Habitat Loss is the Real Killer, Not Feral Cats

From the Desk of Louise Holton

​There’s an army of outdoor community cat caretakers all across the world. The kind-hearted people who go out in all types of weather, rain, snow, ice and heat to feed and to monitor their colonies. I have been so fortunate over the years since I started this quest to advocate for humane, nonlethal treatment for feral cats to meet people in the United States, Greece, Italy, London, Portugal, South Africa and elsewhere.

These are unsung heroes. They form one of the most amazing groups of people out there, some using their own money to trap and sterilize outdoor cats. And to buy cat food, and build cat shelters so the cats have safe, warm, dry places to hunker down in. 

Who are these cats and why are they living in alleyways behind restaurants, on college campuses, army barracks, and on the streets?

These are cats who have been abandoned by humans, cats who find themselves living on the streets through no fault of their own. Alley Cat Rescue shows you why catch-and-kill, advocated by some environmentalists, simply does not work. And we share with you our many years of experience helping these cats. 

We have developed resources on our website to help others help cats. We have spent time and energy building a directory of low – cost spay/neuter clinics, and CAT groups across the country who can lend you a trap or offer other resources to help people help cats. 

These are the people in the trenches actually putting into place programs that decrease numbers of outdoor cats by stopping the breeding, and not turning cats into scapegoats, blaming them for bird and wildlife extinctions. Some environmentalists concentrate on cat predation, turning cats into scapegoats, and ignore the real reasons for animal extinctions: habitat loss, which poses the greatest threat to wild species.  Our forests, plains and lakes are cleared to make way for agriculture. Mainly animal agriculture but also for industrial development, road building as well as building houses and shopping malls. 

In a recent paper, Driscoll, Macdonald, and O’Brien wrote:  “The world’s species are going extinct at a rate 100–1,000 times faster than the historic ‘‘background’’ rate, primarily as a result of habitat loss, which is itself overwhelmingly driven by conversion of natural habitats to agriculture. The consequences for the planet (as well as for humanity and its domesticates) have been profound, and have included the complete transformation of almost every natural ecosystem on Earth.”

Dr. Julie Levy from the University of Florida’s Veterinary School and co-founder of Operation Catnip was quoted in Best Friends magazine (2013) as stating, "There are much more important pressures on bird populations [than cats] - primarily pollution and habitat destruction. And those are harder areas for bird groups to be effective in.” Levy said: 

The problem is that part of the campaign is an attack on humane control of
homeless or feral cats. Most of us love song-birds as much as we love cats, so we
are not trying to choose one species over another. We're trying to come up with a
solution that benefits everybody in the picture.

Levy concludes that the goal is to reduce the feral cat population saying, “we can do it in a humane way that respects the animals rather than in a 50-year-old vision of animal control, in which the only way you can help animals is by killing them” (Best Friends, 2013).

Eradication of all cats will not save humanity. Only facing our real problem, habitat loss, will save the world and the birds and other wildlife. And in the meanwhile, instead of ranting against cats, please help those of us on every continent to sterilize more cats: pet cats and feral cats. That would be the most sensible thing to do!

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