Letter to the Editor: Guardian

In response to: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/12/cats-diet-2000-species-conservation-study-aoe

Dear Ms. Weston and Editors:

Alley Cat Rescue (ACR) is an international nonprofit focused on compassionate treatment of all cats.

We are concerned that your December 12th article, “Killer kitties: cats are eating 2,000 species, including hundreds that are at risk,” is contributing to the demonization and scapegoating of cats that is pervasive in conservationist dialogue. Such theorizing is dangerous because it obfuscates far more significant threats to biodiversity, such as fragmentation of habitats by human development, and certainly puts a target on the backs of cats.

As the article says, one remedy for cat predation would be to keep pet cats indoors. ACR agrees that this should be the standard as a safety measure for both the cats and the wildlife they might hunt. However, feral cats are a different matter. As it is not possible to keep them indoors, claiming that cats are a grave threat to biodiversity turns public opinion against them and threatens their lives. We feel compelled to add that this a highly debated and debatable claim, despite the study examined by this article.  If you would like to explore this point further, we would be eager to follow up with more information at your request.

For now, the major point we would like to make is that, though some people may not appreciate them or even think much about them as they do pet cats, feral cats are equally sentient and deserving of life. Driven by this belief, we at ACR have been working for nearly three decades to reduce and manage feral cat populations through the only humane method, trap-neuter-return (TNR). 

Aggressively practiced TNR is not only effective but the MOST effective means of population control while catching and removing (often by killing the cats) is actually more expensive and only a temporary solution. When cats are trapped and removed from an area, new cats quickly move in to fill the vacated territory and take advantage of the resources that had been sustaining the cats there before them and start the breeding process all over again. This phenomenon is referred to as the "vacuum effect." 

One example of the vacuum effect is a 2015 study conducted in the forests of Tasmania, Australia. Over 13 months, researchers trapped and killed cats and by the end of the period, they found that the number of feral cats at the two target sites had actually increased by 75% and 211%. When the cat culling stopped, the researchers saw the cat population return to the same level as before the experiment had begun.*

One might expect that the vacuum effect could at least be overcome on an island by eradicating every cat on it quickly. The reality, though, is that it is close to impossible to determine if all targeted subjects have been killed, let alone identified, and when they are not, the breeding cycle will repopulate the area. A mistaken assumption that eradication is complete when it really isn’t can have disastrous consequences. Cats are especially prolific breeders and can reproduce at as young as four months of age, so a handful of undetected, unsterilized cats can multiply more quickly than many other species. Subsequent eradication campaigns will be necessary, increasing the cost of ridding an area of cats. 

Whatever one’s concerns about outdoor cats’ effect on the environment, one cannot deny that 1) feral cats exist and 2) they have nowhere else to live. By echoing the interpretations of the featured study’s authors, and without offering counter arguments nor solutions that would protect feral cats from culling, this article is predisposing the large audience of the Guardian to persecution of feral cats. 

We hope that you will explore opposing information about cat predation from other scientists, as well as the well-studied efficacy of TNR programs, and spread that information. If you would like to be pointed to sources, please Email [email protected]. 

Sincerely,

Louise Holton 
President / Founder of Alley Cat Rescue, Inc.



*Reference: Lazenby, Billie T., et al. “Effects of Low-Level Culling of Feral Cats in Open Populations: A Case Study from the Forests of Southern Tasmania.” Wildlife Research, vol. 41, no.5 2014, pp. 407-20.