[adsfgiodsnrio]

You are badly misrepresenting the content of your sources.

[1] says:

>The owls are endangered from many sides. One of the biggest threats uses the Shoreline golf course. A bleak Mountain View report three months ago noted there have been deaths “due to direct contact between golf balls and burrowing owls.”

They do not blame only cats. They discuss cats in particular but do mention there are other threats. I will grant that this one confusingly-worded paragraph is not enough background.

They also do not call for the killing of all cats. The article mostly criticizes the practice of feeding cats, not TNR or adoption.

[2] says:

>Feral cats are supreme predators and actively prey upon burrowing owls. One study in Florida found owl mortality by cats accounted for 30 percent of deaths (Millsap and Bear, 1988). Cats also impact burrowing owls indirectly by decimating small bird and rodent populations, reducing the available food supply for burrowing owls.

One suggested solution is to:

>Proactively discourage all feeding of cats in Shoreline

It is exactly the same message as the NYT article.

[3] calls out the threat of cats first and foremost.

>There are many factors that could explain the low numbers. The owls are ground-nesting, living in holes hollowed out by squirrels. That can leave them vulnerable to a long list of predators, including foxes, skunks and raccoons. Feral cats are considered the worst of the lot, preying on owls as well as the small birds and rodents that make up the owls' main food supply. In fact, a released cat last year ended up mauling one prolific male owl, Kleinhaus said.

>In the aftermath of the shutdown, the local feral cat population predictably exploded[8], and the burrowing owl population at Shoreline Park went down to zero[9].

You seem to acknowledge that the large cat population was in fact a threat to owls, but still object to the NYT story.

[romwell]

>You are badly misrepresenting the content of your sources.

If that's the case, so do you.

>[1] do not blame only cats.

[1] is a direct attack piece on Google's TNR program. The entire article is centered on that. To say that they "do not blame only cats" is laughable. Who they actually blame is Google's employees who ran the TNR program.

>They also do not call for the killing of all cats

Ah, but isn't it neat? They don't say it, that's just the impact they want (and got).

See, the entire point of gCat feeding stations was attracting un-neutered feral cats, trapping them, and neutering them. That's the T and N of the TNR.

R stands for release. Why release? Because not all cats can be domesticated. gCat has adopted dozens of cats from the street, but not all cats were OK with that.

The call to "not feed" the cats meant an end to the TNR program, because it could not trap the cats. It also meant that the released cats kept coming back to campus, looking for food.

Lacking a TNR program, these cats were captured, then killed (because adoption was not an option for them).

>[2] says:

Oh, we're quoting [2]? Let's quote [2]. [2] lists the following threats:

- Systematic and regular grading on a large scale destroys prime foraging and nesting habitat

- Insufficient high-quality foraging habitat

- Insufficient mowing during the breeding season to maintain nesting habitat

- Disturbance by vehicles going off-road, leading to erosion (of habitat)

- Formal and informal trails and unofficial roads in owl habitat

Notice anything common with al of the above?

And yes, after all of the above, cats may also present a threat.

Not the gCat TNR program cats in particular. Cats in general.

>One suggested solution is to: "Proactively discourage all feeding of cats in Shoreline"

...not differentiating feeding feral cats, and feeding stations in the TNR program.

It's infuriating that you accuse me of misrepresenting truth.

>You seem to acknowledge that the large cat population was in fact a threat to owls, but still object to the NYT story.

Large, uncontrolled, feral cat population is a problem.

Google's volunteer-ran TNR problem was a solution to that. Many cats were adopted (over 50, IIRC, the website has since gone down). The ones that were not adopted were neutered, and their romaing range was made smaller as they (predictably) returned to the feeding stations, instead of roaming freely.

The NYT story specifically attacks the TNR program, and misrepresents it as the problem.

[adsfgiodsnrio]

>[2] lists the following threats:

Oops, you forgot one:

- Predation by nonnative and/or nuisance species

>And yes, after all of the above, cats may also present a threat.

You seem to think it's very important this bullet point is last, but there is nothing in the source that suggests items are listed in order of importance. Even if there were the order is not consistent in all parts of the report.

Why are you reading tea leaves when the authors say, explicitly and repeatedly, that cats are a serious threat?

[romwell]

>You seem to think it's very important this bullet point is last

I think it's important to know that there are five other threats listed, all of them having to do with destruction of habitat.

That's to drive the point home that destruction of habitat has a much higher impact than anything else - including predators.

>There is nothing in the source that suggests items are listed in order of importance.

The content of the bullet points suggests that. They are listed in the order of impact on habitats.

The bullet point following the "predation" bullet point is "future possible threats".

>Why are you reading tea leaves when the authors say, explicitly and repeatedly, that cats are a serious threat?

Because the authorities don't provide any hard data on that.

But let's not read tea leaves, indeed. The most important point is that the gap between cats, in general, may be a threat to Google's specific cats are a threat has never been filled.

It's solid logic:

- Some cats threaten owls

- The animals fed by gCat TNR volunteers are cats

- Therefore, gCat threatens owls

Do you see a problem here?