8
How can we help protect birds from cats?
(fedia.io)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2026
8 points (61.1% liked)
birding
6093 readers
141 users here now
Welcome to /c/birding, a community for people who like birds, birdwatching and birding in general! Feel free to post your birding photos or just photos of birds you found in general, but please follow the rules as outlined below.
-
This should go without saying, but please be nice to one another. No petty insults, no bigotry, no harassment, hate speech,nothing of that sort! Depending on the severity, you'll either only get your comment removed and a warning or your comment will be removed and you will be banned from /c/birding.
-
This is a community for posting content of birds, nothing else. Please keep the posts related to birding or birds in general.
-
When posting photos or videos that you did not take, please always credit the original photographer! Link to the original post on social media as well, if there is one.
-
Absolutely no AI-generated content is allowed! I know it has become quite difficult to tell whether or not something is AI-generated or not, but please make sure that whatever you post is not AI-generated. If it is, your post will be removed. If you continously post AI-generated content, you'll be banned from /c/birding (but it's obviously okay if you post AI-generated stuff once or twice without knowing you did so).
-
Please provide rough information location, if possible. This is a more loosely-enforced rule, especially because it is sometimes not possible to provide a location. But if you post a photo you took yourself, please provide a rough location and date of the sighting.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I don't let my cats outside except under the controlled environment of a screened-in "catio", where birds can't go. Your statement of "cat owners just won't be stopped unless laws are introduced" is false: with education and awareness, cat owners can and do realise that cat impacts on bird populations are significant, and worth doing their part to prevent as much as they can.
Indoor cats also live significantly longer
EXACTLY
While harming fewer creatures in the wider world. This isn't hard, people.
@kat_angstrom @atro_city
we've had decades of education & awareness, a large percentage of cat owners do not GAF or are in denial that THEIR cats are part of the problem
spay & releasing feral cats into the wild is still legal most places
animal control still turns a blind eye to roaming cats
while we're relying on the basic goodness of cat owners, the reality is the bird population has dropped 70% to 80% because the house cat is an introduced predator with an instinctive urge to hunt, in North America new fledglings are often on the ground in the first few days of learning how to fly >they did not evolve in the presence of this predator= cat preferentially takes out young birds
a species not permitted to raise young & reproduce dies out & that's what we're seeing on a large scale
if anyone STILL doesn't know this, they are either very young or fall firmly in the category of the uneducable
more trying to educate the uneducable is a waste of time birds don't have
While I understand and empathize with your frustration, your sweeping generalisations do not accurately represent every person in every place.
And in my township in the country, our animal control is very invested in rounding up feral cats, no blind eyes in my district.
Your issues remain valid; and laws may well be a good path forward where education fails; I'm just against sweeping generalisations in general.
In my neighborhood, sociopaths poison them with rat poison.
This is surprisingly and disappointingly common. Some percentage of the population will always do this kind of thing, it seems. I will not commit to any official commentary regarding the implications of this purportedly reportedly a quote-unquote fact.
@kat_angstrom
yeah not all men, not all cats -- at the end of the day, i have to post about MY experiences & my experiences are my experiences even if they don't conform to the common fantasy (in MY experience) that education is enough to create change
it just doesn't
IF your community IS responsive to education, that's great but also then you don't need a post on "what can we do about people who won't keep their cats indoors" because you've found your solution
unfortunately at the rate of bird loss overall, your solution has failed in many or most areas -- education doesn't work because people make decisions about how they treat their cats based on emotion not education
that's inarguable & anyway i don't want to argue so i won't be posting further on this topic
I can tell that you feel very strongly and your feelings are valid. I'm sorry that you feel like we're arguing, because I didn't feel that way at all. I thought we were having a discussion, and that we're both on basically the same side with differing views on best approach. I wish you only the best.
i love that someone came up with the catio and i agree with your larger point. i think statistics about the bird population decline and related knowledge is probably pretty niche. pro-bird evangelism (and meeting your neighbors) is a good place to start.
Do you consider yourself to belong to the majority of cat owners with a catio?
I do not consider myself to be anything other than a cat owner with a catio. I do try to spread the word about how this is a superior way to keep both cats and wildlife safe, however.
That answers the question quite well: most cat owners don't own a catio. Given the statistic somebody else posted (more than 2billion dead birds in North America due to cats alone), you are in the vanishingly small minority. You might be aware and willing to do something but the rest won't listen to reason, hence the question about what people can do.