I love cats and keep them. After the job was stable last year, there were three more owners in the family, two were adopted and one was an adopted stray cat. Although the masters are sometimes noisy, every time they come home from work and open the door, they can be seen running for hugs, and the depression at work will be swept away.
I believe that cat lovers will feel sorry for the poor stray cats when they walk in the street, and most of them will be tempted to feed them. But I want to say that you are not only bad to them, but also may harm them.
In urban ecology, stray cats are at the top of the food chain. They are natural predators and have high hunting skills. They will prey on small mammals, birds and other animals weighing less than 3 kg. In addition, because of their quick action, they are more comfortable with animal cubs and bird eggs.
Studies have shown that the predation efficiency of cats is much higher than that of lions and tigers, and the predation desire of cats is a kind of nature and will not fade because of sufficient food. Their predation is more of a recreational activity, resulting in more animals dying from cat predation than from vehicle crushing poisoning every year.
According to a statistic of American Bird Association, cats are the "second killer" of birds, and the death degree is second only to "habitat destruction". In 20 13, a paper in the American journal Nature Communication mentioned that14-3.7 billion birds and 6.92-2.07 billion mammals were killed by cat claws every year in the United States.
For a long time, Australia's ultra-high extinction rate has been a mystery. Since human records, species extinction is basically due to human overfishing or the destruction of the living environment. But Australia is vast and sparsely populated, and most parts of the desert inland are uninhabited. So by global standards, it should be a paradise for wild animals.
To this end, Australian scientists formed a research team to trace the fate of Australian land and marine mammals after the first batch of Europeans settled in Australia in 1788, and found out the basic situation and reasons of species extinction in Australia.
Scientists found that after Europeans settled in Australia, 1 1% of the 273 terrestrial mammals endemic to Australia became extinct, and the survival of 2 1% was threatened. Comparatively speaking, only one endemic species in North America became extinct after European colonization. This animal is called sea mink, and its extinction is due to overfishing. In the same period, only 1.5% of the 5,500 mammals in the world became extinct.
It is found that the decline of many species in Australia is closely related to the introduction of two new species: wild cats (brought by sailors from ships to control pests such as mice on board) and red foxes (hunting). The results also show that while wild cats and red foxes breed and spread efficiently, they also overkill local small animals because of their survival needs.
According to relevant statistics, there are about 5.6 million wild cats in Australia, with an average of only one wild cat per kilometer of land. They can kill 7.5 million small animals every day. So far, at least 20 species of Australian mammals have become extinct because of the predation of cats.
20 15 in order to protect native creatures, the Australian government put foxes, mice, rabbits and wild cats on the "control" list. At the same time, it announced plans to eliminate about 2 million wild cats by 2020 to prevent more mammals from becoming extinct.
"Our wild animals have one of the highest extinction rates in the world. In the past 200 years, we have lost 29 species of mammals endemic to Australia. This represents the extinction of 35% of modern mammals in the world, which is the highest extinction rate of mammals in the world. " An Australian official said.
It can be said that stray cats are not only cute and pitiful in appearance, but also top predators. If the number is not controlled, it will be devastating to the local ecology and small animals.
In urban ecology, after people put food at a fixed point for a long time, they will attract stray cats around them to gather at the feeding point for a long time, and stray cats who have no worries about food and clothing will begin to breed in large numbers.
Stray cats can reach sexual maturity in seven months and have the ability to reproduce. Cats can estrus all year round. According to the calculation data of many scholars from Tennessee State University and University of California, Davis, an adult and unsterilized "cat couple" and their offspring can have 420,000 babies in seven years.
The strong reproductive ability of stray cats can easily lead to the uncontrollable number of stray cats, so many countries and regions can only introduce relevant laws and regulations to control the number of stray cats.
20 17 10 13 California passed a new state bill, stipulating that pets sold in pet shops must be obtained from shelters or charities, otherwise each pet will be fined 500 dollars (about 3,200 yuan).
At the beginning of last century, Japan promulgated the Law on Animal Care and Management, which was amended by 1999. In its basic principles, the law clearly defines the purpose of making laws: "All people should realize that animals are alive, and not only hope not to be abused wantonly, but also devote themselves to the environment in which people and animals were born in Yu Jiancheng, and take appropriate measures to treat animals on the basis of fully understanding their habits." According to the penalty clause, whoever kills animals indiscriminately or injures animals at will shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than 1 year, and those who maltreat or abandon animals shall be fined 1 10,000 yen and 300,000 yen.
Even so, countless stray cats are killed every year because of their large number.
In the United States, 3.2 million stray cats are sent to animal rescue agencies every year, and the recruitment period of these stray cats in rescue agencies will be 1 ~ 2 weeks. However, because the adult cat "The Wild Inside" is not popular, only 30% lucky cats are adopted, and the rest can only be euthanized. Even so, the number of animals taken in by animal rescue agencies is still increasing. More often, rescue agencies can only overload and turn around.
Limited by the limited space in the reception center, many stray cats can only be squeezed into a cage, where it is only dark and humid, and the surrounding air is filled with the smell of fear. Their fate is only to be adopted or euthanized two weeks later.
A veterinarian who euthanized stray cats said, "The real tragedy is not to euthanize them, but that we have no choice.
Later, under the impetus of some animal protection groups in the United States, a project called? TNR program gradually replaced euthanasia and became the mainstream method to control the number of stray animals in the United States.
TNR is also called trap neutral release, which means trap, neutrality and release.
The specific process is:
Trap//Capture: Count the number of cats at fixed points, and capture cats by food lure, cat cages and other safe methods.
Sterilize//Sterilize: Sterilize stray cats. After sterilization, a corner will be drawn at the tip of the ear to identify whether the stray cat is sterilized.
Release/release: return to the original growth environment, or find an adoption family for stray cats who are close to others.
The advantage of neutering stray cats is that the neutered stray cats can effectively inhibit the animals from producing a large number of creatures every year, and at the same time, the neutered stray cats will not be in estrus, effectively reducing the stray cats' desire to attack and reducing the behavior of attacking humans.
A study on the planning environment of TNR shows that the number of stray cats decreased by 30% in 10 years.
There are many researches on the validation of TNR, but many researchers are skeptical.
A study by a doctor in North Carolina pointed out that although? TNR？ Theoretically, it can reduce the number of stray cats, but in fact it is affected by the number of stray cats abroad.
TNR can effectively reduce the number of stray cats, provided that more than 50% of stray cats are sterilized and no foreign stray cats move in. According to a study published by the State University of New Mexico, at least 765,438+0% to 94% of cats must be sterilized without the influence of stray cats from abroad, in order to effectively reduce the number of stray cats. Other long-term studies have found that in some areas, the number of stray cats has not decreased after the implementation of TNR, but has increased because of the immigration of foreign stray cats.
So in 20 13, a new method to control the number of stray cats-TVHR became popular in the related fields of stray animal protection in the United States. TVHR is improved from TNR, that is, trap- vasectomy-hysterectomy-release (capture- vasectomy/hysterectomy-release).
The difference between TVHR and TNR is that TNR removes the reproductive organs (testicles and ovaries) of cats by surgery, while TVHR cuts off the vas deferens/fallopian tubes and keeps the testicles or ovaries, so stray cats undergoing TVHR surgery will be in estrus and keep mating behavior.
Stray cats have territory, because female cats in estrus will not mate with other male cats after mating, so the benefits of TVHR plan are that if male cats receiving TVHR mate with fertile female cats, female cats will ovulate successfully (unlike other mammals, female cats will only ovulate after mating stimulation), but they will not be pregnant with kittens. The female cat will experience a 45-day fake pregnancy and will not give birth to a kitten until the following spring.
20 13 Engineers from Tufts University Veterinary Union School in the United States compared three feasible methods to control the number of stray cats through data simulation, namely LC (euthanasia), TNR and TVHR.
The data model simulates the population control results of 200 cats (a community) in 6000 days by three methods respectively. The factors considered in the model include: the reproductive cycle of female cats, the survival time in the wild, the initial number of male cats and female cats of different ages and reproductive States, the influence of mating times of female cats on the success rate of ovulation, and the influence of castration on the life span of kittens. TVHR's method is to start intervention in 2000 days.
By counting the data of 20 simulations of each method, the results show that:
If the proportion of stray cats who accept the method of dealing with the number of stray cats every year is less than or equal to 19%, no matter which method, the number of stray cats can be effectively reduced; If the ratio is higher than or equal to 97%, all three methods are effective, among which LC is the most effective, followed by? TVHR, and finally TNR. But if stray cats accept the number of stray cats, what is the proportion? In the range of 19% to 97%, TVHR method is more effective than the other two methods.
What if there is one every year? 57% of stray cats accept it? Will the number of stray cats in TNR or LC decrease? 25%; Meanwhile, what if 35% of stray cats accept it? TVHR, then the number of stray cats will be reduced by 50%.
In the range of 35% to 57%, TVHR can completely make this stray cat community disappear within 4000 days; To achieve the same effect, using TNR or LC needs to deal with more than 82% stray cats.
On the whole, TVHR is the most effective in controlling the number of stray cats in the range of 10% to 90%.
As the top predator of urban ecology, the number of stray cats is very important to urban ecology. Coupled with its strong reproductive ability, if the number of stray cats is not controlled, it will not only bring devastating disasters to the urban ecology, but also seriously threaten the safety of local residents and attract urban managers to kill them.
I believe this is what most cat lovers don't want to see, which is why I said at the beginning that it is not recommended to feed stray cats, especially those who haven't been sterilized for a long time.
Of course, in addition to the natural reproduction of stray cats, there are other factors that lead to the increase in the number of stray cats: artificial subjective abandonment and careless care.
So, if you love cats, when you see a stray cat without sterilization (ears are not marked), please take it to a nearby rescue agency or contact a rescue agency, please don't feed it at will, and please take it for sterilization if you can.
When the Australian government announced the elimination of 2 million stray cats, Gregory Andrews, Commissioner of Endangered Species, said, "We killed stray cats not because we hate cats, but to protect endangered animals." "We have to make a choice. We want to protect marsupials, kangaroos and night parrots from stray cats. "
Please don't let this happen to us.