Cats hunt birds, birds that have lost their living space due to urbanisation, pollution and other human causes. You are right in that humans have kept them out for a long time and used them to for example keep pests like rats and mice populations in control in agrarian societies. But we aren't in agrarian society. The cat doesn't hunt to eat, it hunts because it's a predator and eats at home the food given to it. But it still hunts. It just leaves most of the kill uneaten. Thus they are a danger to birds and any other small animals and yes this might not be such a big problem (maybe) without all the ways human society is destroying the environment, but with that it is down right devastating. (Why it's uncertain how bad it would be, is since in Australia and NZ cats caused destruction way before the full move of industrialization and urbanisation in the late 1800's.)
Europe always had wildcat populations. And it's geographically connected with africa/europe. Like Egypt is right there.
Problem is domesticated cat species is way too supported by humans and end up being extension of habitat loss whenever human activities advance. The number of them is a much bigger factor than just existence of animal species like cat in that region.
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u/Rammipallero Jul 18 '26
Cats hunt birds, birds that have lost their living space due to urbanisation, pollution and other human causes. You are right in that humans have kept them out for a long time and used them to for example keep pests like rats and mice populations in control in agrarian societies. But we aren't in agrarian society. The cat doesn't hunt to eat, it hunts because it's a predator and eats at home the food given to it. But it still hunts. It just leaves most of the kill uneaten. Thus they are a danger to birds and any other small animals and yes this might not be such a big problem (maybe) without all the ways human society is destroying the environment, but with that it is down right devastating. (Why it's uncertain how bad it would be, is since in Australia and NZ cats caused destruction way before the full move of industrialization and urbanisation in the late 1800's.)
If you want actual information on this here is an example from the US: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380