Overboard by Chip Dunham for November 06, 2018

Can all those deaths be blamed on cats? How about dogs, snakes, eagles, hawks, falcons, windows, cars?

And humans deliberately kill 60 billion animals every year. Yum.

Save us Scratch, save us!

We once had a cat that did not kill birds. She killed snakes. And then brought their ugly corpses to us as tribute. We praised her for her skilled hunting. I would not have thought there were that many snakes around our place, but the sly buggers were all hiding. Our Miss Meena took care of the problem beautifully, and the birds sang freely.

BTW, I just noticed (I am notoriously slow at these things) Scratch wears trousers a la Raymond. Is he going to be a fixture on the ship, another escapee from the Green ship?

Bad kitty! Leave those songbirds alone!

That’s about 47 billion rodents per year as well.

Not so many, apparently. Cats were never fully domesticated the way (most) dogs are. A significant percentage of “house cats” go hunting when they get out. Just for fun. Because they’re cats.

And that number could so easily be reduced, if Scratch would just wear a bell…

Too bad they don’t go after European Starlings and Brown-headed Cowbirds- there’s plenty of them around.

We have 7 bird/squirrel feeders. Only good cat we know is the one who bit off the chipmunks’ heads, left his trophies at our neighbor’s back door.

They eat the swallows. Thus the lack of coconut shells. This wasn’t true in the days of King Arthur!

It’s the circle of life.

I have a marvelous use for a brick and a burlap bag

Indoor cats are not part of the problem.

Good morning Crew!

This so-called study has been debunked. Think about it—-BILLIONS of songbirds? True, cats are predators, but they typically take old and sick prey, allowing the strong to survive on the available food supply. They catch many more rodents than birds—-and the birds they do catch [sparrows, starlings, pigeons, etc] no one seems to care about anyway. BTW—-enjoy your turkey/chicken dinner at TG.

Cat=predator, birds=prey. Now this changes if the bird is a hawk, owl, or eagle then cat=prey and bird=predator. It is called nature.

More propaganda bullshit.

There used to be a Tufted Titmouse who would spend time in my yard. He used to drive me crazy because he would wake me up with his song promptly at 6:30 every morning—even on weekends—without fail. Then, one day, he stopped and I never heard him again. I’m not saying my Russian Blue mix cat was responsible for this, but she is very predatory with the local wildlife.

Stop dissing cats. I love my cat just as much as my dog.

Wow … that’s a lot of songbirds. I can see why Scratch would take pride in this number, even if I don’t have the same perspective he does.

Good Evening, Crew.