In my view the law clearly needs to change. Under British law owners have a clear legal duty of care for their dogs and their dogs' actions. This has to be extended to cats. The idea that cats are somehow inherently wilder has to be let go. It's time to take responsibility for all our domestic animals.
I totally agree. The UK population has exploded since the laws were written and along with it so has the cat population. Our wildlife is declining at an appauling rate and many people are doing a great job in trying to reverse the declines. Construction laws are changing to make development better for wildlife as are agricultural methods and farm management. However we still have a situation where new housing developments are designed to promote ecological diversity and encourage people to live alongside wildlife but the new house owners can happily have as many cats as they like roaming the area killing said wildlife. It's not a logical or sustainable situation. Birds aside, there are no longer lizards in my garden or anywhere near my estate due to cats killing them all. Lizards are a protected species and the housing development has a management plan in place to enhance their habitat. This was done all at great cost to the developer and passed on to the house buyers. Now there are no lizards because of irresponsible cat owners. All the good intentions of the scheme have gone to waste and the local ecology is all the poorer because of it. But of course this is just me being melodramatic...
I'm dismayed by the replies to this thread which are saying that people aren't being 'nice'. It is typical of a lot of cat owners to ignore all evidence that their pets are causing problems off their property and sadly it isn't 'nice' of them to cause the problems. Perhaps the 'not nice' comments have made some cat owners more aware that they shouldn't be letting their cats roam but I doubt it. Most of the pro cat comments in this thread seem to be written by people who are unwilling to see or accept other peoples' viewpoints. All they want to focus on is that someone called their cat a bad name.
As this is the problem solving forum. Keep your pets on your own property. Problem solved.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Mine can't get out of the garden! In Spain the cats and dogs were regularly poisoned,so mine we're kept in at night,they were well fed so didn't want meat laced with poison. But it was a horrible horrible experience seeing my neighbours cat die of poisoning,and her, sobbing with its body on her lap.I'm afraid I cried with her.
The whole truth is an instrument that can only be played by an expert.
When I worked in Kenya it was common for burglers to kill guard dogs by throwing meat laced with poison over the fence. It is a really horrible thing to see, and I'm very, very, glad that in the UK however frustrated we may get with our neighbours and their pets people do not (generally) resort to such horrible cruelty.
It's been quite fun watching this thread progress. The phrase 'first world problems' does spring to mind. I like cats but have a neighbour with 2 who treat our garden as a latrine and then expect us to feed them as well. I'm just waiting for the Simon's Cat episode on the subject.
I read somewhere that if you want to change the cats' behaviour you should plant Catmint, and then they'll think of your garden as a relaxation place (opium den) rather than a latrine. I tried that last year ........ and it was an epic fail.
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
Believe me, wildlife annihilation is very far from a first world problem. And finding your toddlers covered in cat shit, because they have been playing in your own garden is a horrible experience.
Believe me, wildlife annihilation is very far from a first world problem. And finding your toddlers covered in cat shit, because they have been playing in your own garden is a horrible experience.
The original poster's question was not about wildlife depletion it was about cat's s*****g in their garden. Get a grip and stop over-dramatising. Kids get crap on them now and again - it's a dirty world out there and it teaches them to look where they're going, and it's a long way down from that high horse of yours. Bizarrely, I was on your side until then.
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
There are wide ranging studies in the US that suggest domestic cats kill up to 4 billion birds and 22 billion mammals a year. This article in the science journal Nature states that domestic cats "cause a substantial proportion of total wildlife mortality... [and are] among the top sources of anthropogenic bird mortality;"
... and when you quote studies like this be careful not to omit potentially key information from the study, such as:
"Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality"
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
As to the "Hobbies for wildlife", I reckon our Jackdaws could easily be taught to paint. They filch twigs and branches from the trees in the garden and spend hours stuffing them down neighbour's chimneys - those that don't fit just lay there - bit of paint applied and our rooftops could look quite colourful !
Having just been to the salon for a pre-holiday leg wax, and then returned home to see a blackbird tugging a worm out of the lawn, a thought came to me .... are we missing a trick here ... instead of paying a fortune at the salon could we not train the blackbirds and get them to pay in kind for all the birdfood we put out in the winter ... ?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
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If tagging cyclists is unacceptable, they should have a number plate on their compulsory helmet.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.