Cats have been used as scapegoats for centuries. During Medieval
times cats were tortured and slaughtered during the terrible witch-hunts. They
were initially blamed for bringing the plague to Europe and England. It does
seem that much of this latest modern war on cats is once again related to the
old “scapegoat” frenzy upon the cat. This time around though, it is often
otherwise-intelligent scientists and biologists doing the scapegoating. They
call cats “non-native”, “alien”, “exotics” – all translating into
“eradicate.” Firstly, cats have lived in
the U.S. for 500 years and should no longer be considered non-native; secondly,
cats are meso-predators. They have taken over niches left by the slaughter or demise of
predators such as the bobcat, wolf and other major carnivores.
The
Persecution of Cats
The early Christian church linked cats with so-called pagan
religions. As a result, the cat began to fall from favor during the Middle
Ages. Western religions started encouraging the cruel torture and burning of
cats, condemning them as pagan demons. During the thirteenth century the church
blamed witchcraft for the social problems of the time, and cats became a
scapegoat – along with witches and nonbelievers. During these medieval times,
superstitious beliefs about witchcraft led to the killing of large numbers of
cats, which allowed the Bubonic Plague to spread unchecked.
The
Bubonic Plague, also known as Black Death, killed more than 25 million people
throughout Europe between 1347 and 1352, nearly a third of Europe’s total
population in just five years.
Many women, who practiced ancient
healing crafts using old folk medicines, were accused of being witches. And
many women were killed solely because they cared for cats. Cats were accused of
being witches’ familiars or even witches in disguise. The Festival of St. John
was celebrated annually with the burning alive of cats in the town square. Cat burning was a form of sadistic
entertainment in 17th century Paris, France. In this form of entertainment,
people would gather dozens of cats in a net and hoist them high into the air
from a special bundle onto a bonfire. According to historian Norman Davies,
"[T]he spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as
the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally
carbonized." (Pinker, 2007) By the 1400s, the domestic cat had become
almost extinct because of rampant persecution.
Australian
Environmentalist Frankie Seymour says, “by the late Middle Ages, cats in Europe
had been hunted, hanged and burned almost to extinction. Then, of course, the
Black Death (Bubonic Plague) arrived in Europe and 25 million people…died in
five years. (Seymour, 2011) The
persecution eventually spread to the New World and in places such as Salem,
Massachusetts, more than 150 people were accused of witchcraft. Then, “For the
next couple of centuries after ‘the Death’ – centuries which just happened to
coincide with the Age of Exploration - cats became popular again. Ships
traveling to Asia and Africa were particularly vulnerable to pick up Plague –
so cats on ships were considered lucky and necessary.” (Seymour, 2011)
The
Mayor of London, along with others, thought that the disease was being spread
by dogs and cats and ordered the extermination of all pets. Despite this the
plague did not abate but accelerated as the elimination of cats was followed by
an explosion of rats. Some people kept their cats in violation of the law and
it was found that they did not get the plague. Soon it was realized that rats
carried the plague, and that cats would be able to keep populations in check.
In private conversations I have had with some American
environmentalists and biologists, including one of the world’s foremost experts
on migratory birds, many do acknowledge the bias against cats, but they do not
care sufficiently to go against their peers in defense of the cat. A book
titled The Domestic Cat: the biology of its behavior resulted
from a symposium on cats at the University of Zurich over a decade ago. The
scientists at the symposium presented either their own findings or the results
of cat predation studies done on 31 islands and on 4 continents. Their
conclusion? ”Any bird populations on
the continents that could not withstand these levels of predation from cats and
other predators would have disappeared long ago.”
The
American Bird Conservancy and The Wildlife Society are so predictable. A few of
us almost always know what they will come up with next to grab the nation’s
attention continuing their 17 year mission to try to have all feral cats killed,
and to put an end to all nonlethal, humane care for feral colonies.
So
the latest press release from the anti-cat establishment announced that
researcher Kerrie Anne Lloyd observed 2,000 hours of video from “kitty cams”
and found that 44% of 55 cats “engaged in predatory behavior” defined as
stalking, capturing, or killing prey. And 30% were successful. The
Athens, Georgia, cats most frequently stalked lizards called Carolina anoles.
The cats’ prey did include chipmunks and voles and flying insects and even
worms. Just five of the cats’ 39 successful hunts involved birds, Lloyd said.
As long ago as 1993, international Biologist and cat expert, Roger
Tabor said: “In biological terms is it insufficient merely to have found that
one animal will eat another, that, after all, is what predators do—but is that
predation pressure within normal limits?”
Consider what these scientific experts have had to say about cat
predation:
Fitzgerald, B. M., and B. J. Karl, 1979: Foods
of feral house cats (felis catus L.) in forest of the Orongorongo Valley,
Wellington. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 6:107-126
"Cats suppress populations of more dangerous predators such as rats and
thus allows denser populations of birds than would exist without them."
Tabor, Roger, 1993: Tabor
found that “cats have low success as bird hunters”, and “the bulk of a feral cat’s
diet is garbage, plants, insects, and other scavenger material” and
therefore cats are “not impacting bird populations on the continents”
Julie
Levy, DVM: “Not surprisingly, decades of hand-wringing
over this issue have failed to resolve it. Eradication of feral cats has only
been accomplished on small uninhabited islands in which a combination of
poisoning, shooting, trapping, and deliberate release of infectious diseases
was used over several decades at a cost of millions of dollars. These
techniques are obviously inappropriate and ineffective on inhabited mainland
locations.”
Do we disagree with everything American Bird
Conservancy does? No, of course not. We love birds and at Alley Cat Rescue
have written about ways to save them. We
love other animals, as well as cats.
In fact the only living things I ever
deliberately kill are mosquitoes, fleas and flies. I am the crazy person
holding up traffic to remove a dead possum, raccoon or skunk from the middle of
the road so crows and other birds eating the carcasses don’t get killed by
drivers not seeing them, or not caring enough to slow down.
ABC works to reduce birds and window
collisions. Estimates of up to 976 million birds per year are killed flying
into windows. We support this. They work on reducing the use of pesticides.
Millions of birds are killed by ingesting pesticides. One wildlife rehabber
that I used to take dying birds to when I worked in a wealthy north D.C. suburb
where pristine lawns all looked like the greens on golf courses, told me they
were all the victims of pesticide poisoning. I hated walking from my parked car
down several blocks to my office in spring, as I used to find so many dead and
dying birds. There were no alley cats around these areas. I worked on several
colonies in the D C area, and worked at this organization in N.W for 14 years,
and there were definitely no feral cats in this neighborhood. The only cats I
ever saw were ones staring at me through windows.
ABC promotes shade-grown coffee. ACR
promotes shade-grown coffee. They ask people to reduce their carbon
footprint. ACR asks people to do the same and to live lightly on the planet.
They promote this through reducing the use of
fossil fuels. While we do this as well, I have yet to see them ask people to
eat lower on the food-chain. And do they ask people to cut back on fast food?
No. Many chains still use cheap hamburger obtained from the rainforests. This
is the most important reason for the loss of songbirds. These are important
numbers to keep in mind if you want to be a true environmentalist:
- More than one third of the world’s grain
harvest is used to feed livestock.
- Some 70 to 80% of grain produced in the
United States is fed to livestock
- Half the water consumed in the U.S. is
used to grow grain for cattle feed.
- A gallon of gasoline is required to
produce a pound of grain-fed beef.
This is where we should be
concentrating our energies, if we are really serious about saving the planet
and saving birds.
Cattle raising destroys tropical
forests. Hundreds of thousands of acres of tropical forests in Brazil, Guatemala,
Costa Rica, and Honduras have been leveled to create pasture for cattle. This
is the REAL cause of the loss of songbirds.
Urban Birds: Many species of
native birds inhabit our cities and suburban environments. Most feral cats also
live in these same areas. The truth
is that bird populations show an increase in their numbers of 20% over the past
40 years. Now, if feral cats are
creating the overall decline in bird species, how is it that in the very areas
where they thrive, bird populations are also thriving?
The Real Reason American Songbirds
are Vanishing
Although songbird populations are declining,
other birds such as blackbirds and greenfinches, blue jays and brown-headed
cowbirds (both nestling-eating predators) are exploding. As mentioned above, year-round
U.S. bird residents are stable or increasing in numbers, indicating the need
for serious consideration of reasons why songbirds are in decline. Blaming cats
for songbird decline is a facile and simplistic solution to a complex problem.
Professor John Terborgh of Duke
University reported in the May 1992 issue of Scientific American that little
can be done about restoring songbirds in rural and suburban areas and
conservation efforts should be directed towards consolidating and expanding
large tracts of forest, such as the Smokies and Adirondacks, to maximize
habitat for nesting birds. Terborgh suggests that farmers practice fallowing
their fields every two to three years. He is also concerned about the damage
done by clear-cutting national forests and overgrazing federal lands.
More than 250 species of songbirds migrate
south of U.S. borders. Tropical deforestation is occurring at the rate of
142,000 to 200,000 square kilometers each year, an area roughly the size of
Florida. At this rate the world’s remaining tropical forests will be depleted
by 2030 and many species of songbirds will disappear along with them.
Dr. Roger Tory Peterson, internationally known
ornithologist, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, had this to say
about birds and nature: “Most thought-provoking of all is to discover the
balance of nature: the balance between a bird and its environment…We learn that
each ecosystem has a carrying capacity, and that predation harvests only a
surplus that otherwise would be leveled off in some different way: hence, putting up fences and
shooting all the hawks and cats will not raise the number of Red-eyed Vireos to
any significant degree.”
So let’s cut to the chase: How can
we REALLY help birds?
This is an urgent matter,
and we are asking you to start taking action today. We cannot waste any more
time. And we should NOT have these anti-cat folks always focusing public
attention on their small studies showing that cats are predators. Hello, we know this. That is the reason they became domesticated
in the first place. They are experts at killing RODENTS, and help cities, towns,
farms, counties keep these populations in check. Without cats, According to the
Rainforest Action Network, following these simple actions will go a long way to
saving the rainforests and therefore the songbirds who make the forests their
home.
1)
Reduce your paper and wood consumption: Logging
companies are cutting down some of the most endangered forests on the planet to
make wood and paper products such as office paper, phone books, toilet paper,
window trim, lawn furniture, and 2’ x 4's. Over seventy-eight percent of the
Earth's original old growth forests have already been logged or degraded.
Reduce your own wood and paper use. For example, use both sides of each piece
of paper, use your own cloth bags at the grocery store, use cloth napkins and
towels, and avoid disposable paper plates and cups.
2)
Reduce your oil consumption: You
can help alleviate oil's impact on the environment by reducing your own oil and
gas consumption. Choose a car that gets good gas mileage and avoid gas guzzling
sports utility vehicles. If you drive somewhere regularly, start a carpool.
Whenever possible, leave your car at home and walk, ride your bike, or take
local mass transportation. Support funding for mass transportation and bike
lanes.
3)
Reduce your beef consumption: Rainforest
beef is typically found in fast food hamburgers or processed beef products. In
both 1993 and 1994 the U.S. imported over 200 million pounds of fresh and
frozen beef from Central American countries. Two-thirds of these countries'
rainforests have been cleared, in part to raise cattle whose meat is exported
to profit the U.S. food industry. When beef enters the U.S., it is not labeled
with its country of origin, so there is no way to trace it to its source.
Reducing your consumption of beef will reduce demand for it and save forests.
ABC has been at this for 17
years---demonizing cats. When will they stop? There are so many serious issues
facing the planet right now, and this constant witch-hunt on cats not only
consumes their energies, but forces TNR advocates to spend our time and money
always defending the cats, and correcting the myths and misinformation.
