Cats have had some bad press lately, with allegations about depredation of bird populations. It is a pretty regular charge, implying that drastic action must be taken to reduce free-roaming cat populations. The latest claims come from a study reported on in the NY Times about the thousands of species preyed on by cats and estimations of mortality in the billions.Cats hunt birds, that is undeniable. That they have the kind of cataclysmic effect on prey populations so often alleged is very questionable in my opinion. I wrote a post on my photography blog on this subject ten years ago, and I'm not seeing any new evidence to refute the conclusions I arrived at then.
