Birds saved by the bell

What if the cat has worn a bell since it was a kitten?

We lived in Gawler in the 90s and had a house built on totally cleared land in a cul-de-sac in a cluster of five houses all built around the same time as ours. We planted a well mulched native garden and within a couple of years we had lots of native birds (mainly New Holland Honeyeaters) actively feeding throughout the year.

The other four houses put in lawns and the odd (exotic) tree and they all had cats. The cats, naturally enough, found our yard far more interesting than their own and spent most of their time there. Only one of them had a bell, which it had from the day it was brought home as a kitten. That cat became by far the most successful hunter. It had more patience and stealth than the others and the bell was never heard until a split second before it captured a bird.

Maybe it was born a better hunter anyway, but I have always wondered whether having the bell from an early age had, in the long term, helped rather than hindered its development as a recreational hunter.

Regards,
Leo.

On Fri 15/10/10 1:28 PM , "Tony Lawson" sent:

Friday, 15 October 2010

University of Otago

 

If domestic cats wore bell collars in urban areas the numbers of native birds caught and killed could be reduced by as much as half, a new University of Otago study shows.

Dr Yolanda van Heezik and Dr Christoph Matthaei from the Department of Zoology - with Zoology Honours student Jo Gordon - studied cats known by their owners to be prolific hunters.

They asked owners of 37 Dunedin cats to record the number of prey caught and brought back home during a six-week period while wearing a belled collar, and during another six week period without a belled collar.

“We found that cats caught fewer birds while wearing the belled collar,” Dr van Heezik says.

“This study shows it is worthwhile for domestic cats to wear bells and would go some way towards reducing the huge numbers of native birds cats catch. It won’t eliminate the problem completely, but it’s a start.”

Previous studies have shown that domestic cats kill tens of thousands of native birds each year in New Zealand.
“People might consider cats as a nuisance because they dig in their gardens, or they may be concerned about cats roaming for welfare issues, but people hardly ever think about the impacts cats are having on our native birds.

“Most cats don’t catch a lot of prey and they may bring back perhaps only one bellbird a year. But if you consider the large number of domestic cats in towns and cities, then the cumulative impact is likely to be huge,” she says.

In New Zealand urban environments, there are on average 220 domestic cats per square kilometre, and each cat has an average travelling range of about 2.2ha.

In total during the six-week study, the cats not wearing the collar caught 378 animals, including 82 birds. When the cats wore bells, they caught only 41 birds by comparison.

This study has been published in the Australian journal Wildlife Research.

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news-nz/20101510-21446.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+sciencealert-latestnews+%28ScienceAlert-Latest+Stories%29

http://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago014321.html