Ban Feline's

[Austin236]

Regardless of your thoughts or feelings while reading this, please read it in its entirety. The conclusion may hold some surprises.

There is a call to action for the United States Fish & Wildlife Service along with the Department of the Interior to take action against a major wildlife threat looming across the country. Due to their threats against natural ecosystems, Domestic cats (Felis catus) need to be regulated or banned!
*An estimated 117 to 157 million exotic predators in the form of free-ranging domestic cats (Felis catus), are estimated to kill at least one billion birds every year in the United States. Cats have contributed to declines and extinctions of birds worldwide and are one of the most important drivers of global bird extinctions.

Every year, thousands of cats are abandoned, released, or escape into the wild, and many of these turn to their feral state and form feral colonies. These colonies pose a real and severe threat to wildlife and natural ecosystems everywhere. A single cat can easily kill hundreds of wild, native animals in a year. Multiply this by a colony of 20 cats, then again by the number of colonies in township, which can easily number over 20, and you can see just how widespread of a problem this is. Typical prey items for cats include songbirds, rodents, reptiles, amphibians, and insects. Their primary instinct and prey items are songbirds and small mammals. All songbirds except for 2 in the entire country are protected by federal law, and many of these are even endangered.

Cats are natural predators that have an amazing ability to adapt to a wide range of living circumstances and have the ability to establish colonies everywhere in the United States. In many places, they have few, if any, natural predators which allow them to flourish. They are also prolific breeders and a single female can produce 20 babies in a single year. *Because of their ability to overwhelm existing native species and natural ecosystem processes in environments in which they have been introduced, domestic cats are moreover classified as invasive species. **Due largely to impacts resulting from its predation on other species, the domestic cat is listed by the IUCN as one of the “100 of the world’s worst invasive alien species”.

By listing these environmental hazards as injurious under the Lacey Act, they can prohibit the importation and transport across state lines. Further legislation should include orders and local funding to eradicate populations and legislation to prohibit ownership or implement permit processes to own these animals.

Feral Cats have established breeding populations in every state in the union and have caused significant damage to wildlife and they continue to pose a great risk to many native species, including threatened and endangered species. ***Historically, cats have been specifically implicated in at least 33 bird extinctions, making them one of the most important causes of bird extinctions worldwide.
Millions of dollars have been spent on efforts to fight this massive problem, and yet it only continues to grow.

This is stolen from Kingsnake.com here is the full link http://www.kingsnake.com/blog/archiv...e-threat!.html