By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC World Service
Cats are one of the top threats to US wildlife, killing billions of animals each year, a study suggests.
The authors estimate they are responsible for the deaths of
between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds and 6.9-20.7 billion mammals annually.
Writing in Nature Communications, the scientists said stray and feral cats were the worst offenders.
However, they added that pet cats also played a role and that owners should do more to reduce their impact.
The authors concluded that more animals are dying at the
claws of cats in the United States than in road accidents, collisions
with buildings or poisonings.
The domestic cat's killer instinct has been well documented on many islands around the world.
Felines accompanying their human companions have gone on to
prey on the local wildlife, and they have been blamed for the global
extinction of 33 species.
But their impact on mainland areas has been harder to chart.
To find out more, researchers from the Smithsonian
Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and the US Fish and Wildlife
Service carried out a review of studies that had previously looked at
the predatory prowess of cats.
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“Start Quote
Our study suggests that they are the top threat to US wildlife”
Dr Pete Marra
SCBI
Their analysis revealed that the
cat killings were much higher than previous studies had suggested: they
found that they had killed more than four times as many birds as has
been previously estimated.
Birds native to the US, such as the American Robin, were most
at risk, and mice, shrews, voles, squirrels and rabbits were the
mammals most likely to be killed.
Dr Pete Marra from the SCBI said: "Our study suggests that they are the top threat to US wildlife."
The team said that "un-owned" cats, which they classified as
strays, feral cats and farm cats, were killing about three times as many
animals as pet cats. However, they said pet cats were still killing
significant numbers of animals, and that their owners should do more to
limit the impact.
Dr Marra said: "We hope that the large amount of wildlife
mortality indicated by our research convinces some cat owners to keep
their cats indoors and that it alerts policymakers, wildlife managers
and scientists to the large magnitude of wildlife mortality caused by
cat predation."
A spokeswoman for the UK's animal welfare charity the RSPCA
said that a properly fitted collar and bell could reduce a cat's success
when hunting by at least a third.
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