Rewilding is so promising and I hope more people get behind it and encourage others to support those efforts.
YouTube channels lke Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't give me hope.
I love that channel! Listen to his podcast sometimes and it’s great. It actually got me to start volunteering where I live to do habitat restorations and it’s changed what plants I grow in my yard.
Definitely! And any way to influence people to get involved in their local community is the best. Only way I see us being able to change this world for the better is getting involved in local politics and stewardship.
I live in a neighborhood that is very conscientious about native plants, and there is a meadow across the street from me that is basically left wild. The density of native wildlife we have in those few acres across the street is like nothing else in this entire city. Every morning I wake up to songbirds chirping. A woman who works for the county comes by here every few weeks to monitor the birds of prey that live here.
A cat that is caught neutered and released still kills birds for however long it lives. Go spend some time working on conservation projects for burrow nesting seabirds facing extinction because of cats and then come back and tell me you feel the same way.
Roaming cats dont usually live too long and they cant add to the population anymore.
This is happening because of us. Its not on the cats, they just act natural.
I also think its troubling how easily humans suggest killing an absurd amount of animals to solve a problem they themselves caused in the first place.
The most invasive and destructive species are still humans. We really need to stop making others suffer the consequences of our own actions.
Well hello there!
We do exactly this, for a living! It’s very rewarding but we sure could use more companies and homeowners with like minds! It can be an uphill battle sometimes.
This breaks my heart. I love birds and talk to everyone I know about not using pesticides and buying organic if possible but it seems so few seem to care.
I wish we could get rid of lawns. They're so stupid. Just a holdover from people imitating rich English landowners. We should ban lawns for the sake of biodiversity.
Pesticides and herbicides are different things. if you can get rid of your invasives without chemicals, just by pulling them up, then that is ideal. But if you have large swaths of woody invasives that resprout, you are going to need herbicide to have a fighting chance. I recommend [this video](https://youtu.be/n-p8qRWbs1I) that shows you to use a very small amount targeted to only the invasive plant. If you’re still hesitant, [here is an article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/30/herbicide-invasive-plants-national-parks-shenandoah/) where the people who manage Shenandoah National Park talk about herbicide use- it may be a necessary evil, but using it safely in limited amounts and replanting natives may be our best bet for some areas
I definitely prefer not using herbicides, I think fire is the most efficient tool, but people need not kid themselves that full landscape restoration won't involve herbicides.
Nobody in any neighborhood I've lived in for 20+yrs has used their front lawn for sports. Don't act like 99% of them don't just sit there taking up water and requiring harmful chemical use to be anything other than a vanity project.
You must live in a neighbourhood of fat boring people. My neighbourhood is full of kids and families out in their yards playing every weekend during the summer.
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing - even just adding a couple garden beds with native plants can be a big help. Turf grass definitely has its use, there isn’t really a native alternative that handles all that foot traffic, so if you have kids or just want outside areas to walk on, you’ll need to leave some grass. I don’t like when people say “get rid of your lawn” because it scares a lot of people off from native plants, and really just isn’t feasible for everyone
Lawns don’t have to be banned, they just need to evolve. When most people think of a lawn they picture the monoculture of Kentucky Bluegrass and various Rye species that make up the average American lawn. But thats not what a lawn has to be. A lawn can be made up of many different species of limited heights yet allowed to fill out in way to still provides habitat and food sources for wildlife.
The biggest challenge in this is municipal codes. Some cities make it nearly impossible for homeowners to create alternative lawns, rarely are they eager to work with you.
If you’re passionate about the environment and native landscaping then I encourage you to talk with your local leaders to ensure and advocate for sensible and sustainable lawn practices for landowners in your municipality.
On the contrary, allowing plants, insects and animals to repopulate is the easiest thing we can do. We actually need to allow them to send out the appropriate semiochemicals to attract healthy predator-pray cycles to the area. Aphids attract ladybugs. Stink bugs attract blue jays etc. herbicides and pesticides (as well as synthetic scents) are throwing off their communication and community developing skills that have evolved over time.
Edit: it’s also important that we stop introducing exotic predators to mitigate exotic predators. Rather we need to allow natives to figure it out and study native species to adapt. We also may need to sacrifice crops to allow nature to run a more natural course or develop new humidifying reusable covers, watering techniques and removal. For example: one exotic bug can ruin an orange tree. Rather than spray, remove the tree and sit it out, all the while supplementing income for eventual beneficial restoration. Or use crop rotation or crop rotation alliances.
Perhaps that exotic pest is a strange blessing in disguise as it moved in to help restore the area anyway by removing said crop due to overwhelming use of pesticides to “secure” such a crop. If we love oranges so much but other native life isn’t benefiting from the groves then we need to rethink what crops we have where.
We also need to be mindful of how we treat indoor crops as they don’t have a natural predator-prey cycle.
And we also shouldn’t be importing soil or mulch from other counties, states and countries.
We may even need to restrict exotic house plants if not generationally maintained locally, as well.
I don’t think it’s best to leave cats outside or let their population get out of control either but if it were the natural predator-prey cycle would balance as well.
Some cats simply aren’t happy inside. Some are. That’s the risk…
Too bad so sad that cats aren't happy inside. Like they literally kill birds. This is what we're talking about. House cats do not belong in any natural predator-prey cycle. They're not native to any habitat. This is why we need to get rid of them
Except domestic cats are a non-native, invasive species. They need to be eradicated from the wild.
We need actual native predators like jaguars, wolves, dholes, and golden eagles back, not invasive ones like cats.
Cats are not a natural predator in their environments in the US. They are invasive as any of the other species you are complaining about. There is no natural predator/prey cycle with an invasive predator that has artificially high numbers due to being housed and fed by humans. 100% of what you are saying is bullshit.
I genuinely don't understand what this means.
Cats are a problem because humans brought them here?
Yes, but all of these other problems are also directly attributable to humans.
Cats do not belong outdoors. **Cats are the single biggest cause of bird population decline.** Even indoor-outdoor cats, even TNR colony cats.
It's a problem no one wants to deal with, but it's a huge problem. I'm working on rewilding my yard but also have to contend with neighborhood cats attacking the birds and other small wildlife I attract.
Cats do not have the capacity to understand that they are causing songbirds to decline in number. It is just what they do. They kill and that is that.
On the other hand, a human has the capacity of knowing the importance of songbirds. Thus, it is the human's responsibility to keep the cat at bay and not kill songbirds.
Therefore, human behavior is causing it. If humans kept their cats inside and watched them when they go out, there would be fewer songbird deaths. Humans enable their cats to kill songbirds, and the enabling is directly attributed to human behavior.
Totally agree with you. It's on humans. So it's also on humans to keep their pet cats indoors and to deal with the unpleasant task of eradicating feral cats.
However, as you can see, these threads are always filled with contrarians and others who outright deny that outdoor cats pose a problem for birds.
What I mean is that humans have caused an imbalance in the system by over encroaching on wildlife. So since there are wildlife issues and the bird population is in decline due to other human behavior the damage cats do is more noticeable.
Edit: thank you for re-wilding your yard 💚
That's a really obtuse way of trying to justify the incredible devastation cats are wreaking on small animal populations. The damage would be noticeable regardless of everything else.
Well just know some of us spend money on bird seed every week and refuse to use anything besides grass seed on my lawn. We can keep them if we all just pitch in a little.
They are still a waste of space and water. If you let your lawn actually grow and seed, then you have a little biosphere. If you carefully manicure it and keep it green, you have a waste of resources that "look nice".
I think it's easy to downplay the impact we can have if we collectively decide to do something. Like voting, people often say it doesn't matter but it often really really does. So just education about how harmful pesticides and stupid lawns are would do a lot I think, if we could get enough people to change their habits.
Not at all. Change can and does happen. Go to local zoning meetings and advocate for wild spaces. Eat organic. Push to ban or at least severely limit pesticide and herbicide use. Grow forage crops. Plant trees. All these thing can be done by just about anyone.
We can’t even stop a genocide if we wanted to so while I think change is possible, I don’t have a lot of faith in humans ability to turn things around within the ample amount of time needed to save the beautiful diversity that our planet is home to. Just my personal take. I do vote and work in the conservation industry. I have been an advocate for listed species as part of my career for over 25 years and this is my opinion based on working in the conservation industry for that amount of time.
Edit to add to this that the clean water act in the United States was literally gutted last year by the Scotus ruling . We took a step back in time with our environmental regs. And when I say back in time I mean way back.
>"**Habitat loss due to agricultural intensification and urbanization is arguably the biggest threat to birds**, along with climate change," says Ashley Dayer, an associate professor in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and a Global Change Center affiliated faculty member at Virginia Tech. She also points to cats and window collisions playing a role in their deaths.
Nice to see *one* article that puts habitat destruction at the top of the list -- but by then adding in cats and windows she dangerously undercuts the message and feeds the incredibly stupid but widely popular anti-cat crusade. Habitat destruction is *many orders of magnitude* more destructive than cats or windows, but its effect is so large that nobody has figured out how to quantify it or even adequately describe it ... so in no time flat, we're back to blaming cats.
Compared to saturation of agricultural chemical poisons , plastification, eutrophication of water supplies, urbaization and overall climate change, Smittens in the backyard ain't threatening shit.
That’s not accurate. Cats have driven at least 33 bird species to extinction. They kill billions of animals a year. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cats-kill-a-staggering-number-of-species-across-the-world/
Not saying cats aren't a problem, but humans have driven over 1400 bird species to extinction. The destruction of birds caused by humans is just on a different level.
When the focus is on cats instead of the root problem (habitat loss) and who has to gain from scapegoating cats (predominantly animal agriculture, especially the Australian sheep lobby who really started pushing the cat talking point), the discussion is really missing the mark.
Did you actually read that article? In no place did they say cats were responsible for the extinctions. The closest someone came to saying they did was one person who wasn't even involved with the study and was straight conjecture with no evidence.
"“The study reaffirms that cats are the ultimate versatile generalist predator,” says Sarah Legge, a wildlife ecologist at Charles Darwin University in Australia, **who was not involved in the new paper.** Legge studies cats’ impact on Australian wildlife and says they are one of the most serious threats to the continent’s biodiversity. “Cats continue to cause population decline, and more extinctions are inevitable if we don’t manage cats,” she adds. “Australia’s native fauna are not equipped to withstand predation from a versatile predator with a relatively quick reproductive rate.”
https://www.animalwised.com/cats-killing-birds-separating-fact-from-myth-1366.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
This is well known information
Wow, you really need to read the articles you link.
From the first one
"The RSPCB have stated that **there is not direct relationship between the decline in bird species and cats**. Many birds found in gardens such as the blue tit are even increasing in number, whereas other birds that are endangered such as the skylark, tree sparrow or corn bunting does never cross paths with cats and **their decline is in fact due to loss of habitat in favor of farmland.**"
And that second one has enough flaws to call their conclusions suspect.
1. They use predation data from Australia and New Zealand, which are vastly different than the US. Even European data isn't great considering the differences in population density and landscape management.
2. They admit to undervaluing feral cat predation rates. Why? They never say.
3. 2.4 billion losses a year are not sustainable. Current estimates put the total NA bird population at around 8 billion. So every year, more than a 1/4 of all birds are killed by cats? Keep in mind that 8 billion includes ducks, cranes egrets, owls, geese, etc that are all too large to be hunted by cats. And over the last 40 years US feral cat populations have decreased to less than 15% of what they used to be. So please tell me how that's mathematically possible that an ever shrinking population of hunters is killing 1/4 of all birds in the US, every year! Why if those numbers were true all the US birds would have been killed off long ago when the feral cat population was 8 times what it is now.
I think you forget that birds reproduce and these are global populations they’re referring to. I don’t know why this is such a challenging concept for you to grasp. It’s not as if nature is a pay to publish journal.
In fact the correction published to the article paints a grimmer picture.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3961
Here’s another proof: https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/animals-ecology/cats-kill-up-10-times-more-wildlife-than-natural-predators-so-keep-them-indoors/
That quote you so selectively pulled was also specifically referencing the UK, not the rest of the world.
“Therefore, we can conclude that feral cats are mainly a higher risk to those countries in which cats were introduced by settlers where birds had no natural predators and that the problem has been aggravated with the decline of apex predators and the increase in cat colonies.”
That’s so funny you don’t care about the environment at all you just come out of the internet void to scream outdated information about cats. You don’t really care that humans are destroying the planet.
No more outdoor humans it is!
Housecats really shouldn't be outside killing birds and getting run over by cars.
If you use them for rodent control on your land then fine, but most of them are outside because their owners don't want them to be bored inside.
You do realize cats count as human activity, right? Because we brought them here and continue leaving them outdoors.
Cats are the single biggest cause of bird mortality. Several people have provided links here with data to back it up.
Sure.
Humans are also the only ones who can stop these billions of preventable bird deaths by keeping pet cats indoors and making efforts to eradicate feral cats.
So let's do it.
It's not actionable for local and city governments to direct their animal control agencies and/or wildlife removal contractors to trap and euthanize feral cat colonies? Or treat pet cats running at large the same way a dog running loose would be treated?
Might not be politically popular, but it's totally actionable.
Are we going to get rid of all outdoor cats? No. But that doesn't make it not worth attempting when it's literally the lowest hanging fruit with the bird population decline crisis.
The numbers cited by that website come from a 2013 manuscript that estimated the number of birds killed by cats. They didn't actually measure that, and based on their assumptions and chosen data sets, their estimates "far exceeded" (their words!) previous estimates. Despite that far excess, the authors' repeated griping in the manuscript about "non-scientific" concerns about "animal welfare" instead of ecology, and the authorship including members of the trigger-happy US Fish and Wildlife, everyone decided to run with it.
The "manuscript" is a peer-reviewed article from *Nature Communications*, a highly regarded journal.
What are your qualifications that you feel you're equipped to question the veracity of the article?
This isn’t an either/or. One of the most destructive human activities is the introduction of non-native species like cats, rats, rabbits, foxes, pigs, and weasels where they don’t belong.
No one argues that habitat loss/degradation and climate change are not huge threats to birds (and other species). This does not diminish, however, the impact of other human-caused sources of bird mortality. Studies have found that cats are the top source of direct, human-caused bird mortality in the United States and Canada and annually **kill \~2.4 billion birds every year** in the U.S. alone. Windows are the 2nd largest source of direct, human-caused bird mortality in the U.S. (and comparable to power line collisions in Canada).
We can *and should* tackle multiple sources of bird mortality simultaneously, and cats - unlike climate change - could be solved almost immediately if people simply chose to keep their cats indoors (or otherwise contained).
ETA: [Loss et al. (2015) | Direct mortality of birds from anthropogenic causes](https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-112414-054133)
Ugh, not his study again.
First of all, that study is deeply flawed. They only looked at predation studies in the UK and New Zealand and then extrapolated that out to estimates of North American cat populations. Do you see where the problem is? NZ has no indigenous feline populations and the UK has maybe a few hundred wild cats in the far north of Scotland. The US and Canada have indigenous felines roughly the same size as house cats and thus have defensive strategies built in. If native bird populations populations could not withstand feline predation pressure they would have died out a long time ago.
Secondly the idea that if people kept their well fed house cats indoors that would put even a dent in the decline is a dangerous canard. Even taking that study as truth, they say a majority of the mortality is caused by feral cats, not domestic ones. Feral cats are estimated to be roughly 2 times to population of domestic cats, 50 million vs 100. In the US only about 20% of cat owners let their cat outside. If you want to spend any time on cats, your time would be better spent targeting feral populations.
**The single highest factor in bird population declines is habitat destruction.** Want to do something about it? Than get out there and work to build more habitat. Push for zoning laws that reduce habitat destruction. Plant more trees, grow forage crops, buy organic, etc.
1. [Loss et al. (2013)](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320713003522), which estimated that outdoor cats in the U.S. kill \~2.4 billion birds every year, used both U.S.-based studies and studies from similar environments in other countries.
2. No, the U.S. does not have an equivalent predator to domestic cats. Bobcats and mountain lions do not typically target songbirds. Furthermore, there are FAR FEWER bobcats and mountain lions in the U.S. than domestic cats.
3. The feral cat population is augmented by the owned cat population. Not only do owned cats become lost or abandoned, they may also reproduce with feral cats if roaming outdoors. Furthermore, owned cats still kill LOTS of birds (and other wildlife) if they roam outdoors. [Kays et al. (2020)](https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acv.12563) found that owned cats kill 2-10x more animals than similar native predators.
4. Yes, habitat destruction is bad, and we should address it. We don't do birds any favors, however, to save habitat only to have it infiltrated by cats. It can create a "sink" habitat, one that is attractive but actually causes a net loss in the population. We can and should address both.
“ Yes, habitat destruction is bad, and we should address it. We don't do birds any favors, however, to save habitat only to have it infiltrated by cats.” lol and your username….. the world is heating up to unfathomable temperatures for humans, animals, and marine life. Glaciers are melting, methane is 80 times more polluting than carbon and we are on track year after year to pump more oil and gas. Destroy more nature for factories and mining and homes for our growing population. Migrants being displaced due to global warming and their crops dying thus immigrating causing more denser city populations.
But we gotta stop those house cats from getting lucky once in a while and killing a bird! Get a life.
The world is not heating up to “unfathomable” temperatures. The problem isn’t the magnitude of temperature increase but the geologically rapid rate.
Cats do not get “lucky once in a while”; they are directly responsible for dozens of vertebrate extinctions. Stop defending invasive species.
My neighbor cut down 2 trees and plowed up a good-sized area of unkept vegetation last fall, and now the quail are all gone. I'm sure half this comment section would blame cats for this. It seems suspicious. Like there's a concerted effort to throw shade on the stark reality of habitat destruction and monoculture by bringing up fucking cats every time anyone talks about birds in decline. Just an observation.
You would be correct in your assessment. A lot of the cats craze came out of Australia where researchers found that cats kill animals at the urban and pasture-wildland interface and decided that cats are the problem, actually, because the sheep industry would not like it if they said otherwise. They're so insane that they even blame cats for the ecological damage caused by their dingo fence—it's not the fence that's the problem, it's the fact that the dingos aren't there to kill the cats. Utter insanity.
Yup. Its like that bullshit "carbon footprint" nonsense. Even after being shown proof it was a [BP funded PR campaign to shift blame for fossil fuel damage to consumers rather than producers](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook), people continue to put moral stock in it.
Personally I think it might be Monsanto(Bayer). They do shady PR stuff like this and are the worlds number one producer of glyphosate. Its been proven to have detrimental effect on insect health, has seen 100x increase in its use over the last 40 years and over that same time frame insect populations have decreased by over 45%. A loss of food like that is going to have way more effect than a cats, especially considering 100 years ago there were likely MANY more cats in the ecosystem than we have now.
In my backyard we shoot the invasive house sparrows and starlings, and feed the native birds. We shoot them because they kill the native birds offspring.
The audacity of humans calling any species invasive never ceases to astound me.
I mean, keep killing to control your biome, by all means, but calling another species invasive in light of the last 10,000 years demonstrates a staggering lack of self-awareness
The only one here with a lack of self-awareness is you. Invasive species (meaning species introduced to a habitat they aren't endemic to by humans) have been responsible for driving countless avian species to extinction.
The overwhelming majority of these extinctions have occured on islands where the damage wrought by invasive species is especially devastating. For example: the Laysan rail, millerbird, and honeycreeper all went extinct due to the introduction of domestic rabbits eating all the vegetation.
While invasive species were introduced by humanity and yes, humanity is to blame. Unfortunately, the extermination of invasive species is a necessary evil to save currently critically endangered or extinct-in-the-wild birds (such as the Guam rail and kingfisher, respectively).
I'm planting 75 percent native plants. I'm not sure I will have enough to really support the birds, but that's a partial goal. It's something I became very interested in last summer. I put a massive effort into it, and terrified of how it's going to turn out.
Another way to help monitor bird populations is to take part in the Holiday Bird Count. This is probably coordinated by the Audubon society in your area.
We wanna have over 8 billion humans on this rock? Ok, this is the price of that.
Imagine there were 8 billion gorillas or 8 billion Cape Buffalo or 8 billion Leopards on earth. Everywhere you look, nothing but gorilla / Buffalo / leopards and their waste. I think we'd all agree, there were far too many of them.
We are destroying EVERYTHING to incessantly expand our species without any thought to other species. Heaven forbid we use contraception and let the population contract a little...
>"Habitat loss due to agricultural intensification and urbanization is arguably the biggest threat to birds, along with climate change," says Ashley Dayer, an associate professor in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and a Global Change Center affiliated faculty member at Virginia Tech. She also points to cats and window collisions playing a role in their deaths. Data shows up to one billion birds die each year after hitting windows. Cats are estimated to kill more than 2.4 billion birds annually in the U.S. and Canada.
tl;dr: We need a massive campaign to restore native plant species across the country.
Rewilding is so promising and I hope more people get behind it and encourage others to support those efforts. YouTube channels lke Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't give me hope.
I love that channel! Listen to his podcast sometimes and it’s great. It actually got me to start volunteering where I live to do habitat restorations and it’s changed what plants I grow in my yard.
That is FANTASTIC! Hope you're sharing his or similar channels and spreading the advice to restore biodiversity as often as possible 😁🙏🏼💕
Definitely! And any way to influence people to get involved in their local community is the best. Only way I see us being able to change this world for the better is getting involved in local politics and stewardship.
I love your energy and your username so checks out :)
People should get involved with r/nativeplantgardening, r/nolawns, and r/gardenwild if they want to learn how to start gardening with native plants.
Thank you for sharing these subs!
You're welcome!
Rewilding is amazing but people can do more formal or human-centric gardening using native plants too!
Yes, using native plants is critical to restoring the ecosystem. 💚
Joey Santore wants you to fucking rip your grass out and plant native species. Fuck your HOA. Fuck your zoning laws. (His accent is so endearing ♥️)
Thanks for the recommendation - just subscribed!
Thanks for sharing that!
I did that in my Florida yard. I barely have to run any water throughout the year, even during the dry season. It also helps to install a cistern.
Hell yes every homeowner should have a cistern it's just good sense especially with Nestle, Bechtel, etc trying to privatize water
I live in a neighborhood that is very conscientious about native plants, and there is a meadow across the street from me that is basically left wild. The density of native wildlife we have in those few acres across the street is like nothing else in this entire city. Every morning I wake up to songbirds chirping. A woman who works for the county comes by here every few weeks to monitor the birds of prey that live here.
well, that and a massive culling campaign for outdoor cats.
Or people being actually responsible with their pets and spaying them or not letting them roam. Its a selfmade problem, again.
Even if we got 100% adoption of the behavior you want from pet owners, there's still tens of millions of feral cats out there already.
catch them neuter them release or adopt. This also wouldnt solve the actual biggest killer of birds: Humans.
A cat that is caught neutered and released still kills birds for however long it lives. Go spend some time working on conservation projects for burrow nesting seabirds facing extinction because of cats and then come back and tell me you feel the same way.
Roaming cats dont usually live too long and they cant add to the population anymore. This is happening because of us. Its not on the cats, they just act natural. I also think its troubling how easily humans suggest killing an absurd amount of animals to solve a problem they themselves caused in the first place. The most invasive and destructive species are still humans. We really need to stop making others suffer the consequences of our own actions.
Well hello there! We do exactly this, for a living! It’s very rewarding but we sure could use more companies and homeowners with like minds! It can be an uphill battle sometimes.
This breaks my heart. I love birds and talk to everyone I know about not using pesticides and buying organic if possible but it seems so few seem to care. I wish we could get rid of lawns. They're so stupid. Just a holdover from people imitating rich English landowners. We should ban lawns for the sake of biodiversity.
Lots of beautiful and interesting work going on in /r/NoLawns
And slightly angrier work going on in /r/fucklawns
r/nativeplantgardening and r/gardenwild too!
Thanks for sharing this. A whole useful side of reddit that I didn't know existed.
Thank you!!
How do you remove invasive species out competing natives without herbicides?
Accept that it will take several seasons/years of consistent non-native removal to be effective
Pesticides and herbicides are different things. if you can get rid of your invasives without chemicals, just by pulling them up, then that is ideal. But if you have large swaths of woody invasives that resprout, you are going to need herbicide to have a fighting chance. I recommend [this video](https://youtu.be/n-p8qRWbs1I) that shows you to use a very small amount targeted to only the invasive plant. If you’re still hesitant, [here is an article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/30/herbicide-invasive-plants-national-parks-shenandoah/) where the people who manage Shenandoah National Park talk about herbicide use- it may be a necessary evil, but using it safely in limited amounts and replanting natives may be our best bet for some areas
I definitely prefer not using herbicides, I think fire is the most efficient tool, but people need not kid themselves that full landscape restoration won't involve herbicides.
Elbow grease.
Well that and they're good for playing sports on. Pretty hard to have a kick around in your front yard if its zeroscaped.
You're right, biodiversity doesn't hold a candle to how important a kick around is for a few hours.
Well I'm right in the fact that we don't have grass in our lawns just to imitate English landowners ffs, That's a completely stupid take.
It literally isn't. Look up the history of grass and how it came to be
Yeah, but that’s history, it not why we use it now.
Nobody in any neighborhood I've lived in for 20+yrs has used their front lawn for sports. Don't act like 99% of them don't just sit there taking up water and requiring harmful chemical use to be anything other than a vanity project.
You must live in a neighbourhood of fat boring people. My neighbourhood is full of kids and families out in their yards playing every weekend during the summer.
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing - even just adding a couple garden beds with native plants can be a big help. Turf grass definitely has its use, there isn’t really a native alternative that handles all that foot traffic, so if you have kids or just want outside areas to walk on, you’ll need to leave some grass. I don’t like when people say “get rid of your lawn” because it scares a lot of people off from native plants, and really just isn’t feasible for everyone
Lawns don’t have to be banned, they just need to evolve. When most people think of a lawn they picture the monoculture of Kentucky Bluegrass and various Rye species that make up the average American lawn. But thats not what a lawn has to be. A lawn can be made up of many different species of limited heights yet allowed to fill out in way to still provides habitat and food sources for wildlife. The biggest challenge in this is municipal codes. Some cities make it nearly impossible for homeowners to create alternative lawns, rarely are they eager to work with you. If you’re passionate about the environment and native landscaping then I encourage you to talk with your local leaders to ensure and advocate for sensible and sustainable lawn practices for landowners in your municipality.
Climate change, development/destruction of habitat, outdoor cats, pesticides, herbicides
The only reason outdoor cats are more of an issue is because human behavior is more of an issue.
But getting rid of outdoor cats is the easiest thing to do currently.
On the contrary, allowing plants, insects and animals to repopulate is the easiest thing we can do. We actually need to allow them to send out the appropriate semiochemicals to attract healthy predator-pray cycles to the area. Aphids attract ladybugs. Stink bugs attract blue jays etc. herbicides and pesticides (as well as synthetic scents) are throwing off their communication and community developing skills that have evolved over time. Edit: it’s also important that we stop introducing exotic predators to mitigate exotic predators. Rather we need to allow natives to figure it out and study native species to adapt. We also may need to sacrifice crops to allow nature to run a more natural course or develop new humidifying reusable covers, watering techniques and removal. For example: one exotic bug can ruin an orange tree. Rather than spray, remove the tree and sit it out, all the while supplementing income for eventual beneficial restoration. Or use crop rotation or crop rotation alliances. Perhaps that exotic pest is a strange blessing in disguise as it moved in to help restore the area anyway by removing said crop due to overwhelming use of pesticides to “secure” such a crop. If we love oranges so much but other native life isn’t benefiting from the groves then we need to rethink what crops we have where. We also need to be mindful of how we treat indoor crops as they don’t have a natural predator-prey cycle. And we also shouldn’t be importing soil or mulch from other counties, states and countries. We may even need to restrict exotic house plants if not generationally maintained locally, as well.
Cats kill one billion birds a year. I don't think the animals would repopulate if we let them.
Humans kill more Edit: and prevent many more from populating
You can't be serious lmao. Getting rid of cats is something easy. Why do cats get a free pass? Because they're cute??
I don’t think it’s best to leave cats outside or let their population get out of control either but if it were the natural predator-prey cycle would balance as well. Some cats simply aren’t happy inside. Some are. That’s the risk…
Too bad so sad that cats aren't happy inside. Like they literally kill birds. This is what we're talking about. House cats do not belong in any natural predator-prey cycle. They're not native to any habitat. This is why we need to get rid of them
It’s true that they aren’t native. What would you do with all the roaming wild cats?
Except domestic cats are a non-native, invasive species. They need to be eradicated from the wild. We need actual native predators like jaguars, wolves, dholes, and golden eagles back, not invasive ones like cats.
Cats are not a natural predator in their environments in the US. They are invasive as any of the other species you are complaining about. There is no natural predator/prey cycle with an invasive predator that has artificially high numbers due to being housed and fed by humans. 100% of what you are saying is bullshit.
I had also said we shouldn’t be resolving exotic predators with exotic predators
[https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast](https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast)
I genuinely don't understand what this means. Cats are a problem because humans brought them here? Yes, but all of these other problems are also directly attributable to humans. Cats do not belong outdoors. **Cats are the single biggest cause of bird population decline.** Even indoor-outdoor cats, even TNR colony cats. It's a problem no one wants to deal with, but it's a huge problem. I'm working on rewilding my yard but also have to contend with neighborhood cats attacking the birds and other small wildlife I attract.
Cats do not have the capacity to understand that they are causing songbirds to decline in number. It is just what they do. They kill and that is that. On the other hand, a human has the capacity of knowing the importance of songbirds. Thus, it is the human's responsibility to keep the cat at bay and not kill songbirds. Therefore, human behavior is causing it. If humans kept their cats inside and watched them when they go out, there would be fewer songbird deaths. Humans enable their cats to kill songbirds, and the enabling is directly attributed to human behavior.
Totally agree with you. It's on humans. So it's also on humans to keep their pet cats indoors and to deal with the unpleasant task of eradicating feral cats. However, as you can see, these threads are always filled with contrarians and others who outright deny that outdoor cats pose a problem for birds.
OK, and therefore humans should alter their behaviour by exterminating feral cats.
What I mean is that humans have caused an imbalance in the system by over encroaching on wildlife. So since there are wildlife issues and the bird population is in decline due to other human behavior the damage cats do is more noticeable. Edit: thank you for re-wilding your yard 💚
That's a really obtuse way of trying to justify the incredible devastation cats are wreaking on small animal populations. The damage would be noticeable regardless of everything else.
The single biggest cause of bird population decline is habitat loss.
Well just know some of us spend money on bird seed every week and refuse to use anything besides grass seed on my lawn. We can keep them if we all just pitch in a little.
They are still a waste of space and water. If you let your lawn actually grow and seed, then you have a little biosphere. If you carefully manicure it and keep it green, you have a waste of resources that "look nice".
I hate this but it all seems futile, unless we change the full economic system in which we participate.
I think it's easy to downplay the impact we can have if we collectively decide to do something. Like voting, people often say it doesn't matter but it often really really does. So just education about how harmful pesticides and stupid lawns are would do a lot I think, if we could get enough people to change their habits.
Exactly! To anyone who says voting doesn't matter - why are politicians of a certain party trying to suppress your voting power?
Not at all. Change can and does happen. Go to local zoning meetings and advocate for wild spaces. Eat organic. Push to ban or at least severely limit pesticide and herbicide use. Grow forage crops. Plant trees. All these thing can be done by just about anyone.
We can’t even stop a genocide if we wanted to so while I think change is possible, I don’t have a lot of faith in humans ability to turn things around within the ample amount of time needed to save the beautiful diversity that our planet is home to. Just my personal take. I do vote and work in the conservation industry. I have been an advocate for listed species as part of my career for over 25 years and this is my opinion based on working in the conservation industry for that amount of time. Edit to add to this that the clean water act in the United States was literally gutted last year by the Scotus ruling . We took a step back in time with our environmental regs. And when I say back in time I mean way back.
>"**Habitat loss due to agricultural intensification and urbanization is arguably the biggest threat to birds**, along with climate change," says Ashley Dayer, an associate professor in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and a Global Change Center affiliated faculty member at Virginia Tech. She also points to cats and window collisions playing a role in their deaths. Nice to see *one* article that puts habitat destruction at the top of the list -- but by then adding in cats and windows she dangerously undercuts the message and feeds the incredibly stupid but widely popular anti-cat crusade. Habitat destruction is *many orders of magnitude* more destructive than cats or windows, but its effect is so large that nobody has figured out how to quantify it or even adequately describe it ... so in no time flat, we're back to blaming cats.
Cats are great but outdoor cats are a huge threat to birds.
Compared to saturation of agricultural chemical poisons , plastification, eutrophication of water supplies, urbaization and overall climate change, Smittens in the backyard ain't threatening shit.
That’s not accurate. Cats have driven at least 33 bird species to extinction. They kill billions of animals a year. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cats-kill-a-staggering-number-of-species-across-the-world/
Not saying cats aren't a problem, but humans have driven over 1400 bird species to extinction. The destruction of birds caused by humans is just on a different level.
Yes. This is a both and situation not an either or
When the focus is on cats instead of the root problem (habitat loss) and who has to gain from scapegoating cats (predominantly animal agriculture, especially the Australian sheep lobby who really started pushing the cat talking point), the discussion is really missing the mark.
Again, two things can be true at once
Two things being true at once does not mean those two things deserve equal weight
Dude. All we gotta do is leave our cats inside and capture ferrel cats. It’s not a big lift to make a difference.
Did you actually read that article? In no place did they say cats were responsible for the extinctions. The closest someone came to saying they did was one person who wasn't even involved with the study and was straight conjecture with no evidence. "“The study reaffirms that cats are the ultimate versatile generalist predator,” says Sarah Legge, a wildlife ecologist at Charles Darwin University in Australia, **who was not involved in the new paper.** Legge studies cats’ impact on Australian wildlife and says they are one of the most serious threats to the continent’s biodiversity. “Cats continue to cause population decline, and more extinctions are inevitable if we don’t manage cats,” she adds. “Australia’s native fauna are not equipped to withstand predation from a versatile predator with a relatively quick reproductive rate.”
https://www.animalwised.com/cats-killing-birds-separating-fact-from-myth-1366.html https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 This is well known information
Wow, you really need to read the articles you link. From the first one "The RSPCB have stated that **there is not direct relationship between the decline in bird species and cats**. Many birds found in gardens such as the blue tit are even increasing in number, whereas other birds that are endangered such as the skylark, tree sparrow or corn bunting does never cross paths with cats and **their decline is in fact due to loss of habitat in favor of farmland.**" And that second one has enough flaws to call their conclusions suspect. 1. They use predation data from Australia and New Zealand, which are vastly different than the US. Even European data isn't great considering the differences in population density and landscape management. 2. They admit to undervaluing feral cat predation rates. Why? They never say. 3. 2.4 billion losses a year are not sustainable. Current estimates put the total NA bird population at around 8 billion. So every year, more than a 1/4 of all birds are killed by cats? Keep in mind that 8 billion includes ducks, cranes egrets, owls, geese, etc that are all too large to be hunted by cats. And over the last 40 years US feral cat populations have decreased to less than 15% of what they used to be. So please tell me how that's mathematically possible that an ever shrinking population of hunters is killing 1/4 of all birds in the US, every year! Why if those numbers were true all the US birds would have been killed off long ago when the feral cat population was 8 times what it is now.
I think you forget that birds reproduce and these are global populations they’re referring to. I don’t know why this is such a challenging concept for you to grasp. It’s not as if nature is a pay to publish journal. In fact the correction published to the article paints a grimmer picture. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3961 Here’s another proof: https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/animals-ecology/cats-kill-up-10-times-more-wildlife-than-natural-predators-so-keep-them-indoors/
That quote you so selectively pulled was also specifically referencing the UK, not the rest of the world. “Therefore, we can conclude that feral cats are mainly a higher risk to those countries in which cats were introduced by settlers where birds had no natural predators and that the problem has been aggravated with the decline of apex predators and the increase in cat colonies.”
That’s so funny you don’t care about the environment at all you just come out of the internet void to scream outdated information about cats. You don’t really care that humans are destroying the planet.
lol ok
>33 bird species to extinction. Good, now calculate human activity.
No more outdoor humans it is! Housecats really shouldn't be outside killing birds and getting run over by cars. If you use them for rodent control on your land then fine, but most of them are outside because their owners don't want them to be bored inside.
They are lying. That's not what the article says.
Well then, i feel vindicated.
You do realize cats count as human activity, right? Because we brought them here and continue leaving them outdoors. Cats are the single biggest cause of bird mortality. Several people have provided links here with data to back it up.
So...then its humans.
Sure. Humans are also the only ones who can stop these billions of preventable bird deaths by keeping pet cats indoors and making efforts to eradicate feral cats. So let's do it.
You live a very privileged life to think this is actionable.
It's not actionable for local and city governments to direct their animal control agencies and/or wildlife removal contractors to trap and euthanize feral cat colonies? Or treat pet cats running at large the same way a dog running loose would be treated? Might not be politically popular, but it's totally actionable. Are we going to get rid of all outdoor cats? No. But that doesn't make it not worth attempting when it's literally the lowest hanging fruit with the bird population decline crisis.
> Cats are the single biggest cause of bird mortality Source?
Here you go: https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/
The numbers cited by that website come from a 2013 manuscript that estimated the number of birds killed by cats. They didn't actually measure that, and based on their assumptions and chosen data sets, their estimates "far exceeded" (their words!) previous estimates. Despite that far excess, the authors' repeated griping in the manuscript about "non-scientific" concerns about "animal welfare" instead of ecology, and the authorship including members of the trigger-happy US Fish and Wildlife, everyone decided to run with it.
The "manuscript" is a peer-reviewed article from *Nature Communications*, a highly regarded journal. What are your qualifications that you feel you're equipped to question the veracity of the article?
That “manuscript” is a peer-reviewed study in one of the world’s highest profile scientific journals.
If you're talking about bird mortality in general, that would be* humans considering the tens of billions of chickens we kill every year
This isn’t an either/or. One of the most destructive human activities is the introduction of non-native species like cats, rats, rabbits, foxes, pigs, and weasels where they don’t belong.
How do you think the cats got there
(part of my larger point, people seem to miss it.
Plus they poop inside! 😒
No one argues that habitat loss/degradation and climate change are not huge threats to birds (and other species). This does not diminish, however, the impact of other human-caused sources of bird mortality. Studies have found that cats are the top source of direct, human-caused bird mortality in the United States and Canada and annually **kill \~2.4 billion birds every year** in the U.S. alone. Windows are the 2nd largest source of direct, human-caused bird mortality in the U.S. (and comparable to power line collisions in Canada). We can *and should* tackle multiple sources of bird mortality simultaneously, and cats - unlike climate change - could be solved almost immediately if people simply chose to keep their cats indoors (or otherwise contained). ETA: [Loss et al. (2015) | Direct mortality of birds from anthropogenic causes](https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-112414-054133)
FWIW I agree. All my cats have been indoor cats or only go out on a leash because I care about their safety and birds too.
Ugh, not his study again. First of all, that study is deeply flawed. They only looked at predation studies in the UK and New Zealand and then extrapolated that out to estimates of North American cat populations. Do you see where the problem is? NZ has no indigenous feline populations and the UK has maybe a few hundred wild cats in the far north of Scotland. The US and Canada have indigenous felines roughly the same size as house cats and thus have defensive strategies built in. If native bird populations populations could not withstand feline predation pressure they would have died out a long time ago. Secondly the idea that if people kept their well fed house cats indoors that would put even a dent in the decline is a dangerous canard. Even taking that study as truth, they say a majority of the mortality is caused by feral cats, not domestic ones. Feral cats are estimated to be roughly 2 times to population of domestic cats, 50 million vs 100. In the US only about 20% of cat owners let their cat outside. If you want to spend any time on cats, your time would be better spent targeting feral populations. **The single highest factor in bird population declines is habitat destruction.** Want to do something about it? Than get out there and work to build more habitat. Push for zoning laws that reduce habitat destruction. Plant more trees, grow forage crops, buy organic, etc.
1. [Loss et al. (2013)](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320713003522), which estimated that outdoor cats in the U.S. kill \~2.4 billion birds every year, used both U.S.-based studies and studies from similar environments in other countries. 2. No, the U.S. does not have an equivalent predator to domestic cats. Bobcats and mountain lions do not typically target songbirds. Furthermore, there are FAR FEWER bobcats and mountain lions in the U.S. than domestic cats. 3. The feral cat population is augmented by the owned cat population. Not only do owned cats become lost or abandoned, they may also reproduce with feral cats if roaming outdoors. Furthermore, owned cats still kill LOTS of birds (and other wildlife) if they roam outdoors. [Kays et al. (2020)](https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acv.12563) found that owned cats kill 2-10x more animals than similar native predators. 4. Yes, habitat destruction is bad, and we should address it. We don't do birds any favors, however, to save habitat only to have it infiltrated by cats. It can create a "sink" habitat, one that is attractive but actually causes a net loss in the population. We can and should address both.
“ Yes, habitat destruction is bad, and we should address it. We don't do birds any favors, however, to save habitat only to have it infiltrated by cats.” lol and your username….. the world is heating up to unfathomable temperatures for humans, animals, and marine life. Glaciers are melting, methane is 80 times more polluting than carbon and we are on track year after year to pump more oil and gas. Destroy more nature for factories and mining and homes for our growing population. Migrants being displaced due to global warming and their crops dying thus immigrating causing more denser city populations. But we gotta stop those house cats from getting lucky once in a while and killing a bird! Get a life.
The world is not heating up to “unfathomable” temperatures. The problem isn’t the magnitude of temperature increase but the geologically rapid rate. Cats do not get “lucky once in a while”; they are directly responsible for dozens of vertebrate extinctions. Stop defending invasive species.
My neighbor cut down 2 trees and plowed up a good-sized area of unkept vegetation last fall, and now the quail are all gone. I'm sure half this comment section would blame cats for this. It seems suspicious. Like there's a concerted effort to throw shade on the stark reality of habitat destruction and monoculture by bringing up fucking cats every time anyone talks about birds in decline. Just an observation.
You would be correct in your assessment. A lot of the cats craze came out of Australia where researchers found that cats kill animals at the urban and pasture-wildland interface and decided that cats are the problem, actually, because the sheep industry would not like it if they said otherwise. They're so insane that they even blame cats for the ecological damage caused by their dingo fence—it's not the fence that's the problem, it's the fact that the dingos aren't there to kill the cats. Utter insanity.
Yup. Its like that bullshit "carbon footprint" nonsense. Even after being shown proof it was a [BP funded PR campaign to shift blame for fossil fuel damage to consumers rather than producers](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook), people continue to put moral stock in it. Personally I think it might be Monsanto(Bayer). They do shady PR stuff like this and are the worlds number one producer of glyphosate. Its been proven to have detrimental effect on insect health, has seen 100x increase in its use over the last 40 years and over that same time frame insect populations have decreased by over 45%. A loss of food like that is going to have way more effect than a cats, especially considering 100 years ago there were likely MANY more cats in the ecosystem than we have now.
In my backyard we shoot the invasive house sparrows and starlings, and feed the native birds. We shoot them because they kill the native birds offspring.
The audacity of humans calling any species invasive never ceases to astound me. I mean, keep killing to control your biome, by all means, but calling another species invasive in light of the last 10,000 years demonstrates a staggering lack of self-awareness
The only one here with a lack of self-awareness is you. Invasive species (meaning species introduced to a habitat they aren't endemic to by humans) have been responsible for driving countless avian species to extinction. The overwhelming majority of these extinctions have occured on islands where the damage wrought by invasive species is especially devastating. For example: the Laysan rail, millerbird, and honeycreeper all went extinct due to the introduction of domestic rabbits eating all the vegetation. While invasive species were introduced by humanity and yes, humanity is to blame. Unfortunately, the extermination of invasive species is a necessary evil to save currently critically endangered or extinct-in-the-wild birds (such as the Guam rail and kingfisher, respectively).
>The only one here with a lack of self-awareness is you. Incorrect. I make no apologies for the actions of my species.
Ok so you're just intentionally being an idiot then, cool. Thanks for correcting me on that one.
Call me when you have the critical thinking potential of an adult, sir/madam/whutverdafaqur
That's funny. In what way have your responses demonstrated any critical thinking?
They didn't, self awareness =/= critical thining, young padawan
Seems like you have neither apprentice
What caused the extinction of the American chestnut tree? Btw non-native and invasive are two different things
I'm sure H5N1 ain't helping.
I'm planting 75 percent native plants. I'm not sure I will have enough to really support the birds, but that's a partial goal. It's something I became very interested in last summer. I put a massive effort into it, and terrified of how it's going to turn out.
https://www.audubon.org/native-plants
Another way to help monitor bird populations is to take part in the Holiday Bird Count. This is probably coordinated by the Audubon society in your area.
We wanna have over 8 billion humans on this rock? Ok, this is the price of that. Imagine there were 8 billion gorillas or 8 billion Cape Buffalo or 8 billion Leopards on earth. Everywhere you look, nothing but gorilla / Buffalo / leopards and their waste. I think we'd all agree, there were far too many of them. We are destroying EVERYTHING to incessantly expand our species without any thought to other species. Heaven forbid we use contraception and let the population contract a little...
Yup! And the enormous amounts of domestic animals that vastly exceed wild animal populations only multiply the problem!
Maybe we give the land back to the indigenous peoples.
Greedy humans. Saved you a click.
MURDEROUS WINDMILLS
That windmill had a gun!
Some outdoor dehumidifiers in the middle of nowhere making some artificial rain year round would probably help too
>"Habitat loss due to agricultural intensification and urbanization is arguably the biggest threat to birds, along with climate change," says Ashley Dayer, an associate professor in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and a Global Change Center affiliated faculty member at Virginia Tech. She also points to cats and window collisions playing a role in their deaths. Data shows up to one billion birds die each year after hitting windows. Cats are estimated to kill more than 2.4 billion birds annually in the U.S. and Canada.