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Journalists Need To Stop Citing The Bunk Studies Blaming Cats For Annihilating Wildlife

Free-ranging cats do have a negative impact on wildlife, but we’re not going to solve the problem by demonizing them and culling them by the millions.

The Literary Hub story starts off with a provocative question: what if cats ruled the world?

This is a question I find amusing to ponder, so instantly my mind was filled with images of cats scandalizing foreign heads of state by insouciantly swiping gifts off tables, angering diplomats by yawning and nodding off during summits, and financing the construction of massive and unnecessary coastal walls, on the off chance the ocean decides to move inland and get them wet.

Then the writer cited the repeatedly-debunked “study” that credulous media of all stripes still reference without bothering to read the text — that infamous 2013 Nature Communications paper, published by birders who author books with titles like “Cat Wars: The Consequences Of A Cuddly Killer.”

Some journalists don’t know any better, some are overworked, and some are frankly too lazy to read the study with a critical eye, but I think one of the more likely reasons people continue to cite the paper is because it’s easier to blame felinekind for wildlife extirpation than it is to admit we’re the primary culprits. After all, according to the WWF’s most recent annual review, we’ve killed off 73 percent of Earth’s wildlife since 1970, and we certainly didn’t need house cats to help us push elephants, rhinos, every species of higher non-human primate, and innumerable other species to the brink of extinction.

We did that. We did it with our relentless development, consuming and fracturing wild habitats. We did it with careless industrialization, by dumping chemicals and garbage into our rivers and lakes until more than half of them were rendered too polluted to swim in or drink from. We did it by bulldozing old growth forest and jungle, by exploiting species for fur, folk medicine, ivory, sport hunting and in the illegal wildlife trade.

Cheetahs are critically endangered, and they’re being driven to extinction even faster by poachers, who sell them to wealthy buyers in oil-rich gulf states where they’re trendy pets. Credit: Riccardo Parretti/Pexels

More than 47,000 species — that we know of — are headed toward extinction. It’s so much easier to blame it on anyone or anything else than admit we need to make major changes to our lifestyles and policies.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Alley Cat Allies has to say about the 2013 meta-analysis and its derivative papers:

“The Smithsonian-funded study published in Nature Communications is not rigorous science.
It is a literature review that surveys a variety of unrelated, older studies and concocts a highly speculative conclusion that suits the researchers’ seemingly desperate anti-cat agenda. This speculative research is highly dangerous. It is being used by opponents of outdoor cats and Trap-Neuter-Return (including the authors) to further an agenda to kill more cats and roll back decades of progress on TNR. And it is being spread unchecked by the media.“

Here’s what a group of ethicists and anthropologists wrote about the claims against cats in the journal Conservation Biology, lamenting the lack of nuance and danger in arguing that cats must be stopped “by any means necessary.” The drive to blame felines, they argue, has “fueled an unwarranted moral panic over cats”:

“Contrary to Loss and Marra’s claims that the scientific consensus is consistent with their views that cats are a global threat to biodiversity, the actual scientific consensus is that cats can, in certain contexts, have suppressive population-level effects on some other species (Twardek et al. 2017). This is something that is true of all predators, native or not (Wallach et al. 2010). Thus, cats should not be profiled as a general threat a priori and without reference to important factors of ecological context, situational factors, clear definition of harms, and evidence thereof.”

“There are there are serious reasons to suspect the reliability of the new, extreme cat-killer statistics,” wrote Barbara J. King, retired chairwoman of the department of anthropology at The College of William and Mary.

Feline predatory impact varies by local conditions. Free-ranging cats in cities and suburbs kill rodents, but have minimal impact on other animals, data shows. Credit: Patricia Luquet/Pexels

Like we’ve often noted here on PITB, the authors of the Nature Communications study can’t even say how many free-ranging felines exist in the US. They say it’s between 20 and 120 million. That’s a 100 million difference in the potential cat population! How can they tell us how many birds and mammals are killed by cats if they can’t even tell us how many cats there are? No amount of massaging the numbers can provide an accurate picture if the initial data is shaky or nonexistent.

Furthermore, the nature of a meta-analysis means the authors depend on earlier studies for estimates on predatory impact, but the 2013 Nature Communications paper does not include any data —not a single study — on feline predatory impact. In other words, they have no idea how many animals free-ranging cats actually kill.

In authentic studies that actually do measure predatory impact, the data varies widely in geographic and demographic context. Data derived from the D.C. Cat Count, for example, shows that cats living more than 800 feet from forested areas rarely kill wildlife, and are much more likely to kill rodents.

Those who cite the bunk study and its derivatives are “demonizing cats with shaky statistics,” King wrote, adding she was alarmed by “an unsettling degree of uncertainty in the study’s key numbers.”

Free-roaming populations are reduced when cat colonies are managed, and the animals are fed and fixed. Credit: Mia X/Pexels

Ultimately, we agree with Wayne Pacelle, former president of the Humane Society of the United States.

The meta-analysis authors “have thrown out a provocative number for cat predation totals, and their piece has been published in a highly credible publication, but they admit the study has many deficiencies. We don’t quarrel with the conclusion that the impact is big, but the numbers are informed guesswork.”

Cats do have a negative impact on wildlife, it varies according to local circumstances, and those of us who love cats have a responsibility to keep our pets indoors and help manage free-ranging populations.

But cooler heads must prevail, approaches to managing cats must be evidence-based, and the effort requires people of all kinds working together — which becomes much more difficult when agenda-driven pseudoacademics whip people into a frenzy by portraying felines as bloodthirsty, invasive monsters who need to be wiped out “by any means necessary.”

When that kind of rhetoric drives public policy, you get countries like Australia killing two million cats by air-dropping poisoned sausages, vigilantes gunning down cats with shotguns in public parks, and local governments offering cash prizes to children who shoot the most cats and kittens. Those efforts aren’t just cruel and inhuman, there’s not a shred of proof that they do a damn thing to help other species.

Solving the problem of free-ranging cats requires us to own up to our own role in species extinction and to take measured, evidence-based steps to protect vulnerable wildlife. Otherwise, we’re inflicting a whole lot of suffering on sentient creatures and accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Tiger Kills ‘Joe Exotic’ Associate At Roadside Zoo

Ryan Easley “wanted to be the one with the most tigers in the ring at one time,” Joe “Exotic” Maldonado said of the Oklahoma man.

A circus big cat trainer and associate of so-called “Tiger King” Joe Maldonado was mauled to death by a tiger at a roadside zoo on Saturday.

Authorities say 37-year-old Ryan Easley was conducting a “show” at the Growler Pines Tiger Preserve when a tiger he “owned” turned on him. The captive predator mauled Easley, attacking his neck and shoulders “in full view of a group of visitors, including children,” PETA wrote in a statement calling on federal authorities to cancel the facility’s licenses.

Easley with a white tiger. Credit: Ryan Easley/Instagram

While Easley called the facility a preserve, others described it as a roadside zoo, and genuine animal sanctuaries do not put animals on public display. The roadside zoo description aligns with the Oklahoma man’s past as a circus trainer of big cats, and Maldonado — who was the subject of the popular 2020 Netflix documentary, Tiger King — seemed to confirm that description when he issued a statement on his friend’s death.

“He wanted to be the one with the most tigers in the ring at one time,” Maldonado wrote in a statement from prison. “Some of his cats were crazy in the head, but it was about having the most performing at one time at all costs.”

Easley acquired some of his tigers from Maldonado, who was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for hire and 17 counts of violating federal conservation laws in 2019. Maldonado, who remains incarcerated in a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, tried in 2017 to hire two men to kill Big Cat Rescue’s Carole Baskin, an activist with whom he had a years-long feud. One of the men Maldonado tried to hire was an FBI informant.

Maldonado is serving a 21-year federal prison sentence. Mugshot credit: Santa Rosa County Jail

PETA has accused Easley of mistreating, neglecting and abusing the tigers at his facility. Tigers are apex predators and hyper-carnivores who do not recognize social hierarchy or have any innate compulsion to follow orders from humans, so “taming” them and getting them to “perform” involves coercion, including physical punishment, withholding food and torture. The brutal mistreatment required to force elephants, lions, tigers and other animals to perform is one reason why traditional animal circuses no longer exist in the west.

Maldonado admitted as much in his statement, noting “you don’t get a tiger to jump through a hoop of fire because they love you.”

“It’s never safe for humans to interact directly with apex predators, and it’s never a surprise when a human is attacked by a stressed big cat who has been caged, whipped, and denied everything natural and important to them,” PETA’s Debbie Metzler wrote in a statement.

Former big cat handler and caretaker Katherine Lee Guard, who is now an activist against keeping big cats as pets and using them in the entertainment industry, spoke to PITB about her experiences in 2023. She noted tigers can turn on their handlers at any time, even if the latter hand-reared the felids since infancy. Once their predatory instincts are triggered, the apex predators feel a powerful compulsion to attack.

Even in accredited zoos where tigers are provided with large enclosures designed for their well-being, given plenty of enrichment and stimulation, and fed well, Guard said people should never enter an area without barriers between themselves and the big cats.

“The cost is too great if something goes wrong,” she said. “And something always goes wrong given enough time.”

Header image of a Sumatran tiger via Pexels. Do you enjoy reading PITB? Please consider whitelisting us on your ad blocker so we can keep the lights on. Thanks!

Buddy’s Cat Café Celebrates 2 Years Of Offering Customers The Chance To Lavish Affection And Treats On Buddy

Buddy’s Cat Café and Catnip Lounge has become a neighborhood fixture where feline lovers can enjoy their favorite caffeinated beverages while lavishing snacks and catnip on Buddy himself.

NEW YORK — When Buddy’s Cat Café and Catnip Lounge first opened its doors in late 2023, skeptics were quick to predict its demise.

“A cat cafe featuring only one cat sounds more like the selfish plot of the proprietor feline and less like a legitimate cat cafe experience,” the New York Times sniffed, while the New York Post derided the venture as “one chubby cat’s ludicrous scheme to gorge on endless snacks and catnip while customers line up to shower him with affection.”

Two years later, with a 4.8 out of 5 rating on Google and hundreds of regulars, Buddy’s Cat Café has not only been a success, it’s inspired other felines to open their own single-cat locations.

Mrs. Nakamura watches her students interact with Buddy, affectionately known to them as Badi-chan.

Mrs. Tomoko Nakamura, a teacher at the Japanese Academy of Manhattan, has been taking her class to Buddy’s since the cafe opened.

“Badi-chan very handsome and charming,” Mrs. Nakamura said, smiling as her students giggled and offered an array of crunchy treats to the lounging feline. “All my students love him!”

Sisters Dierdre and Stephanie Sullivan are regulars who say they take their kids to Buddy’s almost weekly.

“Madisyn, Skyelarr and Jaxon just love little Buddy,” Stephanie Sullivan said, calling other cat cafes “a tragedeigh in comparison.”

Buddy and friends during a Tabletop Tuesdays gathering at Buddy’s Cat Café and Catnip Lounge.

Since its opening, Buddy’s has featured an array of themed nights that cater to regulars with shared interests.

On Saturdays a lively crowd of people wearing perms, neon clothes and big shoulder pads flock to the cafe for Retro 80s Night. Sunday crowds gather to watch football with Buddy on the big screen TV, and Tabletop Tuesdays cater to miniature wargamers, with Buddy and his regulars continuing long-running campaigns in Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer 40K.

One of the most popular themed nights is Freestyle Fridays, when local rappers and hip hop heads gather to spit bars, smoke blunts and collaborate on beats.

DJ Rashid, center, jubilantly hoists Buddy while the others cheer on a recent Freestyle Friday at Buddy’s Cat Cafe.

Buddy after indulging in too much catnip on Freestyle Friday.

Da Ill Collektah, a local underground emcee, rolls catnip blunts for the tabby proprietor so he can fully participate in the levity.

“Oh, that’s good ish!” Buddy said on a recent Friday as he exhaled a nimbus cloud of ‘nip smoke to cheers from the assembled hip hop heads.

“Watch out!” beatsmith Biggity Biggity Bryce exclaimed. “Buddy gonna bless us with a fiyah freestyle!”

Lysander The Lyrical Destroyer, a Brooklyn emcee and longtime “associate” of Buddy, said no other cat cafe could hope to compete.

“Buddy’s cafe got the freshest jams, the livest atmosphere, and the bang bang boogie don’t stop the boogie,” he noted. “But most of all, it’s got Buddy.”

Meowscular Monday: A New Cat Mayor Wins Office In Somerville, Mass.!

Minerva, a long haired black feline, won on the mysteriously laconic slogan, “CRIME.”

Happy Meowscular Monday! As Little Buddy the Cat says, Monday’s a good day to get ripped with intense exercises like slapping treats out of puzzle feeders and moving from one nap spot to another.

In news from the feline world, a cat named Minerva has been elected mayor of a popular bike path in Somerville, Mass.

The election started as a joke but the idea caught on, the media noticed, and soon people around the world were reading about the race between about 50 pets.

Most candidates were cats, but a few neighbors entered dogs, a parrot and a guinea pig.

Minerva ran on one word: “CRIME”

Minerva’s minimalist campaign posters. Credit:Furrend/X

It’s not clear if the new feline mayor was promising to end it, address it or solicit more of it, but the slogan resonated with voters and Minerva surged ahead of the pack, defeating incumbent mayor Berry the cat and original challenger Orange Cat.

People who live in the area said the election helped make the neighborhood friendlier, fostering connections between humans and pets. We can’t wait to see what Minerva does with crime.