• Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      They’re built to kill. Crazy good reflexes and eyesight, amazing jump height, claws that grab hold of tree branches, feathers, and skin very nicely. There are a bunch of strays where I live, and they are murdering machines when they don’t have a bowl of food plopped in front of them twice a day at their leisure.

    • InputZero@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      The only reason why cats aren’t hunting us down right now is because we’re too big to be prey. I read somewhere a long time ago that domestic cats have one of the highest predation success rate in the mammalian class. Meaning once they choose to actually try to hunt something they usually get it.

    • datelmd5sum@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Patience mostly I think. At least with rodent they smell a trail and then just sit there for hours and hours until one walks near enough.

  • Destide@feddit.uk
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    7 months ago

    I know a lot of people don’t like Andrew Lloyd Webber but killing yourself is a bit much

  • Xenon@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    On a serious note, the problem with wind turbines is not the total number of birds they strike but the species. Larger birds of prey seem particularly susceptible. Tough this risk can be easily mitigated by not placing the wind turbines directly in their primary habitat or migration paths.

    • subtext@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I was going to say, I doubt your pet tabby is killing any California condors at any appreciable rate.

      Amazing how easy it is to bias people with data though.

  • perishthethought@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    3.5 billion birds are killed in North America per year? I didn’t know anywhere near that number even existed.

    But then again…

    Wikipedia says there are about 7.5 million square miles in the US and Canada, so that’s over 400 birds killed per square mile, per year, on average.

    That’s amazing, no?

  • Lizardking27@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Keeping your cats indoors won’t solve anything. Housecats aren’t destroying the bird population, feral cats are. If you want to help, volunteer with your local vet or animal control to capture, spay/neuter, then re-release stray cats.

    • garbageman@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It will solve for your cat staying not dead, not shitting in other people’s yards, and not fucking other cats.

      • Lizardking27@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        “About a third of the problem” So, not the primary cause (or solution.)

        https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2380

        “We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality.”

        The article also states the following regarding more popular studies in the media involving pet cats: “The magnitude of mortality they cause in mainland areas remains speculative, with large-scale estimates based on non-systematic analyses and little consideration of scientific data”