1. Get feeders that run on a timer and release a fixed amount of food.
2. Duct tape the feeders very securely to a metal box. Put something very heavy in the box to keep the raccoons from flipping the box over.
3. Set the timers so they release enough food for the cat. Have them set to go off a few hours after sunrise. Raccoons hate going out during the day.
4. The cat eats all the food and when the raccoons come at night there is nothing for them.
5. Point a motion activated camera at the feeders so you can fix and make improvements to the duct taping to respond to those clever raccoons and to make sure the cat has enough to eat.
Correct. A lot of people freak out when the do see one out during the day because for some reason it is widely believed that they only come out during the day if they are rabid.
Where I am (western Washington) rabies has never been found in the wild raccoon population (or in any wild terrestrial mammal population--it's all bats and domestic animals), but still some people see a raccoon in the daytime and freak out over rabies.
In fact if a raccoon is out during the day the most likely reason is that there is a food shortage and it can't forage enough just at night. Sometimes there is a shortage because something decreased the food supply, and sometimes it is because the raccoon is pregnant and needs more food due to that. Daytime outings due to rabies is way way way below that even in places like the eastern US where rabies is widespread in their raccoon populations.
Every year around here we'll see the neighborhood raccoon start coming around in the daytime for a while, getting plumper and plumper, then she stops coming at all for a while, and then she shows up at night much thinner and with 2 to 5 little ones.
Additionally, bells don't impact the other damage outdoors cats do to gardens, the deceased life expectancy, and the increased chance of disease.
Do not let your cats outside.
Saw this with the neighbours cat, little sod is so smooth he doesn't ring the bell until he pounces and by then the bird already knows it's in deep shit.
My pair are indoor cats - they live longer and we are near a very busy road.
- local bird, probably
In the UK, the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) has stated repeatedly that cat predation is having no real impact on bird populations.
In Australia? Much bigger issue.
If they didn't, such as in Aus, then yeah they can be devastating.
Maybe I should add I live on a farm? If it were not for the cat we'd have to take care of the vermin he dispatches in some other way so hooray for the cat.
It’s tricky to study since you pretty much need to introduce cats to areas with stable bird populations. We’ve had birds relocate and start new nests elsewhere because they see cats around though, and even magpies are extremely reluctant to eat food put out for them near the yard where the cats sometimes hang out.
reminder: what you see is not what you get.
cats kill between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion birds a year, study says. Outdoor cats are the leading cause of death among both birds and mammals in the United States, according to a new study, killing 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion birds each year. The mammalian toll is even higher, concluded researchers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, ranging from 6.9 billion to 20.7 billion annually.
America has a large feral cat population, which lives on birds and mice, not cat food.
Your numbers aren't at all inconsistent with OPs.
The study found each feral cat kills an average 576 native birds, mammals and reptiles per year, while pet cats kill an average of 110 native animals every year – 40 reptiles, 38 birds and 32 mammals.
In Australia 3.7 million domestic cats kill 230 million native birds every year.
OP numbers are in the realm of not being plausible, unless the cat lives in a cage.
As a cat owner I could believe in 5 in a year, or one every 2-3 months, that's possible, low but possible. I can't honestly believe in 5 in 13 years, for a normal, non disabled cat.
Numbers I gave you are consistent with the 100 million cats that live in USA (15-30 birds killed by each cat every year on average)
Other cats may largely target birds.
I estimate 83k coyotes in north american urban areas. (Extrapolating from 2014 estimate that 2,000 coyotes lived in the greater Chicago metropolitan area.)
Cats are 20-40% of urban coyote diets. Wild ass guess that a 40lb coyote needs to eat about 5lbs per week (based on recommended food allowance for captive coyote). For yearly total of 260lbs. Average cat weighs 10lbs? So each coyote eats 5.2 - 10.4 cats per year.
So let's say coyotes eat 83k * 5.2 = 431,600 cats per year.
A comment above says a domestic cat eats ~38 birds per year.
So urban coyotes save 16,400,800 birds per year.
(Too little is known about wild coyotes and cats for me to even guesstimate.)
So, to answer your question, I'm sure.
Local wildlife can be devesating to other local wildlife, can be devestating to the whole ecosystem.
A normal predator that devastates the local ecosystem because there are too many will run out of food and then go down in numbers until some sort of equilibrium is restored. Doesn't happen with pets.
I also wonder if you would accept the same argument if the neighbors dog would maul your cat (or even your child)
Some of my neighbours are incensed that coyotes are eating the neighbourhood cats ...
So was The Plague
Domestic cats are killing an estimated 230M native Australian birds, reptiles and mammals every year
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/15/keep-pet...
I'm not sure if you're aware, wild cats are a direct result of domestic cats.
A substantial number of the wild cats in Europe are feral, but so what. Same cat, same niche, same place.
Cats in Australia kill a total of 377 MILLION birds per year[1] (99% of which are native species)
[1] https://www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/publications-and-to...
It's a horrific number whether you've got a population of a billion or 10 billion.
I admit that my standards regarding death of critters are somewhat different than death of people, but the total population do matter there too. 6 million deers are shot in the US every year in a population of 25 million. People don't seem to be very upset about that, but rather concerned that the population still is rising. Many people are very upset that any rhinos at all are killed.
And as the example with deers show, you can cull some populations quite heavily without any apparent ill effects.
When I was a child my family had a cat that preferred to spend most of the time outside. When we went on vacation, we would leave it inside and come home to an annoyed cat. We couldn't leave it outside, since the raccoons would steal all the food. My dad had an idea that since we had a house on a hill with a wrap around balcony we could find a way to enable the cat to reach the balcony but not the raccoons.
First we tried putting a long narrow board between the ground and the balcony on the theory that cats have better balance than raccoons. False, raccoons are fine at climbing across a narrow bridge.
Then we decided that cats are smaller than raccoons, so we would make a gate with a cutout matching the exact dimensions of our cat's head and body. In some ways this worked, the adult raccoons could not access the food. Unfortunately raccoons are not stupid, they sent a child raccoon to fetch the food to the door and then scooped it through the small opening.
The cat remained indoors during our trip.