On the premise of 30 million observations by greater than 30,000 birdwatchers, the ‘State of Indian Birds 2023’ exercise just lately concluded that birds in India are faring poorly. Among many components, the report acknowledged a silent bird-killer lurking in India’s city areas: cats.

Cats could appear to pale within the shadow of the threats posed by forest degradation, industrialisation, and local weather change, however conservationists know higher. In the U.S. alone, free-ranging home cats have been estimated to kill billions of birds yearly.

One study discovered that cats often is the “single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality” for birds and mammals within the U.S. Worldwide, free-ranging home cats have caused or contributed to dozens of extinctions of fowl species recorded within the IUCN Red List.

‘Landscape of fear’

Disturbed by the dearth of India-specific information on the problem, ecologist Monica Kaushik has been finding out the looking habits of free-ranging home cats on city birds in Dehradun, a metropolis that has 590 of the 1,359 species of birds recorded within the nation. She present in a survey that pet cats hunted birds essentially the most, adopted by reptiles, bugs, rodents, and amphibians.

While free-ranging canines additionally hurt wildlife, Dr. Kaushik mentioned cats have retained the intuition to hunt by a few years of domestication, even when they don’t want the talent anymore. Cats can also do one thing canines can’t: “They can climb, so they can reach habitats such as the nests of canopy-dwellers.”

Cat saliva can be more likely to include micro organism (Pasteurella multocida) which might be deadly to birds. So if the direct impression of an assault doesn’t kill them, the micro organism will. Former city wildlife rescuer Abhisheka Krishnagopal suspected that this may very well be why most cat-attacked birds reported to her didn’t survive the journey to a therapy centre.

Cats additionally preserve a ‘landscape of fear’. “This means that when cats are known to be in a particular area, the bird would avoid foraging or nesting there,” Dr. Kaushik defined. “They end up investing time and energy to be extra vigilant and to find alternative areas. This affects them individually and on a population level.”

Trap, neuter, return

Domestic cats (Felis catus) weren’t all the time this widespread. Palaeogenetic studies have discovered that wildcats (Felis sylvestris) had been in all probability first domesticated in West Asia some 10,000 years in the past. They unfold through crusing ships a lot later. Today, they’re one of many world’s 100 worst invasive alien species.

The correct solution to cope with the cat downside has spiralled right into a vicious debate within the west. Animal welfare teams often advocate the ‘trap-neuter-return’ (TNR) coverage, whereby stray cats or canines are trapped, sterilised, and returned within the hope that it will cut back their populations. This is taken into account a humane method as a result of it might enhance the standard of a cat’s life as properly.

The hassle is that cats usually are not straightforward to entice. And until most of them are sterilised directly, the inhabitants won’t lower in a sustained approach. This is why TNR programmes world wide have had restricted success. “Neutering is definitely needed, but this alone doesn’t help,” Ms. Krishnagopal mentioned, “because free-ranging cats hunt every day, and birds take several weeks to raise a family, so it really takes a toll.”

Data on cat-killed birds

Former director of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Centre, Peter Marra, has critiqued insurance policies equivalent to TNR as being “dictated by animal welfare issues rather than ecological impacts”. His study, revealed in Nature Communications in 2013, supplied an exhaustive quantitative estimate of mortality as a result of cats within the U.S. He mentioned that solely a “concerted, nationwide effort to rid the landscape of cats” might help. This might embrace euthanasia.

That this debate is but to kick off in India is partly as a result of there’s practically no information. With the State of Indian Birds 2023’s unambiguous conclusion that India’s fowl variety is in peril, ecologists like Dr. Kaushik have referred to as for extra makes an attempt to quantify the dangers posed by varied threats, together with cats. “We need studies from various habitats where we would expect high mortality because of free ranging cats,” she mentioned.

One supply of knowledge may very well be wildlife rehabilitation centres, per Ms. Krishnagopal. “We need more collaboration between researchers and animal rescuers,” she mentioned. “Ornithologists can approach rehab centres and encourage them to start collecting data on the number of cat-attacked birds they receive. They can publish this data together and then we can start creating awareness based on evidence.”

Empathy for stray cats

Meanwhile, there are measures pet dad and mom can undertake to cut back the harm their animals are wreaking. For one, they will prohibit their cats’ out of doors actions. Dr. Kaushik’s survey discovered that cats whose homeowners play with them are inclined to hunt much less, as do neutered cats. Studies have additionally discovered that cats with extra protein of their meals are much less inclined to hunt. She additionally really helpful “reflective collars or collars with bells” to alert birds {that a} cat is close by.

Seema Mundoli, who teaches sustainability at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, has been a foster father or mother to greater than 40 cats. She contended that people have lots to achieve by being empathetic in direction of stray cats, “because, what better way to connect with the natural world than through these species which are all around us?”

She admits cats are a risk to wildlife however doesn’t suppose killing them is the reply. “Thankfully, we don’t take all our decisions based purely on research and data, but also go with what we inherently feel is the right thing to do.” 

So what’s the proper factor to do? Ms. Mundoli steered that “conservation and animal rights groups can come together, pull in resources, to find a solution. What both want at the end of the day are populations that are under control and healthy.”

Nandita Jayaraj is a Mangaluru-based science author and co-author of Lab Hopping (2023).