Let the Birds Die or Kill the Cat? (2 Viewers)

Let the Birds Die or Kill the Cat?

  • Spare the furball

    Votes: 46 69.7%
  • Save the songbirds, kill the furball

    Votes: 20 30.3%

  • Total voters
    66

Mojo1312

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Three years ago last fall, I hung out four birdfeeders around the lilac bush in the front yard. I maintain the birdfeeders year round. For the first two years, I killed both gray and red squirrels to prevent them from getting into the feeders. A number of incident's lead me to humanize the squirrels, particularly red squirrels. I began throwing out ground seed for the squirrels and ground-feeding songbirds last summer and made friends with a pair of chipmunks. One had the cute habit of running out from the lilac bush and stepping on my shoe when I would scatter birdseed on the ground. The daring chipmunk would even let me pat him. (I never tried to pick him or her up.)

Two years ago, I began mixing my own birdseed, which I do every three to four weeks. Red cardinals, purple and golden finches, titmice, black capped chickadees, blue jays, song sparrows and woodpeckers, which believe it or not, will sit in the platform birdfeeder and peck away at the sunflower hearts without a care in the world, are regular residents.

I live on top of a long slopping hill. The lilac bush is 50 yards from the road. The neighbor across the road has a new cat that is a killing multiple song birds every week. He is a merciless killing machine. The chipmunks that made an appearance earlier this month have disappeared. The male owner of the black cat lives alone.

I don't want to play my hand by talking to the neighbor for the simple reason that if he chooses to ignore my concerns, I will be suspect #1 when his cat doesn't return home after his hunting safari.
 
Spare the furball. Cats are one of nature's top killing machines. Hard to fault your neighbor's cat for doing what it was born to do.

Now, as for the owner of the furball, that's a different story. He's cutting down the cat's lifespan a few years. Outdoor cats have other things to worry about, like worrying about unfriendly humans, getting hit by a car and even a hungry bird of prey, such as an owl swooping down for a meal.
 
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Leave cucumbers around the side of your property that faces your neighbor’s property (since that’s presumably how the cat would get onto yours)

cats are scared sh!tless of cucumbers
Second on the cucumber patch.
 
This is a joke, right? You're not really considering killing someone else's cat, right?

...

Right?

No joke, although I am open to alternatives. Cats kill for sport. There is no sense in baiting song birds for the cat. The best thing I can do if I want to be humane is to pack the bird feeders away.

Animal Planet was my niece's favorite channel growing up. We volunteered to work at the local Humane Society in 2009. They euthanized thousands of cats every year. Cat owners don't realize the harm they are doing by not neutering or spaying their cats. The experience proved to be a wake up call for my niece.

Both of my next door neighbors have a dog, one a west highland terrier, the other a dingo looking dog. Neither neighbor lets their dogs have free reign. I resent the fact that I am put in a spot where a domestic pet that is a highly efficient predator takes precedence over the wildlife I have enjoyed caring for, listening to, and watching.

Losing a red cardinal to the cat would definitely upset me.
 
I tend to be in the camp of leave nature be. That means I’d probably not feed birds to begin with. Cats do kill a lot of birds and that’s unfortunate, but in my area the cats have more or less be taken out by coyotes. Circle of life and what not.

while I would have sympathy for humanely trapping a feral cat and taking it to the humane society or similar, I cannot support harming someone’s pet. I like the cucumber idea.
 
Sounds like you created at arena for the cat to visit to sate its desire for hunting.......its a catch 22 really. The feeders you put up drew the birds and now drew the cat...

Perhaps take down the feeders? but then everything will leave......

Or let nature carry on and the cat will be eaten by a coyote
 
I don’t like the idea of killing anything. I know someone who has successfully used motion-sensor sprinklers to keep deer and others out of gardens. Might work for your cat problem!
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Another thought here. My area has a bunny problem. It isn't really a problem seeing as how they are cute and they don't hurt anything, but they are out there. A neighbor got a cat and that cat was killing the bunnies. The rest of us responded by getting a dog. No more dead bunnys. Hell my dog sniffs the bunnys and walks away, but is not nice with that cat. Get a dog.
 
Was going to stay away from this one but.. @FordPickup92 and I maintain 14 bird feeders at our home in the woods year round. We absolutely love the birds always have, but we have squirrel problems like most others do and our 22 cal rifle lives next to the front door ready to go! We killed about 30 last year and the ones that the dog doesn't have to finish off we do eat. I was raised to eat what you kill and it is strongly engrained in me. Now when the dog finishes them off it is not a pretty picture he is an 80 Pit Bull killing machine.

All of this is beside the point but it seems slightly hypocritical of me to comment when the squirrels are not killing the birds, just eating our expensive bird food! But again we eat what we can of them.

There is no way I would ever consider killing someone's pet! The moment I noticed the problem I would have been at their door telling them to do something about it and that their pet is not welcome on your property and if it continues their pet will be captured and taken to the pound! the next time I would call the humane society and open a case against them. The third day the cage is coming out and the cat is going to the pound, again telling them who's cat it is and their address, again escalating the case. There has to be something you can do legally atthis point but what do I know!

The redneck second chance would be It happened again I would buy a 5 pound bucket of Tannerite (if legal in your area) place it next to the bird feeder with a sign pointing at that neighbors home saying "explosive cat nip! Keep away!" The next time you see that cat there... shoot that bucket, patch the 3 ft deep hole in the yard, buy a new Bush and a new bird feeder and go back to drinking coffee! Lol
 
No joke, although I am open to alternatives. Cats kill for sport. There is no sense in baiting song birds for the cat. The best thing I can do if I want to be humane is to pack the bird feeders away.

Animal Planet was my niece's favorite channel growing up. We volunteered to work at the local Humane Society in 2009. They euthanized thousands of cats every year. Cat owners don't realize the harm they are doing by not neutering or spaying their cats. The experience proved to be a wake up call for my niece.

Both of my next door neighbors have a dog, one a west highland terrier, the other a dingo looking dog. Neither neighbor lets their dogs have free reign. I resent the fact that I am put in a spot where a domestic pet that is a highly efficient predator takes precedence over the wildlife I have enjoyed caring for, listening to, and watching.

Losing a red cardinal to the cat would definitely upset me.

I get that it upsets you, but that still doesn't give you the right, morally or legally, to kill someone else's pet.

I'm with you when it comes to neutering/spaying cats, I've been a cat owner in the past and that's generally the first thing our family did when welcoming a pet into our home.

You picturing the cat as a highly efficient predator is very one-sided, and yes, from a bird's POV they are, but from where I'm sitting you're the one who's lining up targets and then complaining he takes them down.

Again: this is someone's pet. You mentioned this person lives alone, well maybe you're very lightheartedly contemplating shooting the one friend he has in his house. The fact that you don't want to confront the owner about this whole thing makes me think you're already 90% sold on shooting someone else's pet because you like luring wild songbirds to your garden... Go talk to him. Look for a solution. Don't shoot other people's pets because you like the pretty birds in your garden.
 
Was going to stay away from this one but.. @FordPickup92 and I maintain 14 bird feeders at our home in the woods year round. We absolutely love the birds always have, but we have squirrel problems like most others do and our 22 cal rifle lives next to the front door ready to go! We killed about 30 last year and the ones that the dog doesn't have to finish off we do eat. I was raised to eat what you kill and it is strongly engrained in me. Now when the dog finishes them off it is not a pretty picture he is an 80 Pit Bull killing machine.

All of this is beside the point but it seems slightly hypocritical of me to comment when the squirrels are not killing the birds, just eating our expensive bird food! But again we eat what we can of them.

There is no way I would ever consider killing someone's pet! The moment I noticed the problem I would have been at their door telling them to do something about it and that their pet is not welcome on your property and if it continues their pet will be captured and taken to the pound! the next time I would call the humane society and open a case against them. The third day the cage is coming out and the cat is going to the pound, again telling them who's cat it is and their address, again escalating the case. There has to be something you can do legally atthis point but what do I know!

The redneck second chance would be It happened again I would buy a 5 pound bucket of Tannerite (if legal in your area) place it next to the bird feeder with a sign pointing at that neighbors home saying "explosive cat nip! Keep away!" The next time you see that cat there... shoot that bucket, patch the 3 ft deep hole in the yard, buy a new Bush and a new bird feeder and go back to drinking coffee! Lol
 
Was going to stay away from this one but.. @FordPickup92 and I maintain 14 bird feeders at our home in the woods year round. We absolutely love the birds always have, but we have squirrel problems like most others do and our 22 cal rifle lives next to the front door ready to go! We killed about 30 last year and the ones that the dog doesn't have to finish off we do eat. I was raised to eat what you kill and it is strongly engrained in me. Now when the dog finishes them off it is not a pretty picture he is an 80 Pit Bull killing machine.

All of this is beside the point but it seems slightly hypocritical of me to comment when the squirrels are not killing the birds, just eating our expensive bird food! But again we eat what we can of them.

There is no way I would ever consider killing someone's pet! The moment I noticed the problem I would have been at their door telling them to do something about it and that their pet is not welcome on your property and if it continues their pet will be captured and taken to the pound! the next time I would call the humane society and open a case against them. The third day the cage is coming out and the cat is going to the pound, again telling them who's cat it is and their address, again escalating the case. There has to be something you can do legally atthis point but what do I know!

The redneck second chance would be It happened again I would buy a 5 pound bucket of Tannerite (if legal in your area) place it next to the bird feeder with a sign pointing at that neighbors home saying "explosive cat nip! Keep away!" The next time you see that cat there... shoot that bucket, patch the 3 ft deep hole in the yard, buy a new Bush and a new bird feeder and go back to drinking coffee! Lol

What I'm getting from this is that he should eat the cat :p
 
I get that. But your first reaction would be to go and have a chat with the owner, right?
I’m not sure.
Listen, I’m no killer. But if I were in this situation, killing that cat would be on my list of options. And as pointed out earlier, if I killed that cat after a chat, I’d be the prime suspect.
And seriously, what is the owner going to do? All he really can do is either nothing, or lock the cat indoors. And I doubt an outdoor cat owner is going to lock his outdoor cat indoors. So no, as long as killing is an option, I’m not chatting.
But I think Ben’s response has been the best, and after careful consideration, I would do everything Ben said. Except eating the cat.
 
When I was really young, my parents had a pet cat. My neighbor hated the cat because it would scare all the birds away from his yard. I happened to be around one day when he confronted my father demanding that he keep his cat out of the neighbor's yard. My father basically said something like "how am I supposed to tell the cat to not go into your specific yard?" My neighbor was not impressed with his response.

A while after that (I can't be sure of how long but I think it was months), our cat went missing and my sister and I were very upset. She was not an old cat yet, so we thought that perhaps she had gotten hit by a car or something. After about a week of grief, the cat arrived at our back door starving and bleeding from a big cut across its back. We took it to the animal hospital and it managed to survive. I am convinced that my neighbor caught it in a cage and drove it off somewhere to leave it (I know he had a cage that he built himself to catch a skunk in his yard previously).

I don't know where I'm going with this. Just sharing the experience I guess.
 
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From my point of view, the cat is crossing the road and traversing 50 yards to the lilac bush that is in front of my home and killing the birds and possibly the chipmunks that are a part of my little sanctuary.

I spent three hours pruning the lilac bush and removing the pear tree saplings and dead leaves yesterday and discovered the feathers of two dead birds. That is number five and six in the last two weeks. Murdering the cat wouldn't cross my mind if children were involved, and if not for the number of birds he/she is killing.

I agree the best and right thing to do is to address the neighbor and ask that he puts a bell collar on the cat.
 

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