Do feral cats kill a lot of birds?
All cats are predators. However, lizards, insects, and rodents are the cat’s natural prey. Please read this article about bird predation. It’s a good summary. It is simplistic to think that killing feral cats will stop the decline in songbird populations. Other factors, such as the decimation of natural habitat, and use of pesticides have much more of an impact. Most importantly, removal of feral cats leads to an influx of a new set of cats rather than an absence of cats in the area. The “round-em-up-and-kill-em” approach does not provide a permanent reduction in the number of cats in a given area; TNR does.
