Two researchers from Tilburg University have stated that cat owners who allow their precious kitty to roam free in the great outdoors are in contravention of the European nature protection laws.
Cats kill 140 million animals each year
In a paper published in the Journal of Environmental Law, Dutch researchers Arie Trouwborst and Han Somsen draw attention to the negative impact cats have on the environment, and argue that the Netherlands needs to toughen up when it comes to these fluffy murderers.
European guidelines state that countries are obliged to protect certain endangered species from predators like cats. Cats kill an estimated 140 million birds, rodents, bats, fish and reptiles each year in the Netherlands, and even though they’re highly discerning when it comes to their preferred brand of wet food, it seems cats don’t give a hoot whether the animal they’re playfully killing is endangered or not.
Dutch people own 2.6 million cats
Not all of the culprits are the sleepy housecat who is seemingly awake for one hour a day: one third of the victims are killed by wild domestic cats. But it does seem that our companions are more bloodthirsty than we might think: and even if their individual impact is fairly small, Dutch people own 2.6 million cats, so the overall effect is not to be denied. And the damage doesn’t end there- domestic cats also destroy any population of wild cats, by interbreeding with them and spreading diseases. Cats are the third most deadly invasive species worldwide.
The solution: hunt the hunter?
So, what can we do about this? There have been several suggestions over the past year to introduce hunting as a way of curbing the population growth of feral domesticated cats. However, there are obvious problems: pets could easily be confused with the intended target, and few feel totally comfortable shooting a cat in any case.
Wildcats were shot in Utrecht last year, but this initiative was rolled back by Environmental Minister Carola Schouten, who stated that she aims to keep cat shooting at an absolute minimum. This was done partly n response to the Party for the Animals, who wanted cat shooting to be banned nationwide. Similarly, in Zeeland, cat hunting was supposed to take place this year, but after the public’s lack of support for the measure was made clear, it did not take place.
How do you think we should look after our native species? Are cats destined to become purely indoor pets? Let us know in the comments below.
Feature image: Abuzer van Leeuwen van Leeuwen/Supplied.
Leave cats alone.Dogs kill people .Cats eat insects.Dogs can kill and eat their owners sometimes .I love cats.❤️🙏✝️
I cite from this article: “Cats kill an estimated 140 million birds, rodents, bats, fish and reptiles each year in the Netherlands”. Yes, they also kill insects on top of the 140 million vertebrates they slaughter… But they are not included in the research. I loved cats too, but i also love the birds🐦, squirrels🐿,🦔,🐹,🦎 etc, and yes als insects🦋🐝. that get murdered by cats. Somehow, after seeing a cat murder al the robin nestlings🐣 in my backyard, they just lose some of the cuteness. But that was coincidental, usually the cats kill when we don’t see it happen.
I wish i could unsee it, deny it, act like cats don’t kill animals and certainly not cute helpless baby animals. I wish the information that cats made 64 animals extinct wasn’t true.
But it is, and those 64 species will never exist again. I’m sorry.
As a side note, cats do actually sometimes dead owners too, they just don’t kill humans.
Cats are predators, why do we always feel obliged to change natural process. Average wise a man kill 100 animals per year, that includes nutrition. That means humans are causing 1,74 billions death each year. Should we keep them all indoor?
I agree that natural predators should be left alone. They are important to balance the ecosystem. The number of predators is also kept in check by the availability of prey. If the number of predators is too high, some wil die of hunger, so the prey wil stop being overhunted. Predatory pets however, will not die of hunger, so when the number of prey is too low, they can still keep on overconsume these prey. That is why cats have contributed to the extinction of 63 animal species.
Quote from this link–>https://enviroliteracy.org/did-cats-cause-extinction-of-33-species/
“Cats have contributed to the declines, reduced distributions, or outright extinction of at least 175 species of reptiles, birds, and mammals. This total includes 123 species of birds”. That’s not a natural process, that’s one of the worst destructions of nature even possible.