The Curse of Stray Cats.

Forest and Bird, Issue 34, 1 October 1934, Page 12

The Curse of Stray Cats.

Preying on Birds Everywhere.

“They’re Getting Our Birds” is the title of an arresting article by Mildred Garner in the August issue of “Nature Magazine.” The writer mentions the terrible toll of beautiful and useful birds taken by cats — chiefly vagrants —in the United States of America. “It is because stray cats are most active at night that the average person has no idea how numerous they are,” remarks Miss Garner. “They are with us now to the extent of one cat to each person. . . . These 1 20,000,000 cats are in a strange position, quite outside the rule of the forest. They hunt, but are not hunted. They kill, but are not killed. There is nothing to stop their frightful depredations unless we do.” Miss Garner quotes the following passage from a bulletin of the United States Department of Agriculture:— Vagrant cats are usually hungry, mangy, and diseased, and quickly revert to wild habits and characteristics. They are rapacious, cautious and unsocial. They mingle with valued cats and contaminate them by transmitting disease and parasites, and have been known to disseminate disease among human beings—diphtheria, paralysis, tuberculosis. They become skilled hunters, and seriously menace song, insectivorous and game birds and poultry. As a measure of public safety and to assist in conserving valuable birds, and as an act of mercy to the cats themselves, all unowned cats should be destroyed.”

1 he total of New Zealand’s stray cats probably far exceeds the tally of human population (about 1,600,000). Thousands of them have been deliberately released in lonely places by motorists who wished to be rid of them. Others have been left behind by occupants of publicworks camps and other camps. It is really more important to insist on the license principle for the ownership of cats than for dogs, but it is proving very difficult to persuade the authorities to give any serious heed to the grievous nuisance of cats. Is it to be another case of waiting until the trouble is too widespread for remedy?