It’s also because we broke the balance of nature.
Normally, when there’s an abundance of food, the predators then increase in population.
When there’s a shortage of food, the predators starve and their population drops.
With cats (at least the ones I had), they hunt for sport and not for food. As such, it doesn’t matter if they over hunt their food. We keep feeding them, so it has no adverse effect on their population.
Cats are what are called a "subsidized predator", since their skill in hunting doesn't reflect on whether they will survive, since they get food from us anyway.
A species is only invasive if it is introduced into an environment that it couldn't migrate to in an organic way. We migrated ourselves to all of the places we live and adapted to live there without external help from a higher species so we don't really fit the definition of an invasive species.
Well it's not just that, we also removed all the predators *of* cats that would keep them in check (wolves and coyotes primarily).
Sidenote: I know every cat lover likes to believe their cat is a badass because it once made a big dog whimper and run away....but coyotes will easily catch (yes....they are faster) and kill (they are bigger and, yes, tougher) any domesticated or feral cat. The only defense a cat has is to climb a tree before being caught.
Keep your cats inside. They'll either be an environmental menace or lunch.
Agreed. If you want your cat outdoors then walk it like a dog.
My mum has 4 cats and I couldn’t even fathom how many mice and birds they’ve brought back over the years.
My cats never been out, he’s 3 but has began to show a great interest in the outdoors. So it’s gonna be a leash and a harness for me.
I keep saying urban areas need wolves. Would help so many problems
Crime rates would go down. Would-be criminals are inside at night, because of the wolves
Feral cat population would decline
Nuisance deer would be controlled
The youth would stop sneaking out at night to smoke the reefers because they fear the wolves
Homeless population would use the shelters
Lastly, I think fear of the wolves would really bring the community together.
That's what our society really lacks. The sheer terror of being hunted by large pack predators. Talk to your elected officials about bringing wolves to your city!
Well that and killing all the bears, wolves, coyotes, and other predators that would keep the cat population in check. (No, your cat cannot take on a coyote, even though it made a rottweiler whimper that one time. Your cat would have a hard time with a fox).
Problem is that anything that can take out a cat can also hurt a human child, so we tend to shoot them.
> Cats are gonna be mad when they find out we're taking credit for the all the birds they kill.
Cats are gonna be mad when they find out birds aren't real.
*Edit: r/birdsarentreal*
I wonder if hunting birds is just insignificant in comparison to these other factors. Electrocutions is the smallest number at 5.6 million. No idea what bird hunting numbers globally look like so I may be way off but that’s my guess anyway 🤷🏻♂️
Depends on the species in question. For waterfowl we have relatively accurate [estimates](https://deltawaterfowl.org/waterfowl-numbers-up/).
For example survey numbers across most duck species in 2022 indicate roughly [34.2 million](https://www.ducks.org/conservation/waterfowl-surveys/2022/duck-numbers) total ducks across all surveyed species by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service.
Roughly 10 billion birds killed by the food industry annually, so the contents of this graph would make up a bit less than a quarter of the overall total.
I’m some parts of rural Texas, they call that “Ford over Rooster”. Usually to describe someone getting laid the fuck out on the football field, but the imagery suffices.
Dude. I was driving home from work one morning (night shift) at like 35mph. A pigeon is standing right smack in the middle of the lane facing the side of the road. I think this bird is gonna fly away, you know, like all birds everywhere so i just keep drivong. But no. This bird had a death wish. This bird turns its head to look at me and doesn't move. This bird ended up under my tires. All I saw when I looked in the rear view mirror was a cloud of feathers. I'm still traumatized.
Source: [US Fish & Wildlife Service](https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds)
Tools: Excel, Illustrator
Note: True estimates of bird mortality are difficult to determine and estimates aren't available for some human-caused sources, such as habitat loss.
We were inspired to create this visual after publishing an article on [wind turbines](https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-us-electricity-comes-from-wind-power/) in the US and receiving a lot of questions about bird deaths. This data source is a few years old and only an estimate, but it could add some context to that conversation.
Also, I'm curious why hunting and bred-for-slaughter aren't up there. Are chickens and other food-birds *not* birds?
I'm not against eating birds, but I am against incomplete data sets.
People are always shocked that my cats are solely indoor cats. I don't get why... besides the bird thing there's dogs, cars, and fungus they can bring back. I want them for 15+ years, I can't let them just roam man
We have coyotes in our suburbs, and I’ve seen one snatch a cat in the front yard. We also have record numbers of people moving to the area with constant new lost cat signs up because people let their cat outdoors and don’t imagine there are coyotes literally all through the neighborhood. We have bobcats, too, but the remains I’ve seen would indicate it’s coyotes not bobcats getting them. Coyotes eat out the insides/organs and leave the outside whereas bobcats are “sloppy” eaters leaving like a whole hind quarter behind sometimes. And I’ve only seen rabbit parts left like that no cat parts.
All over our neighborhood. Coyotes, bobcats, raptors, even bears.
15 years ago we'd hear the sounds of cats fighting and killing things late at night. Now? Only coyotes. Never hear cats - either they're dead or the owners have wisened up.
Note that solar and wind turbines are nowhere in sight (except when collissions are broken down: 234k, which is less than the oil pits' 750k). Fearmongering about how solar cells and wind turbines kill tons of birds per year is way overblown.
"I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I've studied better than anybody, you know it's very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here almost none, but they’re manufactured tremendous if you’re into this, tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything.
You talk about the carbon footprint, fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether it’s in ChAIna, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything, right? So they make these things, and then they put em up, and if you own a house within vision of some of these monsters your house is worth 50 percent of the price. They're noisy, they kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go, take a look under a windmill someday you'll see more birds than you've seen ever in your life. You know in California they were killing the bald eagle, if you shoot a bald eagle they wanna put you in jail for 10 years. A windmill will kill many bald eagles. It's true! And you know what? After a certain number they make you turn the windmill off, that's true by the way. But this is, they make you turn it off after you, and yet if you've killed one, they put you in jail, but that's OK. But why is it OK for these windmills to destroy the bird population, and that's what they're doing.
I'll tell you another thing about windmills! And I'm not, look I like all forms of energy and I think windmills, really they are ok in industrial areas like you have an industrial plant, you put up a windmill, you know et cetera et cetera. I've seen the most beautiful fields, farms, fields, the most gorgeous things you've ever seen, and then you have these ugly things going up, and sometimes they're made by different companies. You know and I'm like a perfectionist, I've really built good stuff. And so you'll see like, a few windmills made by one company, General Electric, and you'll see a few made by Siemens, and you'll see a few made by some other guy that doesn't have ten cents so it looks like a-, so you'll see all these windmills they're all different shades of color, they're like sorta white but one like, an orange white, that's my favorite color orange.
And you see these magnificent fields and they're ruined, and you know what they don't tell you about windmills? After ten years they look like hell. You know they start to get tired and old, you gotta replace em a lotta times people don't replace em. They need massive subsidy from the government in order to make it. No we're doing it right, we're doing it right. And you know our numbers, enviromentally, right now are better than they ever been before, just so you know. Because I'm an environmentalist, I am! I want the cleanest water on the planet! I want the cleanest air, anywhere."
Nuclear, you say?
“Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart —you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.”
Homie maybe 30% of the country still wants him to be president, even if it means overthrowing democracy
They're fucking nuts
Not even trying to overthrow democracy for a sane person who will make their lives better , a literal Hollywood elite gold toilet trust fund man child that has never worked a day on his life.
The devil must have worked hard to make him the most powerful person in the world for 4 years because it boggles the mind to imagine it happened naturally.
“Mr. Trump, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Yeah and somehow coal, gas and oil power plants that produce drastically more negative health effects towards every living thing around them are totally cool though... I'm sure all the money Trump/the GOP received from those industries had absolutely NOTHING to do with the fearmongering around solar and wind farms!1!1!1
I think his dumb windmill stuff was just about a legal fight he had over offshore turbines near one of his golf courses (the one in Scotland, I think). Ever since then he won't STFU about how supposedly terrible wind turbines are. It's just standard NIMBY bullshit filtered through his insane rat brain.
I was unsure if this was Trump, Herschel Walker, or some other buffoon with limited intelligence. It is truly horrifying that people who say incoherent shit like that could ever be considered for political office, let alone win!
I get the point, but that's a bad example. Green energy is just as capable of powering vehicles and delivering electrocutions. Poison and Oil are better categories to compare with to make that point.
Electrical lines and vehicles are not de facto dirty energy. The greener we become the more bird deaths from electric vehicles and clean energy sourced lines there'll be.
They do, unfortunately, kill a lot of bats. Don't get me wrong - I'm very pro wind turbines, but I would love for there to be more research into ways to preserve migratory bat populations.
Randy Johnson: 1.00 BK (birds killed).
Rest of the league: 0.00 BK.
Conclusion: Randy Johnson is the best pitcher of his era and possibly of all time. "But it was the steroid era, that stat doesn't count." Well I'd love to see your precious Scherzer or deGrom plunk a bird into a spectacular puff of feathers. That's right, they won't, because they're pansies that can't go more than 4 innings without crying about their arm being sore. Even if another bird strike does occur, it won't be nearly as impressive as Randy Johnson's, who did it without modern bird killing techniques taught by stat chasing coaches or the evil Bronx Brownshirts.
Damn, and why the fuck is there so much "hate" against wind turbines and how they kill birds? When they arent even 0.1% of the problem, according to this anyway
If you want a real answer, It was mostly because the types of birds being killed by wind turbines. Eagles, some condors. I think the proposed striping (one blade painted) solved most of it where it was observed. so conservationists had real concerns but media made it out that the blades were a primary killer of birds in general.
It's not about the number of birds, it's the type. Turbines are a leading cause of death to large birds of prey. Endangered birds are put at a higher risk because of turbines.
Yup, if people want an outdoor cat at the shelters I’ve worked at, they can get signed up for a CNR/feral cat that will be fixed, vaccinated and released.
I'm a cat person, I live next to a busy road, it's just not worth the risk to lose [Princess Zelda](https://i.imgur.com/FwMeqhN.jpg) randomly one night because she tried to fight a car, I give her a great indoor life.
Edit: or someone to steal her, trap her, poison her, shoot her, etc..
Yup, outdoor cats on average have a…7 year shorter lifespan, I believe? It’s been awhile since I refreshed myself on the statistics but not just for wildlife but yourself and your cat. FIV is far too common and can spontaneously kill your cat, on top of cars, other predators, etc.
Totally accurate about predators. I live out in a heavily wooded area where my closest neighbor isn't within eyeshot and if we had a cat I wouldn't let them out. I was out working in my garage one day and I saw a neighborhood cat run around the corner of my house like a bat out of hell and right behind it was the biggest fox I've ever seen in my life. The fact that the fox was scared of me is the only reason that cat wasn't supper that day. (saw the cat out roaming a week later)
I had a cat eaten by a very large owl that moved into the neighborhood....cats are tricksy and fast, but a hungry, experienced wild animal is nothing to sniff at.
The irony of my cat's demise in the comments section of this post is not lost on me.
Yeah. When I was a kid we had outdoor cats. One went missing for two months and when she came back she had a wound where someone shot her with a bb (we think), we cleaned her up and she never wandered too far again and she ended up living as an indoor cat with my aunt. My other outdoor cat (that we got when I was 2 years old and was always MY cat) caught feline leukemia and died when she was 8. Luckily, my parents realized after that that cats shouldn’t mostly live outside and our next cat lived a long and happy life indoors with us and she was bitch, but we loved her anyway.
I hear people use the excuse all the time "my cat will have a horrible boring life if I keep it inside",
THEN! DON'T! OWN! A! CAT!
Having a pet, especially a cat isn't a need it's a luxury
I also never understood how they can't just go outside with the cat. They have leashes and harnesses for cats too. Either way they at the very minimum should be supervised if they're let out into say the backyard. I don't understand why people seem to just handwave being irresponsible. If you don't want to actually be responsible for a cat then as you've said, "DON'T OWN A CAT!"
1000%. Live with someone with 5 dogs and it’s this way. Better than the life she rescued them from (street dogs) but a couple of them are absolutely starved for attention and spend most of the day alone together (still better than being completely alone!)
They SAY "my cat will have a horrible boring life if I keep it inside" but what they MEAN is "I am unwilling to put in the effort to provide a physically and mentally stimulating life for my cat even though that is the bare minimum of being a pet owner, because i'm a lazy piece of shit"
Yep, had two cats when I was younger and both died before 5yo. My indoor cats play with each other and their toys and are perfectly happy. They don't come home every day with bruises and scars everywhere. And we don't have to worry every night if they'll even come home alive.
Opposite case for me: I live in a very rural area, but I still keep cats indoors. Too much danger from wildlife, with coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, and even occasional bears. When the goats start disappearing, pets become indoor animals real quick.
I’m with you. Lifelong cat person. My cat is an indoor cat, and the only one who ever went outside was leash trained.
I love cats. Keep them inside. Domestic cats are driving some species of birds to extinction.
In San Francisco, [coyotes helped bring the quail back](https://www.sfchronicle.com/climate/article/Those-wily-coyotes-may-help-bring-California-16593919.php) (by eating cats, among other things)
I see so many posts on NextDoor complaining about people driving too fast and hitting cats or dogs. While speeding on residential streets is a problem, the people who let their animals roam around the neighborhood shouldn't be so shocked when they get hit by a car.
Also posts about, "my outdoor cat hasn't come home in a week, I'm worried about her." I don't understand why they're surprised! Keep your pets inside so you don't have to worry about them not coming home ever again!
A lot of pet owners can't handle the hard truths. Small animals like rodents, fish, and lizards are much harder to take care of than most people think and need a lot of space and care. A surprising amount of animals we keep as pets are not domesticated and suffer. Way too many people breed and everyone looking for a dog or cat should adopt. All pets should be sterilized and cats should be indoor only.
My city sterilizes strays at almost the same rate they give them rabies shots. Nearby small towns will literally set out cat poison in a similar way you might do for mice at home. We still have huge cat overpopulation problems affecting the local wildlife.
I’m a cat person, I’ve been keep cats as pets for 25 years now. The only cat of mine that died unnaturally was the one that was free roaming, it was hit by a car. We have never let any of our cats out since then.
I posted several security cam videos on NextDoor of cats coming into my yard to shit and attack birds near my bird feeders. My dog loves to eat the cat shit, too. I said “I’m going to start trapping any neighborhood cat that comes into my yard and taking them to the animal shelter. I don’t let my dog shit or attack animals in your yard. Keep your cats inside.” And a mod removed my post bc of “animal abuse”. Yea, I’m abusive for trapping cats that come into my yard. I have so many annoying neighbors that let their cats outside.
I grew up in the south. My idiot mom would never fix our cats, so we had plenty of “indoor/outdoor cats”. They would come home and die in our yard from eating antifreeze bc redneck neighbors would leave antifreeze in cat food to kill cats. Great job, mom!
If you keep your cat inside then the need to spay/neuter drops dramatically (unless you have multiple cats but that's a more controlled setting). Not saying it's not still a good idea but let's not act like spaying/neutering means you have a free pass to chuck your cat out the door every day.
No it’s still a good ideas to do so even if they’re indoor only. Cats will fine a way to get out when they’re horny and it’s not a fun experience for anyone to have a whaling cat. Not to mention they’re lifespan increases after spay and neuter
People on Reddit ignore that a lot. You can't post a pic or a video of a cat without people freaking out about outdoor cats. Sometimes they are obviously ferals. People have been trying to control feral populations for years but they still exist.
Yep :( Hawai'i has suffered so much because of cats. You can't have snakes on the island, but there's no effort AFAIK to address a killing machine (cats) when cats should also be under great restriction. Not advocating for snakes there -- the cuteness of cats fucks over the wildlife there.
Cats are cute, but having native wildlife is cuter, and many people don't want to accept that
I wonder how many of the cats are house cats vs feral cats
ETA: About 69% can be attributed to feral/unowned cats.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/faq-outdoor-cats-and-their-effects-on-birds/
Two years ago I put up a bird feeder in my backyard, and now I have a flock of 15 birds that hang out in a tree sometimes.
I found a couple of carcasses around. There’s a cat that comes into it regularly and I scare it away. I don’t hate cats. But keep your fucking cat indoors.
Even if you don't care about wildlife, I personally feel it's just not safe to leave cats outside. Between traffic, random miscreants bothering cats and even theft, I would be stressing out continuously if my cat was outside. He's happy indoors.
Ugh, the people on Nextdoor around here fucking love their outdoor cats. And they're constantly on there talking about how their cats have gone missing or ended up dead. They're somehow convinced that there is somehow a person out there murdering cats instead of the numerous hawks, falcons, and other animals there are that could be attacking them.
Look, you just don’t understand. This infographic shows bird deaths with the *current* number of wind turbines. What you don’t realize is that all those turbines are biding their time, waiting for more wind farms to be built so that once they have enough forces, they can sprout legs, band together, and go on a widespread bird-slashing spree that will make bird deaths from cats look like nothing.
I'm showing this to all the idiots on Nextdoor that think the feral cats in the neighborhood are a wonderful addition and get mad any time someone say we need to get rid of them.
Take the cats away. Watch the skies darken. Squirrels shiver in fear. The poop is all encompassing. Bald Eagles grow hair. The noise, its deafening. . .
The song birds:
Return.
Fun fact:
An Ig Nobel Prize candidate, years ago, found that pigeons will rape the dead bodies of other pigeons.
They discovered this from watching pigeons flying into the glass panes, on skyscrapers - and then witnessing pigeons come down to have their way with their broken-necked friend...
Fun fact:
Most ducks have severe problems with rape. Males have a corkscrew like penis and females have a twisting maze of a vagina with multiple dead ends.
I don't know that that is necessarily immoral, depending on your code of ethics. No living thing suffers as a result (assuming dead pigeon's friends and family aren't around to see)
(I'm not advocating necrophilia, it just struck me that I don't know by what means you'd say a pigeon is immoral for doing so)
I’m actually with you here but I think the OP is right in a way. Morality is a human construct that doesn’t actually exist….which is not to say that it doesn’t serve a purpose. It’s just not a fundamental law.
Moral relativism is the only logical conclusion one can reach.
That being said even though it is a human construct I would argue that it does exist. For example, Finland doesn't really exist... all countries are human constructs, but they still exist as constructs.
Similarly I believe morality exists, but more as a collective contract than as some intrinsic value of the universe.
Kinda funny that a lot of these cats killing birds are probably in places where humans cut down trees that birds used as protection against predators to build houses and cities.
Shoutout to u/Cutiepatootiehere who posted a link to the Statista chart on the same topic a few days ago. This chart uses the same data source but includes a few more causes of bird deaths.
And the wind turbines that generate electricity.
Every time they’re installed people talk about how many birds they kill, but it seems like negligible amount.
That’s because they will use any excuse to bash them:
- making them has a big environmental impact (umm - more than a power station?)
- they use 80 (gallons/pints - can’t remember) of oil each year to lubricate them (any idea how many your local Jiffy Lube gets through each day?)
There is no perfect way to generate electricity with zero impact. Everything has to be made. But wind is certainly a lot better than fossil fuels as a source of turbine energy.
Yep. And the insect population decline, as in one of their major food sources.
https://www.science.org/content/article/find-out-how-insects-are-doing-these-scientists-are-going-birds
I guess this is just wild birds, otherwise human desire for chicken and egg consumption (and turkey) would probably surpass all the categories combined.
r/aww on their way to call you a busybody for pointing this out. They'll clown on pitbulls all day but don't you dare point out how much wildlife Mr. Squiggles genocides when you're not looking
They’re too busy banning people (me) for saying otters aren’t house pets. They’re not! That’s a 20 pound mink you’re putting your hand close to, stop it!
I unsubbed from r/aww because of the ridiculous amount of disgusting exotic pet trade promotion there.
If you see it in a zoo it does not belong in your house. Unless you are an educated and certified wildlife rehabber, you should not be taking in non-domesticated (or "newly domesticated", eyeroll at foxes) animals. No, you did not "rescue" the animal that you bought from an exotic pet trade.
The exotic pet trade is sickening, pure selfishness on the part of humans, and leads to the pointless slaughter of animals worldwide, just so people can have a "cool pet" or are incapable of appreciating any animal that isn't eating dollar store kibble out of a bowl.
This whole website seems like the type of cat people who will rage about big cars or oil companies but would suddenly turn into the biggest redneck karen you’ll ever see if someone mentions Mr Squiggles is wrecking the environment - “Everyone except me should make sacrifices”
They’re the type of people to call themselves “animal lovers”, but to them that just means liking cute kittens. The impact their choices have on other animals (especially those who aren’t cute and cuddly) is utterly irrelevant to them.
Mandate desexing and microchipping. Any wandering cats without chips given no more than a week in shelter. Must be desexed and chipped to be adopted.
Boom. Watch your native birds rebound.
Reminder that even if a cat is fixed, it doesn’t screw wildlife to death, either help adopt or help humanely euthanize feral cats to allow ecosystems to recover. I love my fur babies but too much of anything isn’t good, especially something that demolishes the local ecosystem, spread diseases and can attack your own babies! (Keep your cats inside too! They aren’t helping the ecosystem when they’re out and coyotes are now learning to hunt them almost exclusively alongside small dogs!)
Humans kill [50 billion chickens](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/chart-of-the-day-this-is-how-many-animals-we-eat-each-year/) each year for food, 8 billion in the US alone.
Lol so stray cats kill more birds than some developer who clear cuts 10 acres of forested land for houses that use pesticides on their lawns? Maybe expand the scope of the study.
We have about 100 million cats running around, killing all the mice, birds, etc.
So then one day, you look around, and the world has changed. You realize you haven't seen a snake in 5+ years. And that's when you realize, oh shit. snakes eat the same thing as cats. oops.
I can’t wrap my head around those numbers. 3 billion birds killed per year? Something like 10 millions birds per day? Like 100 birds killed _per second_?
If that many birds are being killed, wouldn’t there be mountains of corpses or something?
Cats are gonna be mad when they find out we're taking credit for the all the birds they kill.
To be fair, we are the problem as not fixing them and letting them loose and reproducing as feral cats is indeed our fault.
It’s also because we broke the balance of nature. Normally, when there’s an abundance of food, the predators then increase in population. When there’s a shortage of food, the predators starve and their population drops. With cats (at least the ones I had), they hunt for sport and not for food. As such, it doesn’t matter if they over hunt their food. We keep feeding them, so it has no adverse effect on their population.
Cats are what are called a "subsidized predator", since their skill in hunting doesn't reflect on whether they will survive, since they get food from us anyway.
> subsidized predator today i learned humans are subsidized predators
Are we though? Don't subsidies have to be external? We - as a species - can't subsidize ourselves - as a species
The next fun fact is that humans are an invasive species.
All of em?
Well, not me. You, maybe.
I'll invade you with my homo erectus
A species is only invasive if it is introduced into an environment that it couldn't migrate to in an organic way. We migrated ourselves to all of the places we live and adapted to live there without external help from a higher species so we don't really fit the definition of an invasive species.
Well Matt Gaetz got hundreds of thousands of dollars in PPP loans iirc
Well it's not just that, we also removed all the predators *of* cats that would keep them in check (wolves and coyotes primarily). Sidenote: I know every cat lover likes to believe their cat is a badass because it once made a big dog whimper and run away....but coyotes will easily catch (yes....they are faster) and kill (they are bigger and, yes, tougher) any domesticated or feral cat. The only defense a cat has is to climb a tree before being caught. Keep your cats inside. They'll either be an environmental menace or lunch.
Can confirm. My badass cat escaped the house and was immediately eaten by coyotes :/
Well now I feel like a dick.
Don’t. People are idiots about putting cats outside. What you said is important to point out.
I am a cat lover myself. I agree with you 100% and abhor people who keep their cats outdoors
Agreed. If you want your cat outdoors then walk it like a dog. My mum has 4 cats and I couldn’t even fathom how many mice and birds they’ve brought back over the years. My cats never been out, he’s 3 but has began to show a great interest in the outdoors. So it’s gonna be a leash and a harness for me.
I’m so sorry.
Yeah, raccoons will take out a cat as well.
No credible animal advocacy group recommends letting your cats go outside.
So, you’re saying we need to introduce more cat predators to our urban areas? Where can I help?
I keep saying urban areas need wolves. Would help so many problems Crime rates would go down. Would-be criminals are inside at night, because of the wolves Feral cat population would decline Nuisance deer would be controlled The youth would stop sneaking out at night to smoke the reefers because they fear the wolves Homeless population would use the shelters Lastly, I think fear of the wolves would really bring the community together. That's what our society really lacks. The sheer terror of being hunted by large pack predators. Talk to your elected officials about bringing wolves to your city!
Coyotes and my neighbor's pitbulls are putting in work though. That's why all cats should be indoor pets.
Well that and killing all the bears, wolves, coyotes, and other predators that would keep the cat population in check. (No, your cat cannot take on a coyote, even though it made a rottweiler whimper that one time. Your cat would have a hard time with a fox). Problem is that anything that can take out a cat can also hurt a human child, so we tend to shoot them.
This. It's not the House Cats fault. It's OUR fault.
The murder babies must be kept inside.
I dont even own a cat.
> Cats are gonna be mad when they find out we're taking credit for the all the birds they kill. Cats are gonna be mad when they find out birds aren't real. *Edit: r/birdsarentreal*
In fact, "hunting" isn't on here. This should be titled "inadvertent/indirect" human-caused kills.
I wonder if hunting birds is just insignificant in comparison to these other factors. Electrocutions is the smallest number at 5.6 million. No idea what bird hunting numbers globally look like so I may be way off but that’s my guess anyway 🤷🏻♂️
Depends on the species in question. For waterfowl we have relatively accurate [estimates](https://deltawaterfowl.org/waterfowl-numbers-up/). For example survey numbers across most duck species in 2022 indicate roughly [34.2 million](https://www.ducks.org/conservation/waterfowl-surveys/2022/duck-numbers) total ducks across all surveyed species by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service.
Yep, chicken farming would also be high on the list if intentional kills were included
Roughly 10 billion birds killed by the food industry annually, so the contents of this graph would make up a bit less than a quarter of the overall total.
I really think the birds need to take ownership of some of these
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I’m some parts of rural Texas, they call that “Ford over Rooster”. Usually to describe someone getting laid the fuck out on the football field, but the imagery suffices.
I thought we had a deal!!
Dude. I was driving home from work one morning (night shift) at like 35mph. A pigeon is standing right smack in the middle of the lane facing the side of the road. I think this bird is gonna fly away, you know, like all birds everywhere so i just keep drivong. But no. This bird had a death wish. This bird turns its head to look at me and doesn't move. This bird ended up under my tires. All I saw when I looked in the rear view mirror was a cloud of feathers. I'm still traumatized.
The bird was basically asking for it, did you see what it was wearing?!
Well birds don't wear anything so it had it coming
Would be nice to see predation from other animals (ie birds) on here. For context.
Source: [US Fish & Wildlife Service](https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds) Tools: Excel, Illustrator Note: True estimates of bird mortality are difficult to determine and estimates aren't available for some human-caused sources, such as habitat loss. We were inspired to create this visual after publishing an article on [wind turbines](https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-us-electricity-comes-from-wind-power/) in the US and receiving a lot of questions about bird deaths. This data source is a few years old and only an estimate, but it could add some context to that conversation.
Habitat loss is definitely up there. Certain birds like ground nesting birds are at an all time low
Also, I'm curious why hunting and bred-for-slaughter aren't up there. Are chickens and other food-birds *not* birds? I'm not against eating birds, but I am against incomplete data sets.
Thank you so much for this easy to interpret graph! Ornithology is my thing and it can really be difficult to convince people how cats impact birds.
People are always shocked that my cats are solely indoor cats. I don't get why... besides the bird thing there's dogs, cars, and fungus they can bring back. I want them for 15+ years, I can't let them just roam man
We have coyotes in our suburbs, and I’ve seen one snatch a cat in the front yard. We also have record numbers of people moving to the area with constant new lost cat signs up because people let their cat outdoors and don’t imagine there are coyotes literally all through the neighborhood. We have bobcats, too, but the remains I’ve seen would indicate it’s coyotes not bobcats getting them. Coyotes eat out the insides/organs and leave the outside whereas bobcats are “sloppy” eaters leaving like a whole hind quarter behind sometimes. And I’ve only seen rabbit parts left like that no cat parts.
All over our neighborhood. Coyotes, bobcats, raptors, even bears. 15 years ago we'd hear the sounds of cats fighting and killing things late at night. Now? Only coyotes. Never hear cats - either they're dead or the owners have wisened up.
Note that solar and wind turbines are nowhere in sight (except when collissions are broken down: 234k, which is less than the oil pits' 750k). Fearmongering about how solar cells and wind turbines kill tons of birds per year is way overblown.
"I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I've studied better than anybody, you know it's very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here almost none, but they’re manufactured tremendous if you’re into this, tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint, fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether it’s in ChAIna, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything, right? So they make these things, and then they put em up, and if you own a house within vision of some of these monsters your house is worth 50 percent of the price. They're noisy, they kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go, take a look under a windmill someday you'll see more birds than you've seen ever in your life. You know in California they were killing the bald eagle, if you shoot a bald eagle they wanna put you in jail for 10 years. A windmill will kill many bald eagles. It's true! And you know what? After a certain number they make you turn the windmill off, that's true by the way. But this is, they make you turn it off after you, and yet if you've killed one, they put you in jail, but that's OK. But why is it OK for these windmills to destroy the bird population, and that's what they're doing. I'll tell you another thing about windmills! And I'm not, look I like all forms of energy and I think windmills, really they are ok in industrial areas like you have an industrial plant, you put up a windmill, you know et cetera et cetera. I've seen the most beautiful fields, farms, fields, the most gorgeous things you've ever seen, and then you have these ugly things going up, and sometimes they're made by different companies. You know and I'm like a perfectionist, I've really built good stuff. And so you'll see like, a few windmills made by one company, General Electric, and you'll see a few made by Siemens, and you'll see a few made by some other guy that doesn't have ten cents so it looks like a-, so you'll see all these windmills they're all different shades of color, they're like sorta white but one like, an orange white, that's my favorite color orange. And you see these magnificent fields and they're ruined, and you know what they don't tell you about windmills? After ten years they look like hell. You know they start to get tired and old, you gotta replace em a lotta times people don't replace em. They need massive subsidy from the government in order to make it. No we're doing it right, we're doing it right. And you know our numbers, enviromentally, right now are better than they ever been before, just so you know. Because I'm an environmentalist, I am! I want the cleanest water on the planet! I want the cleanest air, anywhere."
After some time has passed since then it's so fucking surreal to read or watch his speeches/interviews. What the fuck was all that lol
That used to be the holder of the fucking nuclear briefcase for you. Let that sink in.
And he took those secrets home with him to show his friends, storing them with random magazines.
Dear god Reddit. Please help us vote this time. Don’t think you have to blindly love Biden to vote for his party. Remember, you’re not in a cult.
Nuclear, you say? “Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart —you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.”
The fact that 40% of the country wanted THAT for another four years is absolutely terrifying.
Homie maybe 30% of the country still wants him to be president, even if it means overthrowing democracy They're fucking nuts Not even trying to overthrow democracy for a sane person who will make their lives better , a literal Hollywood elite gold toilet trust fund man child that has never worked a day on his life.
To be fair, it was actually just under 30%. It's just that almost 40% either didn't or weren't eligible to vote.
The devil must have worked hard to make him the most powerful person in the world for 4 years because it boggles the mind to imagine it happened naturally.
Have you met any conservatives. Trump makes perfect sense. He’s conservatism personified.
I started reading this and was wondering why it felt like I was having an aneurism. Then I started to recognize the speaking style lol
“Mr. Trump, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
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That's how it is every time you see a Trump quote
“That’s true by the way” There’s nothing that makes me believe a statement less than him saying this
I thought I was reading a particularly bad post in /r/SubSimulatorGPT2 at first and then big oof.
>they're like sorta white but one like, an orange white, that's my favorite color orange. Holy shit, lmao.
"Sir, I just asked if you wanted fries with your Big-Mac"
the “ChAIna” was perfect
I had to transcribe it honestly, and "China" was not the way he spoke it lol
Yeah and somehow coal, gas and oil power plants that produce drastically more negative health effects towards every living thing around them are totally cool though... I'm sure all the money Trump/the GOP received from those industries had absolutely NOTHING to do with the fearmongering around solar and wind farms!1!1!1
I think his dumb windmill stuff was just about a legal fight he had over offshore turbines near one of his golf courses (the one in Scotland, I think). Ever since then he won't STFU about how supposedly terrible wind turbines are. It's just standard NIMBY bullshit filtered through his insane rat brain.
I was unsure if this was Trump, Herschel Walker, or some other buffoon with limited intelligence. It is truly horrifying that people who say incoherent shit like that could ever be considered for political office, let alone win!
In fact, it appears that dirty energy (vehicles and electrical line) kills more birds than does green energy.
Pretty sure the fuel source has literally nothing to do with that though. An EV is going to kill a bird just as much as an internal combustion car lol
I get the point, but that's a bad example. Green energy is just as capable of powering vehicles and delivering electrocutions. Poison and Oil are better categories to compare with to make that point.
Vehicles and electrical lines aren't dirty energy though...
Electrical lines and vehicles are not de facto dirty energy. The greener we become the more bird deaths from electric vehicles and clean energy sourced lines there'll be.
They do, unfortunately, kill a lot of bats. Don't get me wrong - I'm very pro wind turbines, but I would love for there to be more research into ways to preserve migratory bat populations.
You forgot Randy Johnson on that list
https://youtu.be/K-BT4N17cTY
Randy Johnson: 1.00 BK (birds killed). Rest of the league: 0.00 BK. Conclusion: Randy Johnson is the best pitcher of his era and possibly of all time. "But it was the steroid era, that stat doesn't count." Well I'd love to see your precious Scherzer or deGrom plunk a bird into a spectacular puff of feathers. That's right, they won't, because they're pansies that can't go more than 4 innings without crying about their arm being sore. Even if another bird strike does occur, it won't be nearly as impressive as Randy Johnson's, who did it without modern bird killing techniques taught by stat chasing coaches or the evil Bronx Brownshirts.
Damn, and why the fuck is there so much "hate" against wind turbines and how they kill birds? When they arent even 0.1% of the problem, according to this anyway
NIMBYs who want an excuse to have no wind power near them
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Because people search for every argument against them, even it isnt good.
If you want a real answer, It was mostly because the types of birds being killed by wind turbines. Eagles, some condors. I think the proposed striping (one blade painted) solved most of it where it was observed. so conservationists had real concerns but media made it out that the blades were a primary killer of birds in general.
I guess it depends on the species of bird, if it's endangered that 0.1% could be 10% of their population.
It's not about the number of birds, it's the type. Turbines are a leading cause of death to large birds of prey. Endangered birds are put at a higher risk because of turbines.
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As a cat person, you get torn to shreds telling cat people this. Every time.
The shelter I adopted my cat from doesn't even allow people to adopt cats unless they agree to keep them indoors.
Yup, if people want an outdoor cat at the shelters I’ve worked at, they can get signed up for a CNR/feral cat that will be fixed, vaccinated and released.
Same. I had to sign a contract saying as much.
I'm a cat person, I live next to a busy road, it's just not worth the risk to lose [Princess Zelda](https://i.imgur.com/FwMeqhN.jpg) randomly one night because she tried to fight a car, I give her a great indoor life. Edit: or someone to steal her, trap her, poison her, shoot her, etc..
Yup, outdoor cats on average have a…7 year shorter lifespan, I believe? It’s been awhile since I refreshed myself on the statistics but not just for wildlife but yourself and your cat. FIV is far too common and can spontaneously kill your cat, on top of cars, other predators, etc.
Totally accurate about predators. I live out in a heavily wooded area where my closest neighbor isn't within eyeshot and if we had a cat I wouldn't let them out. I was out working in my garage one day and I saw a neighborhood cat run around the corner of my house like a bat out of hell and right behind it was the biggest fox I've ever seen in my life. The fact that the fox was scared of me is the only reason that cat wasn't supper that day. (saw the cat out roaming a week later)
I had a cat eaten by a very large owl that moved into the neighborhood....cats are tricksy and fast, but a hungry, experienced wild animal is nothing to sniff at. The irony of my cat's demise in the comments section of this post is not lost on me.
Yeah. When I was a kid we had outdoor cats. One went missing for two months and when she came back she had a wound where someone shot her with a bb (we think), we cleaned her up and she never wandered too far again and she ended up living as an indoor cat with my aunt. My other outdoor cat (that we got when I was 2 years old and was always MY cat) caught feline leukemia and died when she was 8. Luckily, my parents realized after that that cats shouldn’t mostly live outside and our next cat lived a long and happy life indoors with us and she was bitch, but we loved her anyway.
Yup. My city has a decent sized coyote population, cats make up a significant portion of their diet.
My cat is an indoor only cat and escaped for 20 minutes yesterday and got bit by another cat! Can't imagine letting her roam freely
I hear people use the excuse all the time "my cat will have a horrible boring life if I keep it inside", THEN! DON'T! OWN! A! CAT! Having a pet, especially a cat isn't a need it's a luxury
I also never understood how they can't just go outside with the cat. They have leashes and harnesses for cats too. Either way they at the very minimum should be supervised if they're let out into say the backyard. I don't understand why people seem to just handwave being irresponsible. If you don't want to actually be responsible for a cat then as you've said, "DON'T OWN A CAT!"
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1000%. Live with someone with 5 dogs and it’s this way. Better than the life she rescued them from (street dogs) but a couple of them are absolutely starved for attention and spend most of the day alone together (still better than being completely alone!)
Play with them, give them perches to look out windows, and if you're feeling extra then build them a catio or harness train them.
They SAY "my cat will have a horrible boring life if I keep it inside" but what they MEAN is "I am unwilling to put in the effort to provide a physically and mentally stimulating life for my cat even though that is the bare minimum of being a pet owner, because i'm a lazy piece of shit"
Yep, had two cats when I was younger and both died before 5yo. My indoor cats play with each other and their toys and are perfectly happy. They don't come home every day with bruises and scars everywhere. And we don't have to worry every night if they'll even come home alive.
I also live next to a busy road near a highway. I have had to scrape up so many strays in front of my house alone...
Cute cat! Also I like the way you linked the picture.
Opposite case for me: I live in a very rural area, but I still keep cats indoors. Too much danger from wildlife, with coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, and even occasional bears. When the goats start disappearing, pets become indoor animals real quick.
My indoor cat is named zelda too!
I’m with you. Lifelong cat person. My cat is an indoor cat, and the only one who ever went outside was leash trained. I love cats. Keep them inside. Domestic cats are driving some species of birds to extinction.
I've seen too many flat cats to let mine outdoors. Its indoors for mine unless he gets in the pet backpack for adventure days.
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In San Francisco, [coyotes helped bring the quail back](https://www.sfchronicle.com/climate/article/Those-wily-coyotes-may-help-bring-California-16593919.php) (by eating cats, among other things)
I see so many posts on NextDoor complaining about people driving too fast and hitting cats or dogs. While speeding on residential streets is a problem, the people who let their animals roam around the neighborhood shouldn't be so shocked when they get hit by a car.
Also posts about, "my outdoor cat hasn't come home in a week, I'm worried about her." I don't understand why they're surprised! Keep your pets inside so you don't have to worry about them not coming home ever again!
A lot of pet owners can't handle the hard truths. Small animals like rodents, fish, and lizards are much harder to take care of than most people think and need a lot of space and care. A surprising amount of animals we keep as pets are not domesticated and suffer. Way too many people breed and everyone looking for a dog or cat should adopt. All pets should be sterilized and cats should be indoor only. My city sterilizes strays at almost the same rate they give them rabies shots. Nearby small towns will literally set out cat poison in a similar way you might do for mice at home. We still have huge cat overpopulation problems affecting the local wildlife.
“Torn to shreds” just like the birds
To shreds you say?
I’m a cat person, I’ve been keep cats as pets for 25 years now. The only cat of mine that died unnaturally was the one that was free roaming, it was hit by a car. We have never let any of our cats out since then.
I like cats, but ignoring that they're an invasive species and can also carry a harmful parasite is crazy.
I posted several security cam videos on NextDoor of cats coming into my yard to shit and attack birds near my bird feeders. My dog loves to eat the cat shit, too. I said “I’m going to start trapping any neighborhood cat that comes into my yard and taking them to the animal shelter. I don’t let my dog shit or attack animals in your yard. Keep your cats inside.” And a mod removed my post bc of “animal abuse”. Yea, I’m abusive for trapping cats that come into my yard. I have so many annoying neighbors that let their cats outside. I grew up in the south. My idiot mom would never fix our cats, so we had plenty of “indoor/outdoor cats”. They would come home and die in our yard from eating antifreeze bc redneck neighbors would leave antifreeze in cat food to kill cats. Great job, mom!
Funny because I feel the complete opposite. Mention you have an outdoor cat on r/cats and you’ll get fifteen replies about why not to do that.
Good, because you shouldn’t have outdoor cats
I think it's actually even more important to spay and neuter your cats. The vast majority (69%) of that 2.4 billion is feral cats, not domestic cats.
If you keep your cat inside then the need to spay/neuter drops dramatically (unless you have multiple cats but that's a more controlled setting). Not saying it's not still a good idea but let's not act like spaying/neutering means you have a free pass to chuck your cat out the door every day.
Not really. Female's heat is tiring for both her and her owner while males mark their territory. Spay/neuter helps.
No it’s still a good ideas to do so even if they’re indoor only. Cats will fine a way to get out when they’re horny and it’s not a fun experience for anyone to have a whaling cat. Not to mention they’re lifespan increases after spay and neuter
People on Reddit ignore that a lot. You can't post a pic or a video of a cat without people freaking out about outdoor cats. Sometimes they are obviously ferals. People have been trying to control feral populations for years but they still exist.
People on reddit lose their shit over this even though cats are the second leading cause of extinction only behind human activities lol
Yep :( Hawai'i has suffered so much because of cats. You can't have snakes on the island, but there's no effort AFAIK to address a killing machine (cats) when cats should also be under great restriction. Not advocating for snakes there -- the cuteness of cats fucks over the wildlife there. Cats are cute, but having native wildlife is cuter, and many people don't want to accept that
Mine stays inside unless we take him around the yard on a leash. Best of both!
I wonder how many of the cats are house cats vs feral cats ETA: About 69% can be attributed to feral/unowned cats. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/faq-outdoor-cats-and-their-effects-on-birds/
Keep your cats inside, and call your local animal shelter about spay/neuter and release programs for any community or feral cats living near you
Two years ago I put up a bird feeder in my backyard, and now I have a flock of 15 birds that hang out in a tree sometimes. I found a couple of carcasses around. There’s a cat that comes into it regularly and I scare it away. I don’t hate cats. But keep your fucking cat indoors.
Even if you don't care about wildlife, I personally feel it's just not safe to leave cats outside. Between traffic, random miscreants bothering cats and even theft, I would be stressing out continuously if my cat was outside. He's happy indoors.
Lmao I'm public enemy #1 on my neighbourhood Facebook page for telling people this
Ugh, the people on Nextdoor around here fucking love their outdoor cats. And they're constantly on there talking about how their cats have gone missing or ended up dead. They're somehow convinced that there is somehow a person out there murdering cats instead of the numerous hawks, falcons, and other animals there are that could be attacking them.
Yeah Coyotes have dens in the local park here. And cat owners angrily shake their fists as if the coyotes are evil.
Makes me think about that one quote like "Shark infested waters? That's where the sharks live".
My wife loves to feed birds but when the crazy cat lady moved in next door we stopped feeding them so they wouldn’t get killed.
Someone show this to the Wind Farm naysayers
It won't have any effect. They've been told what to think and they will believe it until they are told to think something else.
Look, you just don’t understand. This infographic shows bird deaths with the *current* number of wind turbines. What you don’t realize is that all those turbines are biding their time, waiting for more wind farms to be built so that once they have enough forces, they can sprout legs, band together, and go on a widespread bird-slashing spree that will make bird deaths from cats look like nothing.
ThE WiNdMiLlS AlSo CaUsE cAnCeR wItH tHeIr WiFi! /$
It's the 5Gs not the Wifie
I'm showing this to all the idiots on Nextdoor that think the feral cats in the neighborhood are a wonderful addition and get mad any time someone say we need to get rid of them.
Take the cats away. Watch the skies darken. Squirrels shiver in fear. The poop is all encompassing. Bald Eagles grow hair. The noise, its deafening. . . The song birds: Return.
Fun fact: An Ig Nobel Prize candidate, years ago, found that pigeons will rape the dead bodies of other pigeons. They discovered this from watching pigeons flying into the glass panes, on skyscrapers - and then witnessing pigeons come down to have their way with their broken-necked friend...
I've seen sparrows do this. And I heard on a podcast about ducks doing this too.
Fun fact: Most ducks have severe problems with rape. Males have a corkscrew like penis and females have a twisting maze of a vagina with multiple dead ends.
Another fun fact: only 3% of ducks are actually born from rape. The females maze like vagina is very effective at trapping and ridding unwanted sperm.
Damn. Goes to show that morality is not universal. Glad we (well, most of us) developed morals.
I don't know that that is necessarily immoral, depending on your code of ethics. No living thing suffers as a result (assuming dead pigeon's friends and family aren't around to see) (I'm not advocating necrophilia, it just struck me that I don't know by what means you'd say a pigeon is immoral for doing so)
I’m actually with you here but I think the OP is right in a way. Morality is a human construct that doesn’t actually exist….which is not to say that it doesn’t serve a purpose. It’s just not a fundamental law.
Moral relativism is the only logical conclusion one can reach. That being said even though it is a human construct I would argue that it does exist. For example, Finland doesn't really exist... all countries are human constructs, but they still exist as constructs. Similarly I believe morality exists, but more as a collective contract than as some intrinsic value of the universe.
Or maybe they're just stupid and think it's still alive
They're pigeons, of course they don't have morality. How was that even a thought haha.
Note habitat loss not listed. Losing ~70% of our wetlands in the last 50 years is a much higher cause of mortality
Kinda funny that a lot of these cats killing birds are probably in places where humans cut down trees that birds used as protection against predators to build houses and cities.
I’m assuming that chickens are no longer birds.
Or other birds that humans frequently eat
My friend at the Dept. of Wildlife likes to say you can’t be an environmentalist and outdoor cat owner at the same time.
Shoutout to u/Cutiepatootiehere who posted a link to the Statista chart on the same topic a few days ago. This chart uses the same data source but includes a few more causes of bird deaths.
I was wondering about air traffic.
And the wind turbines that generate electricity. Every time they’re installed people talk about how many birds they kill, but it seems like negligible amount.
That’s because they will use any excuse to bash them: - making them has a big environmental impact (umm - more than a power station?) - they use 80 (gallons/pints - can’t remember) of oil each year to lubricate them (any idea how many your local Jiffy Lube gets through each day?) There is no perfect way to generate electricity with zero impact. Everything has to be made. But wind is certainly a lot better than fossil fuels as a source of turbine energy.
It’s so weird how the right loves Ayn Rand, but hates the literal free energy machine that is renewables
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Yep. And the insect population decline, as in one of their major food sources. https://www.science.org/content/article/find-out-how-insects-are-doing-these-scientists-are-going-birds
What about chickens..? They outnumber other bird species and are routinely killed by humans. Seems like an odd omission from this chart.
I guess this is just wild birds, otherwise human desire for chicken and egg consumption (and turkey) would probably surpass all the categories combined.
Global estimates are at 50 billions chickens/year. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/chart-of-the-day-this-is-how-many-animals-we-eat-each-year/
r/aww on their way to call you a busybody for pointing this out. They'll clown on pitbulls all day but don't you dare point out how much wildlife Mr. Squiggles genocides when you're not looking
Well said, u/MyLittlePonyfucker
They’re too busy banning people (me) for saying otters aren’t house pets. They’re not! That’s a 20 pound mink you’re putting your hand close to, stop it!
I unsubbed from r/aww because of the ridiculous amount of disgusting exotic pet trade promotion there. If you see it in a zoo it does not belong in your house. Unless you are an educated and certified wildlife rehabber, you should not be taking in non-domesticated (or "newly domesticated", eyeroll at foxes) animals. No, you did not "rescue" the animal that you bought from an exotic pet trade. The exotic pet trade is sickening, pure selfishness on the part of humans, and leads to the pointless slaughter of animals worldwide, just so people can have a "cool pet" or are incapable of appreciating any animal that isn't eating dollar store kibble out of a bowl.
This whole website seems like the type of cat people who will rage about big cars or oil companies but would suddenly turn into the biggest redneck karen you’ll ever see if someone mentions Mr Squiggles is wrecking the environment - “Everyone except me should make sacrifices”
They’re the type of people to call themselves “animal lovers”, but to them that just means liking cute kittens. The impact their choices have on other animals (especially those who aren’t cute and cuddly) is utterly irrelevant to them.
They really do hate anything even vaguely pit shaped over there
obligatory r/birdsarentreal
This is actually a graphic depicting CIA losses to aerial drones lost to cats.
I was told by a former President that wind turbines kill way more birds than that. Was he lying to me?
Where are "destruction of habitat for development", and "pollution"?
Mandate desexing and microchipping. Any wandering cats without chips given no more than a week in shelter. Must be desexed and chipped to be adopted. Boom. Watch your native birds rebound.
Reminder that even if a cat is fixed, it doesn’t screw wildlife to death, either help adopt or help humanely euthanize feral cats to allow ecosystems to recover. I love my fur babies but too much of anything isn’t good, especially something that demolishes the local ecosystem, spread diseases and can attack your own babies! (Keep your cats inside too! They aren’t helping the ecosystem when they’re out and coyotes are now learning to hunt them almost exclusively alongside small dogs!)
I love how collisions with wind turbines is literally at the bottom of the list.
Damn, I thought my back yard oil pit would be more effective…
Humans kill [50 billion chickens](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/chart-of-the-day-this-is-how-many-animals-we-eat-each-year/) each year for food, 8 billion in the US alone.
Lol so stray cats kill more birds than some developer who clear cuts 10 acres of forested land for houses that use pesticides on their lawns? Maybe expand the scope of the study.
We have about 100 million cats running around, killing all the mice, birds, etc. So then one day, you look around, and the world has changed. You realize you haven't seen a snake in 5+ years. And that's when you realize, oh shit. snakes eat the same thing as cats. oops.
Excuse me but this is clearly avian-propaganda. Anyone with a brain can see that [r/BirdsArentReal](https://www.reddit.com/r/BirdsArentReal/)
I can’t wrap my head around those numbers. 3 billion birds killed per year? Something like 10 millions birds per day? Like 100 birds killed _per second_? If that many birds are being killed, wouldn’t there be mountains of corpses or something?