Is this the face of a killer? Perhaps. - Photo by Gregory Bryant
The headline was a bloody gripper: “That Cuddly Kitty Is Deadlier Than You Think.”
Paired with the recent New York Times story was a not-so-cuddly photo of a presumably joyous domestic cat – with a large, limp rabbit clamped tightly in its mouth.
The news: Researchers at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service estimate that domestic cats in the United States — both the purring homebodies and wild ferals — kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year.
“More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats, the report said, than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons, collisions with skyscrapers and windmills and other so-called anthropogenic causes,” the story reported.
The story was picked up by others in the media universe. Cat folks snarled and hissed.
One online petition by a group called Alley Cat Allies deplored the study and the press, declaring: “These stories are based on biased research that could lead to more outdoor cats being rounded up and killed. It’s absolutely horrifying.”
Huh?
Perhaps the extent of the mammal/bird carnage may come as a surprise to many. But the instinctive drive of cats to kill? Is that stunning to anyone who knows cats?
First some context: I adore cats. Love them to bits. Their mysterious, inscrutable manner. Their relentless quirkiness. Their at times bratty behavior. The transcendent bliss of the act of purring. The hairballs. The independence and self-sufficiency – i.e., litter boxes.
And yet … an image I can’t get out of my head from the days of yore involves my late, great Maine coon cat Ishmael. As he wolfed down a chipmunk head-first out in the front yard one day. Being the chipmunk connoisseur he was, he chewed off the hind-quarter and tail – and it fell to the ground uneaten.
And yet, once back inside the house, Ish was a drooling sweetheart.
Cats, whilst outdoors, kill. Rabbits. Moles. Rare birds. Common birds. Hummingbirds. They like to torture and play with living things – to death.
Cats are killers. It’s their instinct, embedded deeply in their primordial core. They live happily in our homes – and yet they are still very wild.
The University of Georgia’s Kitty Cam project offers a cat-eye view of the roaming, the playful moments, the feline Vasco da Gama-esque explorations. And the slaughter – all via video collars: My favorite being a cat carrying a dead chipmunk in its mouth – all the viewer sees are these dangling chipmunk legs from the Kitty Cam.
Given this reality, here’s a not-so-radical solution: Keep them inside. That’s right: Keep the cats inside the house. Don’t let psycho-killer Fluffy outside – ever.
I’ve raised two generations of cats inside the house (Ish was an Old School, long-ago outside guy). Kept them inside from Day One. They never, ever laid a paw outside the house – except for visits to the vet. The house was their world; they knew nothing else.
They never yearned to go outside. Never drove us mad yowling that primal yowl: “We wanna go outside – to kill chipmunks. Purrleeze! Purrleeze!”
Inside cats don’t massacre billions of birds and mammals. But pity the poor live mouse that ever stumbles into this sanctified inside world: a dead mouse indeed.
