How many cats?

How many cats? by ricmcarthur
How many cats?, a photo by ricmcarthur on Flickr.
Ten? A dozen?More?
These are semi-strays. Someone has built several small shelters around this old building and brings food on a regular basis.
I don't know who does it but it is nice that they aren't left on their own.

OPINION read this at the risk of being offended.

I'm not a fan of feral cats as I am aware of how much damage they can do to the local wildlife.
I take all "scientific" studies with a large grain of salt because there is a lot of estimating involved.

According to Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, America’s cats, including housecats that adventure outdoors and feral cats, kill between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion birds in a year.
This is a rather large range and the numbers can't be proved one way or another.
I don't know if this is accurate but the numbers scare this bird watcher.

There are 20 cats.

Comments

Irene said…
Hi Ric---you may recall a few years back, that one of these same cats managed to take, and to kill a rare Cave Swallow [ one of two] as the birds took shelter against a window in the Fishery building. I took chase after the cat--but it hid under a house trailer there. BTW: These cats have all been spayed and/ or neutered, under a new Chatham_Kent
plan for cat colonies. And yes, they are being fed well, and visited by locals too. P.S.--the cat in question was orange .
10:22 pm
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