Cats and Birds
Keeping Cats Away from the Outdoors to Improve Bird Populations
Cats are not only curious but they are also successful hunters. So much that, according to a study done in Australia, domesticated cats kill their prey with a 70% success rate. In turn, outdoor domesticated cats are among the most successful feline predators in the animal kingdom.
However, this becomes a large problem for birds. While domesticated cat populations are on the rise, bird populations are dramatically declining. According to a recent study, 2.4 billion cats kill birds within the United States, every year. To put that into perspective: 76.05 birds die every second due to outdoor cats. That means, by the time you have finished reading this post, 76 more birds will have died.
Outdoor cats not only pose a threat against themselves such as encountering diseases and wild predators, they have contributed to the extinction of 63 bird species. According to a recent study, “69 percent of the bird mortality from cat predation and 89 percent of the mammal mortality was from un-owned cats.” This concludes that both domesticated cats and feral cats play a large role in bird decline.
The Solution?
GET A CATIO! We get it, it’s important to let your cats feel the outdoors. However, we believe an outdoor cat house is the best solution for both cats and birds.
At Cat Topia, our goal is to build cat enclosures to improve the lives of our cats. At the same time, we believe cats that have access to the outdoors in a secure area such as a catio, will dramatically improve bird populations. A catio is the best of both worlds.
Hence, by building creating outdoor cat houses, we know that a cats life is enriched, and we know that from every build, bird populations increase.