A recent Maine Voices column vilified cats as a menace to birds (“We can love our cats and keep them from decimating the bird population,” March 27). The author used statistics similar to those on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website to point to cats as the primary cause of bird depopulation, but that same website states: “Habitat loss is thought to pose by far the greatest threat to birds, both directly and indirectly,” noting that threat is hard to quantify.
The author suggests that cats are an invasive species in the United States like brown tree snakes and fire ants. I suggest he will not win cat owners over to his views through such comparisons or by labeling cats “bird-killing machines.”
The first domestic cats came here five centuries ago on the ships of explorers. So did European colonists. Does that make the descendants of those colonists an invasive species? Certainly, their actions have decimated any number of wildlife species in North America.
The column downplays the serious and humane work done by organizations such as Alley Cat Allies to limit the population of feral cats. Although cats kill birds only in response to natural instincts, I applaud cat owners who are able to keep their cats inside. Not all can.
But let’s focus on the big picture. Sixty years ago, when Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring,” she wasn’t talking about cats. It is overdevelopment, industrial agriculture and climate change that are robbing birds of their natural habitats globally.
Humans are the real bird killers.
Charles Brown
Owls Head
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