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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Her live line at rte.ie, the email address. I'm not sure if people saw this over the weekend, but an article from Ella McSweeney appeared in the Irish Times and it came with this headline. This killer pet has driven 73 species to extinction and roams free in Ireland. She is talking about the humble cat. She talks about domestic cats killing cats.
billions of birds and mammals annually, about contributing to dozens of extinctions globally, about them carrying parasites and diseases and about the devastating impact they have on biodiversity and animal life and animal destruction in this country. Jim Wilson is on the line. Jim, you are one of the founding members of Harper's Island Wetlands.
And Harper's Island Wetlands, it was the focus of a lot of this article because Ella McSweeney describes a little furry pet cat with a pink collar appearing to much dismay when these birds had migrated thousands of kilometres from Africa to reach this habitat.
Chapter 2: What alarming impact do domestic cats have on wildlife?
Talk to me a little bit about... the problem that pet cats raise for you guys?
Yeah, Ciarán, nice to talk to you. Yeah, the Nature Reserve Harpers Island Wetlands has been in existence since 2017. And a housing estate went up across the road from the entrance some time ago. And since then, we've been noticing not many, two or three cats
hunting or roaming on the nature reserve and it's not the first time we've had a cat take an interest in the nesting burrows that we have set up for these long distance migrants as you rightly pointed out and this time Alex Olinchik who's a regular visitor was there enjoying the sand martins and watching them come and go and next thing this cat appears
and was able to leap and jump up and stick its head into a number of the burrows. And it does explain some phenomenon that we've been experiencing, especially this season. This is the bottom row of three rows of nesting burrows. And we've noticed burrows being abandoned, you know, with eggs in them and things like that, which we didn't notice so much in previous years.
And we now feel that it is probable that this cat or other cats were actually creating such a disturbance and when the birds are just starting to settle down, that's the time they're more likely to abandon this whole affair because it's not worth it. It's better to live till next year and have another family rather than risk being killed and that was the case. So, So that's where that came from.
And Ella obviously must have seen it. We have a number of WhatsApp groups and social media presence as well. And that's where that came from. And we couldn't believe it. So we've tried to put in a system to exclude the cats from doing this again. But I'm sure the owners are totally unaware, probably, of that.
what their precious cat, which has a collar and a bell on it, is doing when it's not at home. This is a perfect example of that. And the thing is, that cat will not eat anything it catches. It'll either bring it to the owner, and we kind of say that it's giving it a present, the owner showing how good it is. But in this case, it's just following its ingrained instinct to hunt.
And not all cats hunt. Some of them, we've had cats when I was growing up, always growing up, we had cats that wouldn't lift an eyebrow to a bird or even a fly or anything that was passing by. And then we'd have another one and it would kill, you know, it would kill birds left, right and centre and we had to give it away to someone because it was just unbelievable the number of birds.
Jim, is that the nature of each individual cat? It's a character thing or is it a breed?
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Chapter 3: How do pet cats affect bird populations in nature reserves?
You know, we often hear, but this is nature. This is what nature is. That's true, but not in Ireland because we never had cats and they're not part of our wildlife, if you know what I mean. They are introduced by human beings. And as Ella rightly pointed out, they have led to the extinction of birds.
Like the classic ones are lighthouse keepers on small remote islands where birds, slightest birds, with only a few of them left, and they bring in a cat or two, maybe to keep down the mice or whatever, and the cats ignore the mice and kill off the birds and render them extinct forever. So, you know, there is that. And, I mean, I love cats. I actually love cats.
Believe it or not, I actually judged cat shows twice. I actually was asked what I judged them, and I did, and there were some stunning cats. But I use it to kind of raise the idea that maybe you need to control and look after your cat a bit more to avoid killing all these pets.
And I've been at the end of trying to rehabilitate or look after maimed birds that have been brought to me for nearly 50 years. I was called the bird man here in Cove. And I would be brought the results of the maiming. You know, it's not just killing. They mean a lot more than they kill. And they also, you know, they also frighten birds.
If birds are nesting and a cat is roaming through their territory, they go berserk. You'll hear them. And so they do cause a lot of problems for our wildlife population.
there is no doubt about that scientifically proved over and over and over again but there are ways we can sort of have both Yeah because Ella in her article talks about that about having both about the system we have for dogs that once upon a time anybody could have a dog and you could let it go wherever you want and now they're
They're microchipped and you have to have a license and they have a collar on them and it's much more restrictive. You're much less likely to bump into a dog just wandering the roads than you were, you know, when I was growing up even. And I'm still under that delusion that that wasn't that long ago, but... Cats, it's harder to do that though, isn't it?
She's suggesting the same with cats, but I think of my own dog. I mean, all you need is a boundary around the house to keep it in. You'd want a roof on your back garden to keep a cat in.
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Chapter 4: What challenges do nature reserves face with roaming cats?
You would. I mean, this is the problem with these incredible machines. They're incredible animals. The heights they can jump, the walls they can scale, all that, you know. And you never own a cat, as we all say. The cat owns you. You know, that's just the way it works. But like, you know, there are lots of things that could be done.
I mean, to be honest, like in America, where there's a lot of predators around like coyotes that could eat your cat, keeping them indoor is very popular. I'm uncomfortable with that for any animal, domestic or wild. But, you know, there are things like keep them in you know, up until 11 a.m. in the morning. Don't leave them out overnight. Don't leave them out at dawn.
Don't leave them out at dusk. Because that's when wildlife is at its busiest, trying to survive. And that's when the last thing they need is a cat. I mean, we have a garden here. We've developed it for wildlife over the years. There's at least two or three cats that come through. They've killed frogs, shrews, birds. All that sort of thing.
And it's hugely frustrating for me to have somebody else's moggy wander wherever they like and there's no responsibility for the owner. And most owners are responsible. I must stress that. I'm not a fanatic. I'm not saying we need to kill all the cats or we need to get rid of them. Not at all.
But we need people to be responsible for their pets and realise what damage they can do in other people's gardens and in the wild.
Let me bring in Niall Hatch from Birdwatch Ireland. Niall, I doubt you were a fanatic either. People were accusing me of fanaticism because I was on the Oliver Callan show earlier and I suggested a cat cull. I was joking about a cat cull. I just want to be clear about that.
But in terms of practical solutions, that acknowledges that cats are beloved pets to people up and down this country, people listening to this show, but they do damage, and the damage Ella outlined and the damage Jim outlined. So what practically can we do?
Well, it's a very important issue, and thank you for discussing it on the programme. Just yet, to back up what you're saying, I'm certainly not a fanatic. I like cats very much myself. I think that they're very... noble and beautiful creatures and I do enjoy watching them.
I don't have pet cats myself but they're a creature that I greatly respect and I definitely understand why so many people hold them in such great affection. However, we have a situation in Ireland where our nature is incredibly depleted.
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Chapter 5: How can cat owners minimize their pets' impact on wildlife?
So we're talking a significant number. That's clear. Yeah. We know from our partner organization in the UK, an organization called the RSPB, they've done some pretty, pretty good research on this. And they know that in, um, In Britain, they reckon that around 400 million birds are killed by cats every year.
So if you extrapolate that to Ireland, obviously we have a lower human population here, which is obviously a lower population of pet cats, we still would be talking about tens of millions of birds killed by cats here in Ireland. That's not counting things like the shrews and the frogs and the other creatures that Jim was talking about.
Let me bring in Catriona Lowry from Hilltop Sanctuary. Catriona, do you agree that maybe... an education programme around the more suitable times of the day to let cats out, to keep a closer eye on where they roam and when they're roaming, that that's maybe a compromise here?
Yeah, firstly, I have to say it's so lovely to hear those two gentlemen speaking. It's informed, it's gentle, it's empathetic to the wildlife and to the cats. and acknowledging their instinct and their instinct is to anything that's flying is to go after it. And secondly, I want to acknowledge a group of people that we often don't recognize. There are cat rescues out there.
There's individuals taking on a lot of trapping and neutering of cats. Every cat... you neuter, you are preventing 180 kittens coming from that one cat. Because when you think of them reproducing a litter after litter and they going on to have more kittens. So I suppose, Karen, it's a group of people we often don't hear highlighted enough.
And it's really connected to this subject that the people who late at night, including myself, that sit by traps, waiting for a feral cat to go in to neuter them. So to prevent, the more cats we neuter, the more wildlife we are saving. And that is key. And when you say, is it about education? Totally.
But there's a mindset out there that is so rigid that, like, I know my friend, she has a cat sanctuary on Cottove. She has told people, they will bring the kittens to her. But she says, bring me your cat. I will neuter your cat. And they won't. So you have to wonder what's going on with that mindset. They don't have to pay for it.
There's lots of neutering schemes out there where you only pay a few euros. So we have to look at that mindset.
And Katrina, sorry, why do you think it is? Do people, do they worry that the cat will just become lazy and fat or something if it's neutered?
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Chapter 6: What responsibilities do pet owners have for their cats?
lots of vets will allow you paid off. Some won't, but there's lots of rescues that will help you pay to neuter a cat that you're feeding.
Yeah, so we definitely could be neutering an awful lot more cats every year. Katrina, you stay on the line. I want to bring in Carmel Collins who's listening as well. Carmel, are you a cat owner?
Yes, I am, Ciarán, yes. I have two cats.
Okay. And when you read Ella McSweeney's article, did you recognise your cats in them?
I will be more careful in future and not let them out at night time, I think. They're in during the day and they're, you know, I was just telling your researcher this morning that she ran off with my Fitbit because she was down in the bedroom with me. And I found it eventually that And last year, she ran off with my husband's hearing aid. No way. Sorry.
How many steps did she do? Did you check?
I have a house trawled looking for the Fitbit, but I eventually found it rolled up in the bedclothes. We've always had cats, and because we had a problem with rodents last November, so our other cat was put asleep. So, yeah. we had to get cats again because we had rats that got into our garage.
Okay, that's actually another point because I know lots of farmers as well would like a cat or two roaming around the yard. Yeah, to keep rats out, yeah.
Yeah, they're mostly inside at night time, so...
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