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Letter to the Editor
Published in the Home News Tribune 5/13/04
Cats get bad rap for decline in birdsMost if not all points expressed in the Home News Tribune's
May 4 editorial regarding the North Brunswick feral cats are subject to debate, but I shall comment on just your assertion
that feral cats are a "menace, destructive force, and an ecological disaster," with respect to the songbird population. You
quote the National Audubon Society's figures that "millions of birds and possibly billions of small mammals" are taken by
outdoor cats. First, I find it puzzling that more value is placed on the small-mammal population than that of the feline population,
considering that the former largely consists of rodents, which are known to carry a huge variety of diseases and are far harder
to control. Regarding the studies you refer to, the figures they produce have always been controversial and are little more
than random numbers; it is not possible for accurate data to be generated from so many elements at work, all occurring at
random moments of time.
Yes, although rodents are the preferred target of cats, they will take a bird, but the cat is only one of very many animals
that will do so. Birds eat other birds. The raptor family is very efficient, having the capability of capturing their prey
in flight. Why isn't there an outcry for the eradication of raptors and others like the common black crow that likely take
a far greater number of birds?
Felines appear to shoulder much of the blame due to their higher degree of visibility, considering that one rarely sees
a bird taken by another because the act occurs in flight, in a tree or rooftop, and will be over before one could blink. Another
is due to many other of the bird's natural predators already having been driven off or killed. The last time that I tried
to assist a bird in distress, the bird was being attacked by a common crow, which was impaling a hapless house finch with
its bill, only to fly off with the finch in his claws as I approached.
All the fingers pointing to the feline population tend to divert attention from the greatest menace to the bird population
of all: humans, who destroy habitat, pollute the remainder, kill birds for sport and, as several young men recently demonstrated,
kill them for entertainment.
Daniel J. Majenski
WOODBRIDGE
Copyright 2004 Home News Tribune.
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