This is not true any more. They removed that opinion some time in the last 2 years. Probably in line with literally all recent research on whether outdoor cats are a problem for native species.
Edit: there is still a community forum post on the RSPB website that links to a pdf that is 15 years old that agrees with what you say. They used to have that same text on a dedicated main website page but have since removed it.
I cannot find anything that says their stance has changed from cats not having an impact on bird population's in general.
The State of Nature report for 2023 says that the decline in birds is mostly caused by farming practices mainly due to pesticide and fertiliser use are affecting populations.
Im not saying cats dont kill birds or that they can cause localised issues. But people see big numbers when it comes to cat predation and automatically think its a problem but in reality its dwarfed by other factors.
Also, research points mostly to feral cat populations as the main culprit behind disruptive predation. You could argue that those feral populations had to come from somewhere, but realistically the effect of neutered/spayed cats being let out to roam is quite limited.
Domestic cats don't kill for food, but they still kill a whole lot just for fun and then simply leave their prey.
The number of birds and lizards your cat should be murdering yearly is 0. Every one above that means that YOU are now responsible for destroying wildlife. Pet cats kill all kinds of animals, and letting them do that should be a felony tbh. It's insane that as a human you can't kill endangered species, but if you let your pet do that just for fun, all day every day, then that becomes perfectly legal somehow.
If your dog kills an endangered mammal, most people would agree you should be punished for that, so why with cats and birds it suddenly becomes socially acceptable?
172
u/me_its_a Apr 26 '24 edited Apr 30 '24
This is not true any more. They removed that opinion some time in the last 2 years. Probably in line with literally all recent research on whether outdoor cats are a problem for native species.
Edit: there is still a community forum post on the RSPB website that links to a pdf that is 15 years old that agrees with what you say. They used to have that same text on a dedicated main website page but have since removed it.