Who'd A Thunk It?

Apparently 'tis the week to pick on cats.

A science reporter for the BBC gives us this story, in which we are told that cats in the United States kill lots of birds and small animals (apparently cats in England dress them up and have tea). This follows on the heels of the notice earlier in the week about the fellow in New Zealand who wants cats gone because they kill birds.

I can't mock the reporter too much -- since the New Zealand thing hit and she had before her an item on a similar topic, she wrote it up and sent it out to gather what eyeballs it may. That's part of her job.

On the other hand, the folks who did the study? That would be scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and some from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, which means that part of this study belongs to you and me because we paid for it. They reviewed a lot of other studies that examined the predatory abilities of cats to try to make a good guess about how much killing they were doing. And they found out that cats indeed do kill other animals.

You and I are the proud co-owners (along with 300 million or so of our fellow citizens) of a study that says predators prey on animals that are their prey, and then they kill them. I intend to frame mine.