[Cerium]

That ranger's quote reminded me about a time I learned about the overlap in abilities between cats and raccoons.

When I was a child my family had a cat that preferred to spend most of the time outside. When we went on vacation, we would leave it inside and come home to an annoyed cat. We couldn't leave it outside, since the raccoons would steal all the food. My dad had an idea that since we had a house on a hill with a wrap around balcony we could find a way to enable the cat to reach the balcony but not the raccoons.

First we tried putting a long narrow board between the ground and the balcony on the theory that cats have better balance than raccoons. False, raccoons are fine at climbing across a narrow bridge.

Then we decided that cats are smaller than raccoons, so we would make a gate with a cutout matching the exact dimensions of our cat's head and body. In some ways this worked, the adult raccoons could not access the food. Unfortunately raccoons are not stupid, they sent a child raccoon to fetch the food to the door and then scooped it through the small opening.

The cat remained indoors during our trip.

[narrator]

Having dealt with an owner away on vacation indoor/outdoor cat and racoon situation, I found the optimal way to handle it. It was a rental, so I couldn't install a microchip cat door.

1. Get feeders that run on a timer and release a fixed amount of food.

2. Duct tape the feeders very securely to a metal box. Put something very heavy in the box to keep the raccoons from flipping the box over.

3. Set the timers so they release enough food for the cat. Have them set to go off a few hours after sunrise. Raccoons hate going out during the day.

4. The cat eats all the food and when the raccoons come at night there is nothing for them.

5. Point a motion activated camera at the feeders so you can fix and make improvements to the duct taping to respond to those clever raccoons and to make sure the cat has enough to eat.

[tzs]

> Raccoons hate going out during the day.

Correct. A lot of people freak out when the do see one out during the day because for some reason it is widely believed that they only come out during the day if they are rabid.

Where I am (western Washington) rabies has never been found in the wild raccoon population (or in any wild terrestrial mammal population--it's all bats and domestic animals), but still some people see a raccoon in the daytime and freak out over rabies.

In fact if a raccoon is out during the day the most likely reason is that there is a food shortage and it can't forage enough just at night. Sometimes there is a shortage because something decreased the food supply, and sometimes it is because the raccoon is pregnant and needs more food due to that. Daytime outings due to rabies is way way way below that even in places like the eastern US where rabies is widespread in their raccoon populations.

Every year around here we'll see the neighborhood raccoon start coming around in the daytime for a while, getting plumper and plumper, then she stops coming at all for a while, and then she shows up at night much thinner and with 2 to 5 little ones.

[wiredfool]

In Western Washington, I had a raccoon knock over a 55 gallon trash can (mostly) full of glass bottles. That made a hell of a noise.

[Ma8ee]

Nowadays there are cat doors with micro chip readers to make sure that only your cat can get in.

[vijayr02]

Wait till the raccoons kidnap the cat and make it open the door :)

[aitchnyu]

My half stray used to bring boyfriends and they ate after she did.

[BurningFrog]

What's a "half stray"?

[graderjs]

Hahaha ..lol. oh that's hilarious. Please write a sci Fi.

[flukus]

Nowadays we shouldn't be allowing cats to be outside unsupervised in any case, they can be devastating to local wildlife, including these clever cockatoos.

[pengstrom]

This is why you put a little bell on the cat's collar. That way it can't really sneak up undetected.

[murrayb]

Former multiple cat owner here, every cat I have owned hunted successfully with multiple bells on their collars. My neighbours cat has bells and hunts in my yard. Bells don't work or don't work reliably enough.

[Workaccount2]

The chipmunks around my house are dumb af. They get scared of the cat, but after 2 minutes of sitting still they're running right by him again. It's almost like they evolved to be food.

[socialismisok]

Bells don't work. Cats are more than comfortable staying still enough to keep them silent.

Additionally, bells don't impact the other damage outdoors cats do to gardens, the deceased life expectancy, and the increased chance of disease.

Do not let your cats outside.

[noir_lord]

> Bells don't work. Cats are more than comfortable staying still enough to keep them silent.

Saw this with the neighbours cat, little sod is so smooth he doesn't ring the bell until he pounces and by then the bird already knows it's in deep shit.

My pair are indoor cats - they live longer and we are near a very busy road.

[xani_]

"Those humans are nasty, now every time I hear a loud bell it means one of my friends has died"

- local bird, probably

[jasone]

One might think so, but I saw a neighbor's declawed bell-laden cat routinely catch prey. The bell surely didn't help the cat, but the birds, mice, shrews, snakes, etc. needed more than a bell to save them.

[nibbleshifter]

This depends on where.

In the UK, the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) has stated repeatedly that cat predation is having no real impact on bird populations.

In Australia? Much bigger issue.

[bearmode]

Fully depends on the local wildlife. If the local fauna naturally devleoped alongside wildcats, such as in the UK, then outdoor cats are of very little concern to wildlife populations.

If they didn't, such as in Aus, then yeah they can be devastating.

[the_third_wave]

In all its 13 years (and counting) our cat has taken maybe 5 birds, this includes the swallow he noticed flying by at ~1.5 meters height upon which he jumped straight up in the air and caught it. Sad for the swallow but it was quite a feat of cat-dexterity. Anyway, he doesn't catch birds since there are more than enough voles, mice, rats, squirrels and weasels - no idea why he catches those but he's done so several times - around to keep him satisfied. He eats nearly everything he catches but tends to leave the weasels mostly uneaten. He also does not like squirrel tails which became clear when I cleaned up under the stairs where I found 5 of them.

Maybe I should add I live on a farm? If it were not for the cat we'd have to take care of the vermin he dispatches in some other way so hooray for the cat.

[tapland]

Very few of the catches are usually known to the owner.

It’s tricky to study since you pretty much need to introduce cats to areas with stable bird populations. We’ve had birds relocate and start new nests elsewhere because they see cats around though, and even magpies are extremely reluctant to eat food put out for them near the yard where the cats sometimes hang out.

[peoplefromibiza]

> In all its 13 years (and counting) our cat has taken maybe 5 birds

reminder: what you see is not what you get.

cats kill between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion birds a year, study says. Outdoor cats are the leading cause of death among both birds and mammals in the United States, according to a new study, killing 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion birds each year. The mammalian toll is even higher, concluded researchers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, ranging from 6.9 billion to 20.7 billion annually.

[samatman]

Remember, every time you see statistics like this, that the cats aren't fungible!

America has a large feral cat population, which lives on birds and mice, not cat food.

Your numbers aren't at all inconsistent with OPs.

[peoplefromibiza]

reminder: cats are predators.

The study found each feral cat kills an average 576 native birds, mammals and reptiles per year, while pet cats kill an average of 110 native animals every year – 40 reptiles, 38 birds and 32 mammals.

In Australia 3.7 million domestic cats kill 230 million native birds every year.

OP numbers are in the realm of not being plausible, unless the cat lives in a cage.

As a cat owner I could believe in 5 in a year, or one every 2-3 months, that's possible, low but possible. I can't honestly believe in 5 in 13 years, for a normal, non disabled cat.

Numbers I gave you are consistent with the 100 million cats that live in USA (15-30 birds killed by each cat every year on average)

[specialist]

As a bird lover, I'm a big fan of coyotes.

[the_third_wave]

Are you sure?

https://wildexplained.com/do-coyotes-eat-birds/

[shapefrog]

Its the natural order of things.

Local wildlife can be devesating to other local wildlife, can be devestating to the whole ecosystem.

[Scarblac]

Yes, but the cat is fed inside the house as well, leading to a huge overpopulation of predators. That's not the natural order of things.

A normal predator that devastates the local ecosystem because there are too many will run out of food and then go down in numbers until some sort of equilibrium is restored. Doesn't happen with pets.

[cycomanic]

On top of that cats are actually not local to most places in the world. So they are an introduced predator which the local wildlife didn't develop defenses for.

I also wonder if you would accept the same argument if the neighbors dog would maul your cat (or even your child)

[Ensorceled]

> I also wonder if you would accept the same argument if the neighbors dog would maul your cat

Some of my neighbours are incensed that coyotes are eating the neighbourhood cats ...

[thatguy0900]

Will you let your cat starve to death when they depopulate all the birds? That's the natural way to keep predators in check

[xani_]

Well, not exactly. The cats don't have natural predators in the city and in many other places where they were introduced

[aaaaaaaaaaab]

Natural predator in the city? Sounds like an oxymoron to me...

[lapinot]

Erm cars? Or neighbors? Sounds like most of my cats deaths were caused by either cars or some sort of poisoning. Looks very predatorish to me.

[ClumsyPilot]

> Its the natural order of things

So was The Plague

[Ma8ee]

I know that cats eat a lot of birds, but I wonder how often cats really is the limiting factor of the population. Other things like scarcity of food or nesting places might often be more important.

[speedbird]

Armageddon

Domestic cats are killing an estimated 230M native Australian birds, reptiles and mammals every year

https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/15/keep-pet...

[kuschku]

The situation in australia is very different from other regions, in a previous discussion on HN we've already established that for central europe, domestic cats have a negligible effect on wildlife. (As in, orders of magnitudes below the next higher causes, which are mostly wild cats and pesticides).

[grecy]

> As in, orders of magnitudes below the next higher causes, which are mostly wild cats and pesticides

I'm not sure if you're aware, wild cats are a direct result of domestic cats.

[lapinot]

And i'm sure mining for coal, building ever expanding suburbs or driving cars doesn't contribute to killing any bird or mammal.. I'd need the figures but i'm convinced that human activities are far more dangerous for other animals than the activities of our pets.

[Ma8ee]

And how big part of the population is that? I can’t say if that is a big or a small number without knowing the total population.

[shakna]

When you look at the numbers, it is very, very, hard to deny that free-ranging unowned cats are the largest limiting factor to the population. The size of the cat population causing a mortality swing of 24% in birds, is not some small number that might be masked by another closesly related statistic.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380

[jimmydorry]

The number of cats in an area should be pretty closely related to the number of people living in the area. The more cats, the more people, and it would not be hard to believe that having more people in an area might lead to more environmental destruction and displaced habitats.

[shakna]

The control featured in the paper is Europe, where the domestic cat is younger and not as well adapted, environmentally, as that in America. There is significantly less environmental destruction, despite the controls featuring similar numbers of the animals. Simply having cities has not had a similar effect.

[grecy]

"I know we messed with the environment and the result has been devastating, but we should remember the environment is a harsh place and likely lots of stuff would have died even if we didn't meddle."

Cats in Australia kill a total of 377 MILLION birds per year[1] (99% of which are native species)

[1] https://www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/publications-and-to...

[Ma8ee]

I can’t really tell if that is a very high number or not without knowing the population of birds.

[grecy]

If 377 Million people were killed annually by something, would it make a difference what the population was?

It's a horrific number whether you've got a population of a billion or 10 billion.