I drive them away whenever I see them hanging around our place. Found out after they moved that one of our neighbors was trying to befriend them. We found a homemade cat shelter she'd put out back right beside my bird feeder.
Maybe they are oblivious? Have you talked to them?
In Spain there is chaos regarding cat colonies. We don't know how many there are, how many cats, how many people pouring food... But we make laws protecting cat colonies and forbidding you from feeding birds because it could cause a rise in pests like rats and cockroaches. Like those are not eating cat food smh.
So I have zero hopes regarding this topic.
Excuse me... cat colonies? The hell are those?
Groups of feral cats living mostly on urban environments that are supposed to have a community of caregivers backing them, bringing them foods and veterinary assistance. The only thing they do to control the population, according to those caregivers, is the Capture-Sterilization-Return method, that consists in progressively sterilizing the cats in the colony so they don't reproduce and the colony should decrease and eventually disappear. This method is obviously not working because, after decades, cat colonies should be on the brink of disappearance, but they are flourishing.
In my city is specially concerning for me that many are near rivers and the small forested area around the water, where many species of birds should be thriving; I am surprised because there are more species than I could expect in this circumstances. I haven't seen amphibians... Probably ever. One year I heard a frog calling, and that's it. The decline of reptiles is also heartbreaking. I've seen hedgehogs and I recently read that they loose their teeth munching on dry cat food.
I was curious and looked it up, only to stumble upon this article about Cyprus being worse. For every human on the island, there are two cats. Bonkers.
Athens had a lot of cats and I thought that was a lot, but Cyprus has more. I can't even imagine that many cats.
so i know house cats being let outdoors is a huge issue and owners should be made aware of this - many may not realize the gravity of their decision. i think, however, going after feral cat populations may have the most significant effect. you could look for trap-neuter-return programs in your area and support those efforts. it isn't the instant results you may be looking for, but i think it's probably the most humane response likely to show positive long-term results outside of finding a program that puts the cats into a sanctuary (trap-neuter-remove). while this would be preferable, those programs seem much rarer.
otherwise, on an individual level, assuming you are a home owner, you could create feeding areas that are safe for birds - fenced off from cats with shrubbery and/or dead hedges for added safety.
and while you're at it, don't forget to make homes bird-friendly by addressing outdoor lighting and windows so birds can safely migrate and avoid window collisions.
bird friendly homes | u.s. fish and wildlife service
anyway, that's my two cents. interested in any other ideas yall may have.
@crowcore_explorer The TNR program in Seattle that I donate to and we got our cats from places up to 80% of their trapped cats up for adoption successfully. So not only are TNR programs probably get a lot more cats off of the streets than you might think.
that's so good to hear!
@crowcore_explorer
This study from 2025 might be of interest to you.
With scientific methods , the Simon Fraser University in Canada, and the feral cat rescue group Tinykittens Society, were able to show that managed cat colonies (providing enough cat food daily and doing TNR) reduce wild prey hunting significantly!
By analyzing chemical markers in cat fur, we compared
cats that lived indoors,
cats before TNR, and
cats after TNR with regular feeding.
Before TNR, cats showed clear signs of consuming wild prey ((mice, birds etc.)), while after TNR and food provisioning their diets shifted to resemble those of indoor cats, relying mostly on commercial food.
"Evaluating the Effects of Managed Free-Roaming Cat Populations on Prey Through Stable Isotope Analysis:
A Pilot Study from British Columbia, Canada" (2025)
full open-access article: https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15213204
Our research provides the first isotopic evidence that Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) and daily feeding of cat colonies can simultaneously improve cat welfare and reduce ecological impacts on wildlife,
offering a rare win-win model for balancing compassion and conservation.
#TNR #wildlife #cats #feralCats #CatColony #colonyManagement #study #AnimalWelfare
#stableIsotopeAnalysis #freeroamingcats
Abstract from the study:
Free-roaming domestic cats (Felis catus) present a major management challenge for animal welfare and biodiversity conservation.
Trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs, which include sterilization and return of cats, are increasingly adopted to manage cat populations, often alongside routine food provisioning.
However, their effectiveness in reducing cats’ reliance on wild prey remains contested.
In this study, we use stable isotope analysis (...) of cat fur to investigate dietary patterns before and after TNR implementation (...).
We analyzed samples from 122 cats in a large-scale TNR initiative on a rural property in British Columbia, Canada. These included
Local prey and food sources were also analyzed to provide a comparative isotopic baseline. Our results show clear dietary shifts following TNR.
Group 1 cats exhibited high isotopic variability and elevated δ15N and δ34S values, consistent with wild prey consumption.
In contrast, post-TNR cats showed significantly lower and more homogeneous values, aligning closely with those of indoor, kibble-fed cats.
These changes are consistent with a reduced dietary reliance on wildlife (...) following the combination of TNR with regular provisioning.
These findings demonstrate that regular food provisioning in TNR-managed colonies, particularly when combined with broader environmental changes, can significantly alter cat diets and potentially reduce their dependence on wild prey."
From: Evaluating the Effects of Managed Free-Roaming Cat Populations on Prey Through Stable Isotope Analysis: A Pilot Study from British Columbia, Canada, 2025
thanks for the info. that's a really interesting study. i guess the easy answer is to just do the purge but make it cats which doesn't seem very humane. it's a problem that doesn't have an easy answer since these programs seem pretty reliant on consistent inputs of time (trapping, feeding) and resources (vets, food, volunteers and donors if not handled by the state). and it's all just made so much worse by climate change.
not to mention that if you're going to tackle predation and not look for a solution to habitat destruction and fracturing you're only dealing with part of the bird population puzzle.
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.
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.
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.
In Australia cats are losing the PR war in regional areas.
Its not uncommon for towns to have cat-free policies, or cat enclosures.
Occasionally people float the idea of domesticating quolls or other native animals. I like this idea but not sure whether it's feasible.
I saw a video once saying that some outback towns have bounties on them, not sure if that's still a thing
I've never heard of that but there are "bounties" on other feral animals from time to time.
Rather than just open bounties it's much more common to offer contracts to specific pest controllers.
Contracts to exterminate feral animals including cats in a given area are very common.
In late October 2011, a litter of five spotted-tailed quoll pups was born at Wild Life Sydney in Darling Harbour, Australia. The pups were born to inexperienced parents, both just one year old. The reason for the young parents was because older male quolls can become violent and kill the female if they do not want to mate.
Great, not only do we have deadly animals they are turning incel.
Cats are deadly animals too. Have you never seen a deadly cat fight?
This has grown into a full-blown diss battle shitshow between "cat mums" and the "cat mum haters" in South Korea and while it has been an issue online for many years, I'm just so worn out from the sheer stupidity of this situation. A disproportionate number of people on the "cat mum" side refuse to think critically and modify their behaviour. The ones who should maintain the least amount of dignity and level-headedness possible during the worst times to still educate the "uneducatable" also gave up any cordiality left in them and hate on cat mums for the sake of it. The worst thing, though, is that this is not just limited to one specific country. I can guarantee you will be met with pure madness in the YouTube comment section for any bird documentary showing predation by cats. It's universal and sees no end.
This has led nowhere so far and only created more tension between the public majority who unconditionally love and will protect cats at all costs (generalised as "cat mums") and the non-feline animal lovers (bird lovers in particular) who are all just lazily grouped into the "cat mum hater" category.
I read briefly about the efficacy of TNR programmes somewhere and found that it was still unclear for the most part whether it was actually effective in controlling feral cat populations without adoption of neutered cats. There are suggestions that TNR must be coupled with adoption in order to be successful in what it is meant to achieve. So I personally think TNR is a good place to start investing in, but it's never going to be a definite solution.
The simplest and probably the right thing to do is to encourage everyone to adopt stray cats, stop breeding them, and keep them inside where they belong (they're 'house cats' after all). But guess what people are inclined to do? The opposite of all three.
Will there ever be a universally accepted, humane solution for this problem? Will people ever accept that feral cats destroying ecosystems is not 'nature taking its course'? Will they ever be willing to take accountability for what their ancestors have done despite not having directly contributed to the act of introducing cats to their non-native habitat many centuries ago?
We have a long, long way to go, and we might not even get there before the full damage is done.
To add: Hatred is never the answer. I'm not too fond of cats (or dogs) myself, but I feel this is similar to how others must feel about other invasive animals like starlings and escaped parrots. A lot of the aforementioned "cat mum haters" are seemingly obsessed with the observation that cats "kill for fun" and thus should be exterminated. Again, this only fosters more hatred and will lead nowhere. Hatred is a self-defensive emotion designed to protect you from the mental repercussions of having your values contradicted or violated. Even so, it's more likely than not to also be harmful to oneself. In the end, it doesn't shield, it only stabs. If you think we are justified to hate cats for their impact on the environment and endangered birds, then we may as well be justified to hate on house sparrows and house finches (in East US) for their impact on native bird populations. Violence is bound to create problems, never solutions.
This has led nowhere so far and only created more tension between the public majority who unconditionally love and will protect cats at all costs (generalised as “cat mums") and the non-feline animal lovers (bird lovers in particular) who are all just lazily grouped into the “cat mum hater” category.
I'm a bird lover (and watcher) and I'm a cat person too.
The thing is that reading the tone of the OP one feels like here is one more of those trolls trying to overgeneralize and to over-categorize—cat = killer, and a rabid one with that— instead of actually trying to expose and discuss the issue. What's the point of such a post? To put more oil into the fire in order to get some cheapo giggle?
Humans are much bigger bird killers than cats. Cats are nothing in the scheme of things. So what are we going to do about it?
That's definitely incorrect by orders of magnitude. Source: 2015 Direct mortality of birds from anthropogenic causes. https://repository.si.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/a0a8affb-5cdf-4722-b829-123512ae418b/content
Yep, cats are fucking killers. Even worse, they do it for fun too.
How do you know they've got rabies?
Now I do.
from the rabid feline killers?
Sure. I've also heard they do satanical rituals and that's a fact: the cousin of the neighbor of the postman once told that to my late grandmother.
Well if you’re in the UK then the answer would be fuck all. Get over it.
I have a feeling you folk aren't actually birders, but just "concerned cat people" who don't give a fuck about the damage cats do.
cats aren't allowed outdoors at night where I live, so I just set up traps at night time.
And do what with the cats?
take them to the pound. The owners get a fine, or if it's a stray it gets euthanised. They're an invasive species here and have caused massive ecological damage.
Thank you for your service 🙏
Do you happen to be in Aus? I know that they shoot them there.
yeah, I am in Aus.
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