Skills

In a previous post I went on about Hunter's hunting of mice and other rodents. In that post, I made the comment that he isn't much of a birder. This was partially true and partially because some people seem to have a problem with cats hunting birds and I didn't want to offend anyone. Culling the dirt-dwelling "vermin" seems so much more politically correct than passerines. However, due to the relative lack of rodents in the neighborhood, Hunter brought me something of a birthday present the other day. As one friend said about this photo, "Hunter's got skills." Indeed he does.


I love having birds around as much as anyone and I love my kitties. Mmmmm? A dilemma per chance? This got me to thinking about it all. If a bird, or any animal for that matter, was killed in the wild, we'd just chalk it up to "natural selection." However, there seems to be an inherent, emotional gut check when a domestic cat preys on "wild" song birds around the neighborhood.

I remember my aunt's cat once killed a Burrowing Owl. I was shocked but perhaps even more mortified by my aunt's detached, if not uncaring, reaction. But this was long before I had even considered having a cat of my own. Somewhere inside, I hated her cat for killing that owl. I think I would still have a major issue if Hunter started preying on something like an owl (around here we have much bigger ones like Great Horned and Grey Owls so the prey and predator relationship is very much reversed). But the Starlings and Magpies and the occasional finch? It still bothers me some but not so much the more I think about it.

You see, my neighbors feed the heck out of the birds. Across the street to the east, the guy has a bird bath and a well-stocked feeder and throws bread out all the time. He had a magpie eating out of his hand the other day.

Over the fence to the north, they simply have a big wooden box FULL of seed. All that "white" stuff on top of the cabinet is seed as are the piles all over the ground.

I think Hunter spends most of his time chasing the mice that are attracted to the seed but he does now bring back birds now and again. It occurs to me that the natural selection element is thrown out the window. I mean, if the neighbors didn't feed the birds 24/7/52, they would truly be "wild" and probably not hanging around here so much, if at all, and possibly even more alert and equipped to escape a cat like Hunter. So the question is: By "unnaturally" feeding them, are those birds now any more wild than my "domesticated" cat? If not, then logically Hunter's preying on those same birds is no different, and no more unacceptable, than the Darwinian natural order of things. Maybe I'm just rationalizing the whole thing to feel better about my kitties behavior. Mmmmmm?