Cats, an adorable creature loved by many. However, house cat is an artificially selected species. Unlike many other wild animals, they didn’t walk a long path in a history to find their position in the food chain but take an advantage of human’s care to thrive in our society. This doesn’t seem to be troublesome as they are kept domestically for most of the time. However, as human expansion continues while more birds have adapted to human settlements, the overlap of activities increase the likelihood of birds’ and cats’ encounter. And this combination could a disaster.
One of the most famous stories is about Lyall’s wren, a small, flightless passerine. Its extinction is attributed to numerous feral cats. In the 1880s, human started their activity on Stephens Island which is thought to be wren’s last refuge. Some cats were brought to the island during that time as well. These cats soon found wren an ideal prey and made a havoc among these birds. Just one year after this species was discovered by human, people found they were unable to find any wrens on that island.
Nowadays, the predation by domestic cats is still the #1 direct, human-caused threat to birds in the U.S. and Canada. A study suggest that outdoor domestic cats kill 1.3-4.0 million birds and 6.3-22.3 billion mammals annually. The extinction of 63 species of birds, mammals and reptiles could be attributed to house cats. The loss of species not only is a great loss of human, but also impacts the ecosystem. Thus, it is critical to raise people’s awareness. I wish this combination could leave players with a deep impression of cats as a great threat to birds.
[1] “Cats and Birds.” American Bird Conservancy, 25 Sept. 2020, abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/.
[2] Loss, Scott R., et al. “The Impact of Free-Ranging Domestic Cats on Wildlife of the United States.” Nature Communications, vol. 4, no. 1, 2013, https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2380.
[3] “Study: Bird Wings Morph Quickly to Adapt to Human-Created Environmental Changes.” Ramanujan, Krishna, and 2010 March 9. Cornell Chronicle, 9 Mar. 2010, news.cornell.edu/stories/2010/03/american-songbirds-evolve-humans-change-forests.
[4] “The land bird fauna of Stephens Island, New Zealand in the early 1890s, and the cause of its demise”. Medway, D.G. (2004). Notornis. 51: 201 – 211.
[5] “The tale of the lighthouse-keeper's cat: Discovery and extinction of the Stephens Island wren (Traversia lyalli). Galbreath, R. & Brown, D. (2004)Notornis, 51(#4): 193 – 200.