How bad is the feral cat problem?
Bad enough to need help
One of the major issues confronting anyone on either side of the feral/stray cat issue is the absence of accurate statistics. Nobody can even make an accurate guess how many cats without homes live in Jefferson County — or anywhere else in the country. Nobody knows how many birds cats eat; only that rodents seem to be their preferred meal. Nobody knows how many supposedly feral (totally wild) cats are actually starving stray who, after a few good meals, will become docile pets.
And the cats aren’t talking.
There are more than 70 million stray and feral cats in the United States, and an estimated 110,000 of them live in Jefferson County. A wild guess puts Jefferson County’s population at somewhere around 250,000 kittens born every year — most of them to feral or stray feline mothers with no loving humans to care for them. The kittens’ lives will be, for the most part, short and traumatic. Those that live to reproduce will give birth to kittens destined for the same fate. Strays and ferals, on their own, rarely live past age 4, dying from disease, illness, injury, predation by other animals, and by being hit on the road.
What about all those studies?
Unsubstantiated guesses have been circulated for years in the guise of ‘scientific’ studies. Feral and stray cats came dangerously close to becoming legalized target practice here in Wisconsin in 2005, thanks to a discredited report claiming they were responsible for the demise of millions of songbirds. It’s much easier to blame the cats rather than developers who tear up farmland to build MacMansions. But few if any accurate studies have ever been done in Wisconsin on feral cat colonies.
One of CATsnip’s goals is to locate responsible monitors for cat colonies: humans who will keep track of resident cats, their health and activities. An established, stable colony of sterilized feral cats fed and cared for by a knowledgeable human is an ideal setting for a non-biased truly scientific feral cat study. Jefferson County can lead the way in bringing an important issue to national attention.
Don’t cats kill songbirds?
Not often …
… and rarely healthy birds. Contrary to popular opinion, feral cats kill far fewer songbirds than humans do by habitat-destroying land development. In the wild, cats survive primarily on rodents, which are far easier to catch than healthy birds.
Sterilized feral cats — when living in colonies and fed daily by human caretakers — prefer easier prey than a healthy bird.
People are the real danger to songbirds!
How many birds nest in one tree? How many trees are torn out for a parking lot, shopping center, or neighborhood of MacMansions? How much undergrowth that feeds and protects the birds is destroyed? Development is the primary reason for songbird population loss.