The number of birds that outdoor cats kill per year has been estimated to be between 1.3 and 4 billion. That’s a wide range, but even on the lower end, 1.3 billion is a problem. These numbers only represent birds (not reptiles or small mammals), which make up 20 percent of feral cats’ prey.

People are the solution to the feral cat problem in our nation, but people are also part of the problem. A feral cat simply does not apparate in the wilderness, it is put there, sometimes intentionally. For example, an indoor cat is a protected companion animal that is, for the most part, supervised and supported. A free-ranging, or outdoor, cat is exposed, unsupervised, and unprotected. The free-ranging cats that escape domestication are not wild like bobcats or ocelots, they are feral and invasive. Invasive species are described as a non-native organism that causes ecological harm to an ecosystem, including extinction of species, competition with species, and altering habitats. Feral cats are the poster-species of this description. For additional reference, another species that fits this definition is the Burmese Python populations which plague the Florida Everglades. Neither have a place on our natural landscape.