>Jim wrote:
>>Well, wait a minute here.  If feral cats in this case are causing "quite >a
>bit" of "environmental damage, suffering and death," i.e. preying on
>>migratory song birds and the like, then why does it make sense to go
>>through the time, expense and aggravation of rounding them up, submitting
>>them to surgical sterilization, only to *release* them?  This makes no
>>sense, economically or ecologically.  I understand the well-intentioned
>>humane impulse that underlies the wish to release these animals unharmed
>>back into the environment, but if these animals are doing so >much "damage"
>in the first place, why would we want to re-release them >back out into the
>wild for several more years of preying on the >songbirds we're trying to
>protect?
>
>Jim, for the same reason we do not shamelessly kill excess human beings.  We
>respect their right to live.  It is not so much that carnivores, as
>individuals are destructive to the environment, but too large of numbers are.
>In fact, in the right numbers, they are healthy for the environment. You are
>overzealous to want to solve the population problem too rapidly.  Again, with
>humans, we try to solve the problem of too many humans slowly at the next
>generation level rather than slaughtering them whole scale during this
>generation.  You are a bit to cavalier with killing as the solution to
>problems.

Well, wrong.  In this case, I *personally* really don't care about feral
cats, and I *personally* happen to believe that the widely publicized and
largely assumed negative impacts of feral cats on migratory bird
populations is wildly exaggerated.  Think about it this way: most cats are
going to get very good at killing a year round food source, which around
here would be mice and voles.  They are not going to spend much time
specializing either on avian migrants just passing through, local migrants
who nest in trees, or on year round residents who feed in trees.  So the
bird species that cats will most likely have more of an impact on will in
all likelihood be the ground feeding residents like mourning doves,
cardinals, and the like.  As far as I'm concerned, most cats could have a
field day eating mourning doves and cardinals and never make a dent in
those particular resident bird populations.

I have never seen much in the way of convincing data that domestic cats do
in fact have a direct impact on threatened or endangered migratory
songbirds. Now it may be the case that there are local circumstances where
a particular threatened bird species is preyed upon by domestic cats in
significant numbers.  Let's say this were the case with the Kirtland's
warbler, or the red-cockaded woodpecker (which it isn't).   In either case
("context matters"), yes, I would favor going in and doing whatever I had
economic resources to do to eliminate the threat from the feral cats; and
if that meant killing them, then I would favor that too.  My concern would
be with the warbler population and/or woodpecker population, *first and
foremost*, and then only secondarily with the feral cats as individuals.

Now, just the other day on this list somebody (sorry, I forget who)
criticized "single species approaches" to environmental policy.   Perhaps
this suggestion of singling out key threatened species like the Kirtland's
warbler or the red-cockaded woodpecker for special concern, let's say in
the feral cat predation example, may strike some on the list as a
wrong-headed case of single species concern.  That may very well be.   But
on the other hand, contextual approaches to dealing with *specific* and
*local* instances of feral cat predation on wildlife are preferable to lots
of handwaving about the undocumented, unsupported, and unproven
speculations about what the global negative effects of cat predation MIGHT
be.

If you're looking for the real devil in some cases of threatened bird
management, check out the impacts of nest and egg robbing mammals like
skunks, foxes, weasels, and the like.  Egg eaters tend to have more of an
impact on bird populations overall, since they can clean out several nests
of eggs a day, than do strict carnivores like cats, which only prey on
individual live critters.  The bioenergetics of predation on individuals
versus nest robbing for eggs suggest that there might be greater culprits
out there than feral cats.

Jim T.



Fascists in our past have thought similarly about getting rid of
>"undesirables".
>
>Peace for All Beings
>Jamey Lee West
>
>____________________________________________________________________
>Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1



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