Domestic cats 'invading' the world —and not in a cute way

Domestic cats are invading the world, and not in a cute or cuddly way, a new study published in Nature Communications suggests.

 

The study, dubbed "Impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States," said un-owned cats may cause the majority of this mortality.

 

"Free-ranging domestic cats have been introduced globally and have contributed to multiple wildlife extinctions on islands. The magnitude of mortality they cause in mainland areas remains speculative, with large-scale estimates based on non-systematic analyses and little consideration of scientific data," it said.

 

"Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals ... Scientifically sound conservation and policy intervention is needed to reduce this impact," it added.

 

The study, whose authors include Scott Loss, Tom Will, and Peter Marra, estimated that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds and 6.9 to 20.7 billion mammals annually.

 

A separate article on io9.com said the study depicts cats to be a bigger threat than buildings, towers, windows, poison, and cars.

 

It cited the study as saying some 84 million owned cats live in the US, and that there are 30 to 80 million un-owned cats, which include feral cats, barn cats, and cats who are not allowed inside.

 

"Though the numbers may be shocking, their discovery isn't particularly startling. Un-owned cats have already been implicated in 33 modern bird, mammal, and reptile extinctions, write the researchers in Nature Communications," io9.com said.

 

Also, it said small rodents taken by felines aren't Norway rats or apartment vermin, but native rodent species such as meadow voles and chipmunks.

 

Marra was quoted in the report as saying one solution is to keep cats indoors most of the time to prevent them from affecting local ecosystems.

 

The study noted that in New Zealand, there is a campaign to ban cats as pets.

 

"Of course, it's also possible that banning cats entirely could affect the environment in unexpected ways too. They could be keeping other pests at bay, but we wouldn't notice until the cats were gone and the pests began to multiply out of control," it said.

 

"What's obvious is that the biggest problem comes from cats who don't have a human home to return to. People have made cats an invasive species, and we need to stop releasing cats into the wild and keeping barn cats," it added. — TJD, GMA News