I know just about all you kitties reading this live with one or more humans, or at least live somewhere where you are taken care of by a group of humans, so you will be shocked by what you are about to read! Yes, I know humans are a very useful species — relatively easy to train, fun to play with, and they provide good food and housing. But they are not innocent creatures. Do you realize that the human you live with — the same one who dishes out your food every day, brings home fun cat toys and who lets you sleep on her head at night — is an unrepentant bird killer?
Okay, so maybe your specific human does not go around wantonly laying waste to your local population of birds, but the large numbers of humans that exist on this planet are helping to destroy birds in thousands of different ways. Let me give you some figures, conveniently provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Up to 976 million birds in the U.S. die by building window strikes each year, partly because humans insist on putting up plate glass windows in high rises that keep out the climate while opening up expansive views, and birds smash into them! Communication towers may kill up to 50 million birds, and high tension electrical wires electrocute up to 174 million of them. Cars — those vile things that humans consider a necessity and that take us kitties to the vet — kill 60 million birds annually. Pesticides account for another 72 million bird deaths. Birds die because of wind turbine rotors, aircraft, oil spills, by accidents in fisheries. This does not even take into consideration environmental encroachment — destroying native habitat to build factories and housing. Add that to the equation and we can safely assume that humans are responsible for billions of birds dying each and every year.
Are you as shocked as I am? Why haven’t humans invented ways to keep birds from smashing into windows, created farming methods that will not harm bird populations, found ways to keep them from being electrocuted, etc.? Are humans cruel, bloodthirsty creatures who enjoy watching a bird ram into a windowpane and laugh when one lands on a high wire and gets electrocuted? Are they selfish beings who really don’t care about the species that die off when new housing projects go up? Or are they just ignorant and think that turning a blind eye will make the problem nonexistent? Who knows? Humans can be very mysterious creatures, and sometimes it is impossible to explain their actions.
If humans keep up the direction in which they are going, all the birds we enjoy watching through our own windows may grow fewer in number and could even someday disappear. That would be a terrible tragedy!
The vast numbers of humans in the world are having a very negative impact on the bird population. What can we kitties do? Sadly, not much. While spaying and neutering are accepted practices among pets, humans refuse to do anything about their own population problem. And of course it would be inhumane to euthanize any — I think all us kitties can agree on that. However, there is something you can do right in your own home to help keep your Bird TV thriving: encourage your human to take steps to make sure your local birds don’t hurt themselves on your windows. There are a number of simple solutions. Because saving birds from deadly human behavior starts right here at home.
This is brilliant, Sparkle. Maybe about half the problem could be helped if the humans didn’t wash their windows all the time.
Sparkle, it is scary! We lives in the middle of nowhere in a very rural area of North America. Not much has changed here industry wise in the last 50 years and we are at least 3 hours away from the nearest city.
When the pawrents lived here in paradise on earth 20 years ago, Mommy was part of a study that counted the SPECIES of birds. There was 206 DIFFERENT birds they counted in a 1 week period.
They re-did the survey last summer and only gots 153 and and 3 of them was new birds that was never here before and came from Asia and Europe. Its not the peoples in our area that is doing this (they is all old hippies here) but from other places. It is furry scarey.
Kisses
Nellie
We do our bit for the birds, by feeding them regularly all winter. That way more of them survive and we get to be entertained. We are inside kitties so the birds are quite safe. The only time we had a bird hit our window was when it was being chased by a hawk!
YRH is correct, as always, and SO talented in how YRH presents the facts, in a friendly, non-threatening, and, well, factual way. I’m sharing YRH’s thoughts far and wide with a special message in hope that this will help to counter the very, very bad things some of those humans are saying about cats, and enable them to look squarely in those mirrors and address the problem 😈 . *Btw, we’ve experienced bird-on-glass impacts, sadly, as well as bird-on-bird impacts, but NOT cat-on-bird problems, not any at all. And we are currently enjoying, from the comfort of our cat and general-purpose furnishings, the thrilling spectacle of a tiny mother nesting in our patio! We’re hoping for a new family of h-birds in due time. 😉
Our Bein feeds the birds to keep them in our sight (surely fer no other reason). And he is planting more trees what are good fer them to live, nest, and feed in soon. HE likes that WE can watch our bird TV.
Well, frankly, don’t count me in with all those who agree that euthanizing a certain select number of Humans (I’ll choose them for you) would be SUCH a bad thing.
It’s pretty rich that the HUMANS accuse US of mass slaughter.
You are a very sly kitty Sparkle. Very sly
BTW, thanks so much for your help in finding Spencer a home. Well done!
We aren’t surprised at all! They are responsible for entire species becoming extinct. And then they will blame the decline in birds on feral cats. Amazing!
Sparkle, I came here to tell you how much I LOVED your comments on Spencer everywhere I have seen them. Then I read the blog which is perfection! THANK YOU!
We are lucky that we don’t have that issue any more. At the old house, though, doves would fly into the storm door on the patio after a snack because they saw the reflection of the sky. Putting big decals on it helped but every now and then there would be an extra dim dove. Happily, none died but were merely stunned–probably because they were only on takeoff when they had the accidents!
Atta girl Sparkle.
Very good article Sparkle!!
Humans are trying to put the blame for many bird deaths on cats.
That is because they do NOT consider the death and havoc they cause!!!!!
You are so right , and we need to educate our humans 😉
That is a challenge, heehee
Purrs Tillie and Georgia,
Treasure, Tiger, JJ and Julie
This is such an appropriate response to that article that came out a few days ago about how we kitties are ruthless hunters, stalking & killing all the birds of the world.
In our state of Minnesota there is a wind turbine farm going up in the flight path of Bald Eagles and the legislature or who ever gave final approval said that was ok because over time the eagles will figure out another flight path once they see each other dropping dead in the blades. Grrr.
BRILLIANT! We should get this syndicated. The AP needs to pick this up. Reuters even. We need to spread the word!
The birds at our human’s childhood home would eat chinaberries off the tree when they got ripe & fermented. She watched drunk birds flying VERY irresponsibly and some even knocked themselves out on windows deliberately. Perhaps the Bird Conservatories should call for a moratorium on chinaberry trees too?
Excellent article, Sparkle and it is about time we heard about the cats killing birds from a feline point of view. Our human loves birds and feeds them every day. We get to enjoy looking at them from several key windows in our house. We really wish humans would concentrate on solutions to help the birds rather than spouting sensational and harmful statistics.
There are also the humans who hunt just for fun. They’ve wiped out entire species and think that’s ok. It makes us so mad. Most humans are loving, caring things who wouldn’t deliberately hurt anything but some think they can do what they want because they’re humans. An example is the passenger pigeon (sorry if we got the name wrong). They shot millions of them and now they’re gone! Our human gets really angry about it and says she’s ashamed to be human sometimes so we know its not all people but maybe they should get rid of the ignorant ones before they even think about touching us kitties!
Purrfect timing, Sparkle. Our humans were appalled by the media attention being given recently to an utterly flawed “scientific” study. Humans need to look in the mirror instead of trying to blame us kittehs!
We are inside and don’t kill fevvers. But we do see Mr Hawk, going after his fellow fevvers for foods. How many does the Hawk family kill every year? Hmmph.
Sparkle, once again you’re hit the nail right on the head! the most destructive force on the planet is humans, but they don’t seem to care about the destruction they cause.
I’m ashamed to admit that even my human may be guilty some planet destruction. She loves to go places in her car. Who knows how much pollution she’s spouting out into the atmosphere!
That is an excellent reason to open all of the windows!!!
Hi Sparkle
Years ago we had that problem but Over the years our birds have come to fine tuned their landing onto my feeders thus avoiding our window. We have a lot of trees behind the feeder which Mom thinks they land in first then ever so gently they fly to the feeders.
Hugs Madi
darned humans – and to think they keep trying to blame us!! our mom feeds the birds off our balcony so we get some good bird tv in…..
Very timely and well said Sparkle! Of course this information doesn’t make the news – only the information about cats and birds which made us nervous that some people will start being mean to kitties. They need to look at themselves first and see what they can do to prevent birdies from being killed. We have bird feeders all over so try to be very cautious of making it a safe zone for birdies!
These figures are very shocking. We haven’t seen birds hit our windows as long as I know, but I will check the link for solutions. My boys love watching birds and I don’t want to take birds away from them!
Very well said, Sparkle! We haven’t had any birds fly into our windows, but plenty in the garden. They generally just thumb their beaks at Austin!!
#1 was shocked recently at the number of people around her who simply do not like birds, and so don’t care at all about their fates. We do everything we can to make them feel welcome, and our multiple feeders attract lots and lots of them. To date, we have seen about 30 different species in our garden!
Purrs,
The Chans
Thank you Sparkle. Your blog today is both timely and necessary. Humans are good at many things but looking in the mirror isn’t one of them.
PAWSOME!! Sparkle you are brilliant. Wish I had been so smart in my post. I tweeted this to Dan Harris. He won’t read I am sure, but I tried. Thank you. Paw pats, Savannah
Glogirly and Gloman LOVE birds. Not so much that they’d ever bring any home, but Gloman has as many bird photographs as CAT photos. And that’s a LOT. Fortunately, despite a lot of windows, we’ve never heard or known of a bird crashing into them. There are lots of feeders around though, so W2 and I get to watch them everyday. Even in the winter!
: ) Katie
I think most humans just don’t THINK about the impact they have on ANYTHING, let alone a poor little bird. MomKatt supports Bat World Sanctuary and was shocked to learn recently what these new wind turbines (is that the right term?) are doing to poor, helpless bats that fly into their whirling blades. Let’s just say it’s not pretty or kind to the little creatures … and bats are IMPORTANT!
PURRS!
Selina
This is so timely! There’s been a spirited discussion on the Facebook Aby Cat Club about this, caused by this article on the CBC website: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/01/29/bc-cat-licences.html
Of course you saw my post about my friend’s Abys being the spokescats for leash-training…
Those numbers really are sad about all the birds. Luckily we live in the country so the birds don’t fly into our windows. It would be great if someone could think of a way to keep birds from flying into windows. If we can fly to the moon, surely someone can figure out that problem. Take care. Great post.
Sparkle, we’ve had birdies hit our house windows and die, unfortunately. Not many…but it has happened. In fact, the mom found a birdie on our front porch not long ago. We don’t know what it must have been thinking. It makes us sad because we’d much rather watch the birdies flying around. And no, the mom did not give us the birdie. The dad-guy gave it a proper burial.
We can’t remember a bird flying into our windows – perhaps it’s because we chase them.
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
Good points, Sparkle, and a great response to the recent Fish and Wildlife news regarding cats’ impact on birds. Humans need to look at themselves first!
Fortunately we have had very few birdies fly into our windows. Mommy feeds birdies all year long so we always have TV. Have a good weekend.