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Interesting but not conclusive

Posted by mrheathcliff on 07 Apr 2013 at 10:11 GMT

This study is far from conclusive in showing a substantial detrimental effect, overall, of cats on birds in cities.

Given the weak direct evidence and the absence of indirect data -- eg, mesopredator effect in suppressing rat and mice populations that themselves could have a greater negative effects on bird numbers -- is there really a rationale for devoting scarce resources to reducing cat predation in cities?

A very interesting study in its own scope, however, and the authors are to be congratulated for such a thorough piece of research.

Competing interests declared: Cat owner and amateur conservationist
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