOUR CATS are found destroying endangered plant or animal species? Do you have enough money to pay for any daily or weekly land-use fees that people will be charging you for you using THEIR LAND for YOUR CATS? Usually all done without anyone's permission I might add. (Aside: I notified all neighbors that I charge $10,000 per day, per cat for them to use my land. It's my land, I can charge whatever I want for any use of it. So far none of them seem to want to use my land at that price.) Are you doing all of this completely irresponsibly without regard to the health and welfare of any other animal nor human life? If so, have you considered you could be thrown in prison for a long long time for all of this shamefully irresponsible and extremely criminal behavior of yours? You might want to start thinking about these things. Your actions DO have consequences, and those are consequences that you may not enjoy ... for the rest of your miserable, unthinking, uncaring, inconsiderate, and wholly disrespectful cat-loving lives.
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anonymous
Woodsman Jun 07 2011 at 7:57 PM
Why TNR and Cat Advocates Even Exist ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Behavioral_changes It has been found that Toxoplasma gondii parasite is capable of changing the brains of whatever organism it infests. In mice, they lose the fear of cats and are even attracted to cat-urine. Making the asexual portion of the Toxoplasma gondii life-cycle faster to complete in order to replicate more quickly into its sexual reproduction phase in all host cats. This loss of fear and apprehension manifesting
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itself in humans in a similar manner, even when common-sense tells them they should depend on that sense of fear or doubt for their own survival. Here are other ways that this parasite have been known to alter the thinking patterns of humans: http://wildlifeprofessional.org/blog/?p=3929 I strongly suspect that it might even be responsible for all cat-lovers' wholly contradictory behavior of putting cats, all other animals, and even all humans in harm's-way through their adamant insistence of promoting TNR programs, just to ensure the survival and spread of more Toxoplasma gondii parasites throughout the food-chain and in more humans. They are, in effect, being controlled against all reason and common-sense by the very parasite that is reproducing in their cats. The stuff that sci-fi used to be made of come to reality. Real-life "pod-people". They can't think nor reason beyond the need of ensuring the survival of Toxoplasma gondii. It won't let them.
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anonymous
Woodsman2 May 24 2011 at 4:15 AM
Cats pass disease to wildlife, even in remote areas.http://www.labspaces.net/view_news_comments.php?newsID=110760 Now tell us all what to do about your cats when they crap in our gardens or on our lawns or in our woods (never-mind how much wildlife they have already destroyed just by their behavior) so no humans or other animals die from it. I know what I'll do, use my rifle again, but I'll be much more careful of how I dispose of that carcass, to make sure that no other wildlife nor humans can ever
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come in contact with it again. Who do we send the bill to to clean up this massive ecological disaster that you have created? Alley Cat Allies? It'd be a good start. And for you hunters that shoot them for target practice (like all hunters here do), please bury them now. If a wild animal eats an infected cat carcass it will die from it. I know because I fed some cat-meat to some wild animals here once, hoping I could make use of a cat for something, and I never saw those animals again. There's no other reason they disappeared, they were in my yard every night for 2 years straight and then they never came back after feeding them cat-meat. If I had only known then what I know now. And as for the rest of you? If you don't want to die, your children, pets, or have your wildlife die from a cat just defecating in your yard or garden, the time has come to shoot all cats on sight–everywhere. It's the only way we'll be able to get this problem under control. Whether anyone else condones it or not. It's the only viable solution now. Buy a rifle, go take a firearms education course, and start shooting. If your aim is good (get a laser-sight to make this near fool-proof) this is a FAR more humane method than any animal-shelter methods. One instant they are enjoying stalking some prey to destroy and not eat (even more at night, the laser-sight comes in handy then), the next moment they are unconscious and DEAD DEAD DEAD. It doesn't get more humane than that. And don't go telling me otherwise. I've done it many many dozens of times now. After you've shot all of them that you can find then be sure to wear gloves when disposing of the cat-carcasses. Dispose by incinerating them or burying them deeply enough so their remains won't infect any more animals nor humans. Either that, or take the namby-pamby pissant route that got us to where we are now ... catch every one that you see (and don't see) until all your lands and neighborhoods are 100% free of any roaming cats. Then have them taken in to be tested and then disposed of. OR put under MONITORED QUARANTINED living conditions where they'll never again step foot outside, lest you have to catch them and repeat this process all over again. And we all know what happens when cats are put back in the hands of cat-lovers, don't we. You know, your pissant solution we've used for decades. We're dealing with that problem right now. YOU ALL FAILED, BIG TIME. It's your time and money. Which way do you prefer to solve this massive ecological-disaster that all these sociopathically irresponsible and pathetically idiotic piece-of-s*** cat-lovers caused for the whole world? If you're not going to be part of the solution, then you are just as big a part of the problem. The time for this action of shooting all cats on-sight was 20 years ago. Everyone needs to take this matter into their own hands. Lead or get the f*** out of the way now.
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anonymous
Woodsman May 16 2011 at 3:10 AM
Here's a little insight to help you with your war on cat-lovers and their cats. Now you'll know why cat-lovers actually do what they do. Maybe if you explain this to them you won't have to use more drastic means. Human Territorial Behavior By Expendable Proxy I have come to the inexorable conclusion that the vast majority of cat-lovers and cat-owners that let their destructive invasive-species roam free, and those that defend the rights of feral cats to overtake public property and wildlife areas,
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are only (cowardly) using cats as a proxy for their own territorial behavior. Not unlike uneducated inner-city youth that will disrespectfully and inconsiderately use a boom-box to stake-out a territory for themselves with loud music. As long as they can have one of their possessions defecate in another's yard and the yard-owner not have any recourse, the cat-owner owns that territory. It's time to put a stop to them using their "cute kitty" excuse for usurping and stealing others' property. If they want territory they can damn well buy it just like anyone else. Instead they're using underhanded, disrespectful, and manipulative means by putting (and sacrificing) live animals in the path of their envy and greed. Again proving why they don't care about cats nor anyone else at all. Cat-lovers only really want your lawn, yard, or forest while making all others and all other animals suffer for what they can't have nor own. Bottom line--they want to control you and your property. That's all that "cat-lovers" are really after. It's why they don't care at all if their cat nor any other animals, nor even other humans, get harmed by their goals and (lack of) values in life.
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anonymous
Woodsman May 16 2011 at 3:09 AM
Don't, for even one moment, fall for the song and dance about cat-lovers being animal-lovers, they are anything but that. They don't give one damn about any other animals nor even other humans. Cat-lovers are just like cats, the only thing they care about are themselves. Their TNR (trap, neuter, release) programs are a dismal failure too. A smokescreen and time & money waster. Don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise. Do a search online for the truth about all TNR failures. Those invasive-species
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that are released will still be decimating the food-chain for all native wildlife. In most areas predators that could destroy these invasive cats have also been destroyed. If you feed a TNR cat colony they kill even more wildlife. A well-fed cat kills more animals than a starving one. They don't stop killing other animals just because they're no longer hungry. The healthier they are the more they kill. It's what they do, it's what they are. Lousy little killing machines, nothing more. It's not just the loss of bird populations. Feral cats and farmers that let theirs roam free have decimated the natural food-chain in my woods. The resident foxes, owls, and other predator animals no longer had a food source. The feral cats destroyed all the smaller animals that all others depended on. The native species all starved to death. That's what cats do to ALL native animals. I live where it is perfectly legal to defend your property and animals from destruction by others' animals. I lost count after dispatching the first 20 piece-of-s*** vermin with a good .22, outfitted with laser-sight and zoom rifle-scope. I didn't have to waste even one bullet, making this solution highly economical as well. Think of how many dollars and hours of your lives that you have spent trapping, transporting, calling, complaining, restoring damaged property, et.al. ... and still all the problems that these useless cat-lovers have caused remains. If your aim is good this is far more humane than methods that "humane" societies use. Instead of dying a slow death by animal-shelter methods they don't even know they've been shot. It is now the preferred method for disposing of feral cats in many states. (In fact, shooting is too good for them. By all rights they should be made to starve a slow death, just like they caused to all the predator wildlife. Or maimed to die a slow death, just like they did to all the prey they destroyed. But I'm not as inhumane as cats and cat-lovers are.) t's time to give cats and cat-lovers the same consideration and respect that they have for all humans and all wildlife--that means NONE. Don't waste your time arguing with disrespectful, inconsiderate, and ignorant cat-lovers either, as I stupidly tried to do too many times in the past. Just do what needs to be done and there'll be nothing to argue about. This year owls and foxes have returned to my woods. Through a large effort of my own, including raising and releasing native mice and voles to help repopulate the species that their piece-of-s*** cats destroyed. Their lousy cats are finally gone. But I'll shoot again on first-sight the first chance I get (and anyone who tries to stop me from doing what needs to be done). The rewards for ridding one's land of ALL cats and restoring the native wildlife population are far too great. If you don't live in an area where a firearm can be used legally then I offer another humane method to counter the myriad problems that disrespectful and inconsiderate cat-lovers cause for everyone and all wildlife. Google for: pot mod laser. Get these blue or green lasers for about 5$-$10 off of ebay. You can easily increase their output to 100mw or more. I find that filing a small hole in the side of the barrel makes it easier to reach the potentiometer than disassembly and risking ruining it. I also found the blue lasers are more powerful than the green ones when pot-modded, lighting a match much more quickly. Anytime you see a cat off of an owner's property use a pot-modded laser on it. If you blind a cat in one eye they'll lose their depth perception, unable to hunt as effectively. If you blind them in both eyes they'll stay home near their food dish. This is instant and painless. It's even more humane than declawing. Plus the cat owner can still lavish all the attention it wants on the cat, even more now that it's staying home. This method is also anonymous. In daytime nobody will even know it happened or who did it -- for those of you who don't want to confront the inconsiderate cat-lovers. Just treat that laser carefully at all other times so you don't harm the vision of any other life out there or yourself. (Google for high-power laser precautions.) I keep one in my pocket for those cats that are too difficult to shoot cleanly with a .22. I don't like to see any animal suffer. If I can't get a clean shot then they get blinded. The drastic problems that cat-lovers have created by their blatant disrespect and lack of consideration for their environment, all other humans, and all animals now requires drastic actions by all those who actually care. It takes real strength of heart to do the right thing. Now that the cat-lovers know this will happen to their cats, maybe they'll keep them indoors where they damn well belong, to prove they actually care. Win win all around. Blind a few in your area, see if any of them actually do care about their cats or your property and wildlife. I bet they'll still not really give a damn.
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