[micromacrofoot]

26 a year for an outdoor cat honestly seems low to me… that’s 1 every other week. I had one cat that I started keeping inside because it was approaching one per day.

Without us they’d be doing this for sustenance, so in theory multiple kills a day.

[damnedspot]

Worse than for sustenance: I've read that about 2/3 of animals cats kill aren't eaten. They're doing it for sport...

[cheese_goddess]

Yes, but cats and birds have existed together for, I don't know, millions of years? Without cats causing a mass extinction of birds. And why is that?

[micromacrofoot]

the increase of cats as pets seems like a possible factor, one rough estimate says the US has 3X more housecats than it did in 1970... so it certainly seems possible that we've thrown off a more natural equilibrium

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Growth-of-the-house-cat-...

[pirate787]

Agree, we have an indoor/outdoor cat, he's fixed and usually has a bell collar on, and he still kills more than 26 birds and mice a year.