Cat club president backs calls to keep all felines in at night

Paul Tomlinson says as well as the Island’s wildlife he is also concerned about cats’ safety when they are allowed to roam freely.

He spoke out after ornithologist Mike Stentiford encouraged cat owners to play their part in protecting under-threat wildlife as, he said, cats are known to hunt a variety of species including rabbits and slowworms.

  • A new study from the government of Canada has found that domestic cats, both feral and owned, are the leading lethal threat to birds in the country, killing an estimated 200 million birds a year.
  • The Australian government intends to cull two million feral cats by 2020 and to create ten cat-free safe havens for species most at risk.
  • The domestic cat was introduced by settlers and the feral population alone today stands at about 15 million, threatening the survival of more than 100 native species and having contributed to the extinction of a further 27 mammals species.
  • The RSPB estimates that in the UK, domestic and feral cats catch up to 275 million prey a year, of which 55 million are birds.
  • The most frequently caught birds, according to the Mammal Society, are probably house sparrows, blue tits, blackbirds and starlings.
  • Despite this, there is no scientific evidence that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK-wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally every year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation. There is evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds.

Mr Tomlinson, who breeds pedigree Persian cats and enters them in cat shows, said: ‘I personally think that all cats should be kept in at night, as that is when they are most at risk themselves.

‘They can get knocked down by cars when they are running about at night.’

Mr Tomlinson owns 18 Persians, which he keeps indoors or – in the case of his stud tom cats – in special cat pens, but they are exercised outside.

He says he likes the breed because they are home-loving, enjoy human contact and are not prone to hunting.

However, when he has previously owned outdoor cats, Mr Tomlinson said he has never left them out overnight and he is also against leaving cats to their own devices during the day.

‘In my opinion, cat flaps are a bad invention, as they give cats far too much freedom.

‘If you have got one, the cats can come and go – then you don’t know what they are doing,’ he said.

The Jersey Cat Action Trust, which rescues about 200 feral cats each year, also advises people who take its rescue cats to try to keep their new pet inside overnight, mainly for safety reasons because this is the time that they are most likely to be hit by cars.

The trust, which neuters the cats before rehoming them, also prefers to rehome cats away from important ecological areas such as the sand dunes.

Jean Falk, the trust’s chairman, said: ‘It is very difficult trying to tell people what to do – and people don’t like being told what to do – so we can only give advice.’

‘As a cat rescuer, what annoys me is, yes, there’s a problem with feral cats but it’s the fault of humans not the cats, as people have not had their cats neutered.’

Ornithologist Mike Stentiford last week encouraged cat owners to keep their pets indoors to protect wildlifeThe results of a recent JEP poll

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