Cats v Wildlife

[geoff]

The law

 

Were I to harm them I agree entirely, but I did say dissuade them, I have installed an electric stock fence along my boundry, & it does the job, without harming them.

[skyhuck]

The birds yes under the general license if you can prove they are causing problems to health or safety.

Do you have a badger infestation?

 

I don't wish to. I don't feel I am so important that anything that causes me inconvenience must die.

 

I try to show tolerance to those with whom I share the planet.

 

I have dogs, they bark from time to time, my neighbours tolerate that, I tolerate them having parties from time to time and they do the same for me.

 

I believe its called "live and let live"

 

If peoples cats coming into my garden caused me real issues I would fence my garden to keep them out.

[Daniel Jiggins]

At the end of the day, like cats or not, they do in general destroy vulnerable wildlife, distract from neighbors enjoying their bird tables, & foul third party private ground, often where children play, such as in their sand pits.

 

I have & will not tolerate this intrusion into my property, as neither would I a neighbors dog, budgie, horse, wife, or children...so what gives the cat owner the right to inflict this on me repeatedly?

 

We all know the answer to that, so if the owner chooses to do nothing to prevent the migrant moggy from straying, ( which is easy enough to do with correct boundary fencing), then I am going to have to dissuade the felines faecal forays by my own methods if I wish to maintain my garden as a healthy safe & wildlife abundant area.

 

Can anyone seriously tell me I have no right to do so, on a moral standing?

 

 

wife.....???

 

Can't see you turning away any stray wife's mate!

[countrryboy]

Mst admit i find the views on both sides fairly shocking, u say live and let live but u don't really mean it do u. Well not if ur a small bird etc but equally u should not be going around or even threatening to shoot/harm/maim someones cat

 

Everyone talks about 'modern farming practices' as the big evil, now wot the hell dos that mean??

Can u all list how the 'evil' of modern farming has changed around ur area in the past 30yrs?

I have lived and worked in the same village all my life no hedges have been ripped up, there is not massive ammounts of pesticide or insecticide being sparayed about wily nilly. In fact very little has actually changed in the past 40yrs (apart from tractrs have got bigger and quad bikes). Infact quite the oppisate more hedges have been planted and more ponds dug and the advent of game cover crops/wild bird seed mix's has really helped

Yes in some of the more intensive arable belts there will have been a fair bit of change, but most of that would have been 30+ yrs ago before mosrt of the agri-environmental laws came in

Modern farming is just a catch all excuse same as (gloabal warming) spout it out and confuse folk

In my area the 1 big change that most people don't realise is there used to be 5 ful time keepers and predators were kept under control, and in those days not many crows, badgers hadn't moved up yet, no magpies and very few BOP's, now no keepers and no lapwings, curlews etc and all the predators are as common as anything

Even if u go onto some upland hill sheep farms where the only modern farming pratice is a quad bike lapwings, curlews,plovers redshank etc are stillalmost non existant as breeding populations, even most rspb reserves don't have vaible breeding populations of waders

 

Yet u go to an upland sheep area near a grouse moor and it is absolutely teaming with wildlife an brids fledging young all because of controling predators.

If u don't want to believe me, fair enough but loads of scientific work has been carried out on the benefits of predator control esp to ground nesting birds, try looking on the GWCT site (esp Otterburn and Sailsbury plain studies) and no matter how u look at it ur precious tiddles IS a predator.

 

U say ur 1 cat has never killed a bird, fair play but that leaves another 8.5 million -1 to kill 55 million birds, thats only 5 birds per cat per year, i'm sure some cats will kill that in a day. I'm no lover of the RSPB and for them to actually admit anything bad about cats is quite something and probably massively understated so it doesnae hit there membership

 

Yes own a cat but please put a bell on its collar and atleast have some respect for wildlife. Please

Like i said i have put a small wildlife resreve on hold becuase of cats moving into the area and i have done a fair bit of coppicing and tree work to improve it, a real shame that 1 neighbour who doesnae even own the ground can put a stop to it.

[Bren.]

In my area the 1 big change that most people don't realise is there used to be 5 ful time keepers and predators were kept under control, and in those days not many crows, badgers hadn't moved up yet, no magpies and very few BOP's, now no keepers and no lapwings, curlews etc and all the predators are as common as anything

Quick question.

What are all these predators living on?

The GWCT are as biased as the RSPB.

If you want impartial properly scientific information use the BCT.

[Joe Newton]

It would seem that cats are widely disliked by illiterates...

[stuartc44]

I don't like them either!

[Alycidon]

Eye for an eye, shoot the cat.QUOTE]

 

 

 

Illegal if the cat turns out to be domestic, ie owned by your neighbour you potentially run the risk of loosing your tickets I suspect.

 

It is unlikely that a cat caught a fully fledged adult, they are far to agile for that. Maybe if it was injured then thats a whole new ball game.

 

Cats are the biggest killers of wildlife in the UK, voles, mice, rats, young birds all fall prey on a regular basis. But an odd cat about does keep rats and mice in check hence farms usually have a few about.

 

I have a cat that thinks he is a dog, always comes with me and the dogs when we go for a walk or to walk the pheasants back in. He brings back moles on a regular basis, some pygmy voles which I am todl are quite rare, a leveret last year and a few rabbits. Even one ( but only one so far) of my pheasant poults. And of course a swath of young birds as well as the usual rats and mice. Overall he does more good than harm.

 

A

[countrryboy]

Bren have u ever read any of the GWCT work??

To be honest most of it is not rocket science either, the more cats u have the more feed u need same happens in the wild. More predators= more prey eaten

 

All the work is peer reviewed. Very few scientific studies are actually carried out in the field nowadys due to the massive cost, most are computer based analyising stats etc.

If u don't trust the GWCT have u had a look at Songbird Survival, the also produce some half decent field work based stdies.

 

RSPB is only interested in collecting money now and is more political now than ever (posibly well outwith it charitable status) as can be seen with the recent switch to covering all animals not just birds. All there after is cash as membership is declining

 

The predators are living on anything they can, (althou most only eat road kill/carrion if u believe some, how they survived before cars is a mystery) most uk predators are oportunist and will just eat wot ever is easiest and just switch from 1 species to the next, as seen by wot cats kill and drag in, certain times of year its young birds other times young rabbits

[Lucan]

The RSPB often boasts about having more members than all the political parties put together and gets over 60% of its income from them. The issue is that wildlife conservation can be a very complicated and seemingly contradictory subject in some cases. The majority of these members are only interested in seeing songbirds in their garden and have no understanding of the more complex issues regarding raptors, game birds, etc. The RSPB is in my opinion almost "held hostage" by these members in fear of upsetting them.

 

I'm a long time member of both the RSPB and the GWCT and have volunteered for the GWCT (radio tagging black grouse in the Highlands). Saying the GWCT is just as biased as the RSPB is a ridiculous claim.

 

The wife of a former work colleague used to work for the RSPB, but left due to the amount of radical fundamentalists within the organisation.