20
Wednesday, July 17, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
A way to protect
our birds
Are cats cuddly compan-
ions or fine-tuned killing
machines? They9re both, and
owners know that.
Cats that live in the wild
(or our indoor pets allowed
to roam outdoors) kill from
1.4 billion to as many as 3.7
billion birds in the conti-
nental U.S. each year. Their
owners respond with a shrug
of their shoulders 4 <Oh,
well, that9s nature.=
Yes, it is natural for cats
to kill things; that9s what cats
are designed by nature to do.
But it is not <natural= for
domestic cats to kill indig-
enous wildlife just because it
is there; that9s the influence
of Man and his feline pets on
the natural world.
At last birds and other
native wildlife roaming
around outside homes and
businesses can be safe from
domestic cats. The photo
of a BirdsBeSafe collar on
LETTERS
Continued from page 2
will start at 8:30 a.m. and get
out at 3:20 p.m.; our middle
school will start at 8:30 a.m.
and finish at 3:15 p.m.; and
our elementary school will
start at 8:35 a.m. and end at 3
p.m.
I want to thank our staff
for all of their hard work
supporting our students. As
we continue into next school
year, I look forward to build-
ing on the strong relationships
that make Sisters such a great
community.
June was the last meet-
ing for our out-going Board
Member Stephen King. I
would like to thank Stephen
for his service to the Sisters
School District 4 he will be
missed.
In this month9s meeting,
we welcomed Don Hedrick
back to the School Board.
Don has a long history of
working in and supporting
public education 4 welcome
aboard, Don. Additionally,
Jay Wilkins was voted in as
Sisters School Board Chair
during the July organizational
meeting.
I wish everyone a great
summer as we prepare for the
2019-2020 school year.
Curt Scholl,
Superintendent, SSD
a friend9s cat above may
make it look awkward for it
to get around in, but scien-
tific tests have demonstrated
cats are not harmed (though
they may be annoyed) when
wearing it. The device is 87
percent successful at keeping
cats from catching birds.
Can9t beat that with a
stick!
Dear Readers, cats kill-
ing birds and other native
wildlife has 4 for years and
years 4 been the bane of my
existence. Not only do the
incredible numbers of dead
birds and other native wild-
life bother me, but it is also
the business of domestic cats
bringing their victims into
the house that worries me to
no end.
A dear young girl who
died of the bubonic plague
many years ago lives in my
mind like a stick of dyna-
mite in our local kindergar-
ten. Her pet cat carried a
dead ground squirrel it had
caught into the home, and
a flea carrying the Black
Death deserted the squirrel
and jumped into the child9s
clothing where it eventually
bit her. She came down with
the plague and died.
I know the population of
Belding9s ground squirrels
is growing exponentially,
thanks to the expanding
irrigated hay farms in the
countryside. Farm and house
cats are catching and kill-
ing ground squirrels, and it9s
just a matter of time before
another cat brings another
ground squirrel into some-
one9s home and that abomi-
nable flea carrying the Black
Death jumps into someone9s
bed and infects a child or an
adult.
My worries about cats
carrying dead ground squir-
rels into someone9s home
may be less if, yes IF, the
ground squirrel reacts to that
colorful collar as birds do.
Here9s hoping&
But it is also the reaction
to birds being killed by feral
cats that now comes into
focus. The rules of engage-
ment with captured feral cats
are to spay and neuter them
and then release them back
into the wild. How about
if we go one step further
and how about fitting the
BirdsBeSafe collar on the cat
before releasing it?
Just think of the native
songbirds we9ll be saving.
A report in Nature
Communications estimates a
much higher figure than the
billions of annual bird deaths
previously attributed to cats.
The study also reports that
from 6.9 billion to as many
as 20.7 billion mammals
PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
Domestic house cat wearing the BirdsBeSafe cat collar, lit up by the
strobe.
4 mainly mice, shrews, rab-
bits and voles 4 are killed
by cats annually in the con-
tiguous 48 states.
The local cat-owner who
told me about this remark-
able device was pleased with
the results.
<No more dead birds at
my doorstep!= she exclaimed
and she heaped more praise
on the BirdsBeSafe col-
lar when she said, <My cat
doesn9t even know she9s
wearing it, and if the collar
gets tangled in the brush it9ll
just break away and the cat
comes home unharmed.=
You can get them at
www.birdsbesafe.com. If
our local Humane Society
decides to change the rules
on handling feral cats,
they can depend on me to
supply them a bunch of
BirdsBeSafe collars. Please,
for the sake of our wild birds,
join me.
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