Frankly that's a terrible idea. If they were going to introduce a new predator species they'd likely be better off with a limited number of terriers trained at ratting (at least for a first generation), but that could have a significant impact on other wildlife on the island even if they were less inclined than cats to hunting birds.
Overall the original plan sounds like it had a lot of thought behind it. They're talking about grain pellets (most sea mammals and seabirds aren't likely eating a lot of grain), at a time when most birds and sea mammals are away from the islands anyway, with crews retrieving as many mouse corpses as possible so other animals won't eat them and be exposed. They acknowledge that some non-targeted birds and animals will be affected, but in small enough numbers to not pose a serious risk to the population - and likely in smaller numbers than would be impacted by failing to address the mouse problems.
A followup if anyone is still reading, I originally didn't mention that they're basically attempting to eliminate the mice on the islands not just control the population.
"the only battle-tested and proven method to ensure the mice do not return. Nearly 50 other methods that were explored such as using contraceptives, individual traps, pathogens and others were deemed infeasible or unable to end the mouse problem for good."
This is very accurate,. “Cats are responsible for helping drive 33 species of birds, mammals and reptiles to extinction on islands, including the Stephens Island wren in New Zealand in the late 1800s, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.”
that is an urban legend. If anything, in the absence of other natural predators as it happens around developed areas, the cats are the one providing the key function of culling ill/weak bird DNA from the population as well as just removing the billions of the old and naturally reaching their end-of-life birds from the population thus shaping the bird population pressure on limited resources toward favoring healthy/younger bird population and limiting the decease spread.
Who is profoundly destructive are the rats who can eat the eggs - ie. hitting the bird population at the most vulnerable stage in the most destructive and non discriminating way. Cats do rats control too. As a result presence of feral cats provides for a very healthy bird population. Anecdotally observed that myself during my childhood at the grandmother's farm - there have always been gangs of feral cats at ours and other farms around and the bustling bird population happily living in the their nests all around the main house and the barns - unreachable for cats while would be easily worked on by rats if they were existing there.
> I'm talking about actual research, conducted on large colonies of ferals, not a couple cats at grandma's farm.
i'm talking about close to 10 years observation on 8 farms each usually having 5-10 ferals. I kind of doubt that all of the research you refer to can match that.
The links you point to is mostly fear mongering opinion pieces by the people with agenda (see the link below on animal cruelty criminal conviction) - "cats kill!" - we've been there with wolves killing caribou. And cats playing final shot for 33 species - well, among all those multitude of species disappearance and wildlife population decimation humans caused it is kind of surprising that it is only 33. I mean, statistically speaking any minor factor related to humans can be accounted for final shot for a hundreds and thousands of species disappearance.
"A postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian's Migratory Bird Center at the National Zoo was found guilty Monday of attempting to poison cats in her northwest Washington neighborhood.
...
A District of Columbia Superior Court judge convicted her of attempted animal cruelty, a misdemeanor. "
It is like a convicted murderer coming out with a research showing that the homicide of the kind he committed is good for society. Would you trust to and post links to such a "research"?
> i'm talking about close to 10 years observation on 8 farms each usually having 5-10 ferals. I kind of doubt that all the research you refer to can match that.
So, to a Fermi approximation, what's that, a hundred total animals, tops?
Some of the research I'm talking about involves individual colonies that are easily an order of magnitude larger in number.
EDIT: Re: that researcher's behavior and your shadow-edit about murderers: one person's bad behavior doesn't change the facts. That anecdote is irrelevant here, and bringing it up is a form of ad hominem.
>Outdoor cats kill between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion birds a year, study says
those numbers are meaningless to say the least. I never said cats don't kill the birds. What i said is that that killing is beneficial for the bird population. What do you think happens in nature to the billions of ill and old dying birds? Do you think they happily end their days in hospitals and nursing facilities? Or you'd prefer those billions of naturally dying birds just slowly die on their own (from decease and hunger, etc. not being able to fly and feed themselves anymore) and just lie around as a feed for rats?
If it were undeveloped land untouched by humans the role of the cats would be spread around among the multitude of predators, and even more birds would be killed as the total bird population undecimated by humans would be bigger, and thus the same percentage of ill and old birds from the bigger population would mean even higher number to be killed by predators.
I'm not an expert, but people in Australia who are experts think that feral cats are a huge problem for native wildlife. I know in some areas you can get a bounty for bringing in dead cats. There's also programs that do sterilization and poisoned traps
Interesting article here, which I think I originally saw on HN: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/magazine/australia-cat-ki... Some of the pictures are a bit unpleasant, but part of the article is about the visceral backlash to killing cats even when it is almost universally agreed to be for the greater good
Frankly that's a terrible idea. If they were going to introduce a new predator species they'd likely be better off with a limited number of terriers trained at ratting (at least for a first generation), but that could have a significant impact on other wildlife on the island even if they were less inclined than cats to hunting birds.
Overall the original plan sounds like it had a lot of thought behind it. They're talking about grain pellets (most sea mammals and seabirds aren't likely eating a lot of grain), at a time when most birds and sea mammals are away from the islands anyway, with crews retrieving as many mouse corpses as possible so other animals won't eat them and be exposed. They acknowledge that some non-targeted birds and animals will be affected, but in small enough numbers to not pose a serious risk to the population - and likely in smaller numbers than would be impacted by failing to address the mouse problems.
More details at a non-firewalled article: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/07/11/like-dropping-a-nucle...