Are cats getting a bad rap as predators? In some cities around the world, it is now the law to keep your cats inside to keep them from killing birds.
Melbourne, Australia and Walldorf, Germany have laws that ban cats from going outside because they are known to kill birds and mammals. It’s true, cats kill as many as 27 million birds per year in the U.K. alone.
But cats are not the biggest predator of birds and mammals and many cats thrive on their freedom to go outdoors. Do we have to punish them for what they do instinctually?
Beware placing the blame on cats! According to author Skye Alexander, “During the Burning Times, cats were thought to be witches’ familiars and zealots destroyed them by the thousands. It’s theorized by some that the Black Plague, which devastated Europe’s human population in the fourteenth century, resulted in part because the rat population increased and spread disease once their natural predators were eliminated.”
Do we really want to allow the rat population to go unchecked??
