Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and Welcome to the Hornet's Nest. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: there's Chuck Cherry's here, and this is stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: Josh's idea. Yeah, as I was researching this, I started
Speaker 1: sweating like cartoon bullets off of my forehead, like I was, um,
Speaker 1: little orphan any or something. When she's startled or Nancy,
Speaker 1: Nancy is a better one. Do you remember Nancy m
Speaker 1: hmm with Lugo? Yeah? Yeah, I remember Nancy and Slugo. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So she is one of the great overlooked comic strips
Speaker 1: of all time, and she's still going on. She's got
Speaker 1: a new breath of life in her. She's using computers
Speaker 1: in the Internet and everything by saying great like almost
Speaker 1: kind of subversive humor and outlook that that any um
Speaker 1: that that Nancy always had, check it out. I haven't
Speaker 1: looked at the funny papers in a long time. Do
Speaker 1: they still have the old favorite? Yeah? But I don't
Speaker 1: think they call them funny papers anymore because they're not funny,
Speaker 1: and then they never worked. Plus, no one wants to
Speaker 1: point out that it's made of paper that the comics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I used to love Beatle Bail. Of course, Garfield in
Speaker 1: bloom County. And when I got a little bit older,
Speaker 1: the one that has got a little political. That was
Speaker 1: so good, Sally Forth, No, I got political, dude, Yeah,
Speaker 1: not bloom County. But the other one that was Jon'sburry, Yeah, Doon'sburry.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that one was always political. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: Beatle Bailey. I love Beatle Bailey. What about Haggard the Horrible?
Speaker 1: He was fine, a family circus I liked at the time,
Speaker 1: but looking back, it was the least funny comic in history.
Speaker 1: It was. It was just it was cute. Brenda Starr Trail,
Speaker 1: Mary worth Mark trail. What was going on with that guy?
Speaker 1: It was just a nature propaganda disguised to say a
Speaker 1: comic strip really was, you know, nature propaganda, save the
Speaker 1: Earth and all that big nature. So that's funny that
Speaker 1: you say that, because there's there's a group of people
Speaker 1: who are involved in today's topic that possibly refer to
Speaker 1: their opponents as big nature. Weirdly chuck like, I don't
Speaker 1: think they do, but the same sense and sensibility is
Speaker 1: still there. Jane Austin reference second one in the in
Speaker 1: two podcasts that's right. Uh so, yeah, can we just
Speaker 1: cavy out this episode? You said it was a hornet's nest.
Speaker 1: This is about cats, domestic cats being an invasive species.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but they are. I love cats. I've got
Speaker 1: two cats, I've always had cats, always love cats, I
Speaker 1: will always have cats. This has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: being anti or pro cat. It is just dissecting sort
Speaker 1: of the scientific problem of cats in the same way
Speaker 1: that cats dissect birds and small mammals for sport, right,
Speaker 1: which we talked about a lot, but we'll talk about
Speaker 1: it a lot more. Yeah. So I'm with you, Chuck,
Speaker 1: and like we're you know, it is an issue, and
Speaker 1: it's a problem. And one of the things that's contributing
Speaker 1: to making it a problem is that the two sides
Speaker 1: are so diametrically opposed and so over one another that
Speaker 1: there's a there's just no conversation going on, and then
Speaker 1: the general public, like you and me, Um are just
Speaker 1: kind of blissfully unaware of this and then just get
Speaker 1: goose every once in a while when the media kind
Speaker 1: of picks up this issue or runs a headline or
Speaker 1: an article about it, Um, and the idea is, like
Speaker 1: you said that that it's pretty pretty much widely held
Speaker 1: among wildlife and conservation biologists that cats, house cats, and
Speaker 1: specifically feral cats are an invasive species around the world
Speaker 1: and have they reak enormous havoc, including species extinction in
Speaker 1: the habitats in our backyards and the habitats that they
Speaker 1: inhabit um. But before we really kind of get into
Speaker 1: that and lay out the case one way or another, um,
Speaker 1: we should probably talk about the cat and where the
Speaker 1: cat came from and why they hang out on our
Speaker 1: backyards to begin with. That's right, we should. They came
Speaker 1: we think from the mid mid East with not Mid
Speaker 1: East as in Virginia. That's not the mid East. That's
Speaker 1: the Middle East. That's the mid Atlantic. Yeah, the Middle
Speaker 1: East of planet Earth, which was you know, these wildcats
Speaker 1: from the forest called Felis sylvestris, which is interesting. I
Speaker 1: never thought about Sylvester the cat taking Felix the cat, yeah,
Speaker 1: or Felix taking their names from the original cats. But
Speaker 1: that is the thought is that they came from there.
Speaker 1: We're most likely domesticated about twelve thousand years ago, and
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure, but the general thought is
Speaker 1: once we started becoming an agriculturally based society, and we
Speaker 1: had grain and seed to store. Then the mice and
Speaker 1: the rats started coming around, and the wildcats started coming
Speaker 1: around to take care of that problem, and humans were like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is fine with us. And then over time some
Speaker 1: of those cats got a little friendlier than others and
Speaker 1: there and the people were like, oh, you like a
Speaker 1: little scritch under the neck. Huh, well, you want to
Speaker 1: come inside and have some milk. Shouldn't give cats milk,
Speaker 1: But they didn't know that at a time. And that's
Speaker 1: the best idea we have going of how cats and
Speaker 1: initially became domesticated. Yeah, and there's evidence of, you know,
Speaker 1: of cats being domesticated um that come from Cyprus, where
Speaker 1: there are no native cats. So cat bones and cat
Speaker 1: fossils are sensibly domesticated because they would have had to
Speaker 1: have been taken there by humans by ship. It's possible
Speaker 1: the cats stowed away, but it's also just as possible
Speaker 1: that eight thousand years ago, when this cat bone on
Speaker 1: Cypress is from Um, the the cat was domesticated enough
Speaker 1: to ride along aboard a ship um with sailors. And
Speaker 1: then there's another cat fossil from about years earlier than
Speaker 1: that so just under ten thousand years ago, um, where
Speaker 1: the cat was deliberately buried with the human, which strongly
Speaker 1: also suggests domestication. So it's not a really big stretch
Speaker 1: that by about twelve thou years ago and we started
Speaker 1: storing surplus grain, that's about the time when cats and
Speaker 1: humans really started to kind of coincide. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think you had probably best described this as a mutualistic
Speaker 1: relationship at this point, because both species are benefiting. We
Speaker 1: have talked in the past about commence al um boom,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's how one might have described it, which
Speaker 1: is like cats are eating the mice. Humans were like, fine,
Speaker 1: big wook, but we don't really care. But I would
Speaker 1: say it's probably more mutualistic, don't you don't you think? Yes? Absolutely, Again,
Speaker 1: I posit that there's no such thing as commence all
Speaker 1: is um. I think both parties, somehow, some way always
Speaker 1: are either benefited or harmed by this situation. And this
Speaker 1: is a great example of that because if we're growing
Speaker 1: surplus or for growing grain, we have surplus to feed
Speaker 1: more and more people, um, and the last us through
Speaker 1: the wind or whatever, we have these grain stores. If
Speaker 1: you know, mice and rats come along and eat our grain.
Speaker 1: That's a problem for us. And if the cats come
Speaker 1: along and eat the mice or the rats, that solves
Speaker 1: our problem. So the cat is getting to eat all
Speaker 1: of this food that's showing up that these grain stores
Speaker 1: where otherwise they would have to go and hunt all
Speaker 1: over the place. The cats benefiting, we're benefiting mutualism. That's right.
Speaker 1: I agree. Okay, Uh, you don't have to talk me
Speaker 1: into it, buddy, Okay, lay off, then lay off. We
Speaker 1: need T shirts. Man, do we still have T shirts? Oh?
Speaker 1: I don't know either. I haven't seen him in a while.
Speaker 1: We've never done a good job at promoting that stuff. No,
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh. So here's the deal with cats as
Speaker 1: an invasive species, though, is they are very uh hardy
Speaker 1: as a species. They survive even though they don't have
Speaker 1: a real natural range. They can live in many, many
Speaker 1: different environments successfully. Uh. And there are obviously your your
Speaker 1: pet cats, which are I don't think we said what
Speaker 1: was the name of the domesticated cat. Finally, Felis catus,
Speaker 1: which sounds like a bugs bunny cartoon, you know, like
Speaker 1: when road runner would yeah, would they freeze frame? You know,
Speaker 1: it's basically what they would write. But that's it was
Speaker 1: totally unimaginative as it gets. So you've got your your
Speaker 1: feral cats, and you've got your cats that live inside
Speaker 1: houses but also freely rome outside like uh, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have a pet cat, but it never comes inside
Speaker 1: because I don't like changing litter boxes. So we have
Speaker 1: outdoor cats. And then there's the feral cat. And those
Speaker 1: are the two cats that are causing problems. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they are very much different and this is from the grabster.
Speaker 1: He points out they're very different than other quote unquote
Speaker 1: domestic invasive species that you might have as a pet,
Speaker 1: because we talked about the Burmese python problem in Florida.
Speaker 1: Those aren't truly domesticated. Uh. And then there are feral
Speaker 1: dog populations in the world, and they do cause problems,
Speaker 1: but not like cats do. No, definitely not so Um.
Speaker 1: Apparently there's also like a really good case that's made
Speaker 1: that cats aren't truly domesticated either, which rings a bell
Speaker 1: to me from our animal Domestication episode. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I remember that. I think they're considered semi domestic actually
Speaker 1: person intense and perfect basically or no, they just come
Speaker 1: and go as they please. There they hang around us
Speaker 1: as much as they want to, you know. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of hanging out, let's take a little break and
Speaker 1: we'll get to the grizzly details of what these cats do,
Speaker 1: because even though you've said it before, you might not
Speaker 1: have heard that episode. You might think, what would my
Speaker 1: sweet little cat do if let outside besides just creep around. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll tell you what they'll do right after this, all right, Chuck. So,
Speaker 1: I think anybody who owns a cat that's not indoor
Speaker 1: cat UM has had some experience or other where their
Speaker 1: cat has shown up on their doorstep with a present
Speaker 1: of a bird, mouse, a small road, and baby squirrel
Speaker 1: um the baby seal, depending on where you are, but
Speaker 1: some some little animal where the cat is saying either hey, UM,
Speaker 1: I want you to have this, I really appreciate all
Speaker 1: of the fancy feast. Or they theorize that possibly the
Speaker 1: cat is UM keeping a toy that it was playing
Speaker 1: with earlier. It's brought home to like hang onto, or
Speaker 1: it's it's um following and it's UM, I guess kind
Speaker 1: of evolutionary impulse to teach other cats how to hunt.
Speaker 1: It's teaching you how to hunt. That's what it's bringing.
Speaker 1: Those are the big main theories that I saw, Like,
Speaker 1: see how it's done, buddy, Yeah, you see this bird?
Speaker 1: Can you do that? And you may be horrified when
Speaker 1: the cat does that. You may also be like, you know, Felix,
Speaker 1: come on, you can't do that. Where's this bird's head anyway? Um,
Speaker 1: and then just kind of forget about it, put it
Speaker 1: out of your mind. Maybe you go to the trouble
Speaker 1: of bearing the bird, which is nice if you do that,
Speaker 1: but you just move along with your day. Your cat
Speaker 1: might do that a few times a year. And if
Speaker 1: you multiply that by the number of cats who are
Speaker 1: roaming around, and you number multiply that by the number
Speaker 1: of feral cats, you suddenly get into really really really
Speaker 1: big numbers, and the idea of just how destructive invasive
Speaker 1: cats are, um really kind of comes into focus. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So here are numbers from uh about nine years ago.
Speaker 1: And this is kind of hard to track, but they
Speaker 1: do the best job that they can with these numbers. Uh.
Speaker 1: Domestic cats, these are to say, pet cats and feral cats. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we should say that feral cats kill about three
Speaker 1: times is more animals and birds as domestic cats, but
Speaker 1: between one point four in three point seven billion with
Speaker 1: a B birds and sit point nine and this is
Speaker 1: a big range to twenty point seven billion mammals a year.
Speaker 1: This is every single year. And you found some more
Speaker 1: stats that really kind of put a cherry on top here. Uh.
Speaker 1: Rodents are linked to the extinction of seventy five different species.
Speaker 1: Cats are linked to the extinction of sixty three different
Speaker 1: species where they have completely been extinct, forty bird species,
Speaker 1: twenty one mammal species, and two reptile species. Right, So, UM,
Speaker 1: we should say that the UM the species extinction that's global.
Speaker 1: They think the that those numbers that you said between
Speaker 1: up to around four billion birds and as many as
Speaker 1: UM twenties plus billion mammals every year. Chuck, that's in
Speaker 1: the United States alone, and not only in the United
Speaker 1: States one that's to the contiguous forty eight states alone
Speaker 1: every year. That's what this two thousand and thirteen study
Speaker 1: between Smithsonian Institute and UM the US Fish and Wildlife
Speaker 1: Service concluded. Right, So there are people and you know,
Speaker 1: we'll get to you know, some of the possible solutions
Speaker 1: later on. But if you talk to the head of
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center UM and named Pete Mara.
Speaker 1: He will say very clearly that there should be a
Speaker 1: zero tolerance for free ranging cats. Uh, they should be trapped,
Speaker 1: they should be removed and not returned um and then
Speaker 1: goes on to say more things that are a little
Speaker 1: more grizzly should be done if you have no other choices,
Speaker 1: which is euthanasia, um, professional hunters, poisons, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But you know that sounds and it is super harsh,
Speaker 1: and if you're a cat person, you're just like horrified
Speaker 1: right now. But what about the bird people? You know?
Speaker 1: Right So that's why there's the opposition on one side
Speaker 1: or wildlife biologists and conservationists and on the other side,
Speaker 1: you know, cat advocates and activists, and they're they're butting
Speaker 1: heads over this, and it's like a really big it's
Speaker 1: a it's a huge issue one way or another. Uh.
Speaker 1: And one one side is saying just leave them alone.
Speaker 1: On the other side's like, no, we can't leave them
Speaker 1: alone or else they're going to continue to create um
Speaker 1: species extinctions and kill billions and billions of birds and
Speaker 1: small mammals every year. And there's a lot of ways
Speaker 1: that they might do this. There's a story of a
Speaker 1: cat named Tibbles. It was a single female cat who
Speaker 1: arrived on a little island off of New Zealand called
Speaker 1: Steven's Island in the eighteen nineties. There were no cats there.
Speaker 1: In fact, there were no predatory mammals, so much so
Speaker 1: that the little Steven's Island wrend lost its ability to fly.
Speaker 1: It had no reason to fly. It had all the
Speaker 1: food it needed on the island, it didn't need to
Speaker 1: escape predation. So um, they lost their ability to fly
Speaker 1: and became one of just three flightless songbirds in the world.
Speaker 1: And now we have two species of flightless songbirds in
Speaker 1: the world thanks to Tibbles and the litter that she had.
Speaker 1: That's right, Tibbles arrived pregnant, and I mean this is
Speaker 1: a very clear cut case of one pregnant cat showed
Speaker 1: up and literally Tibbles in the offspring made the Stevens
Speaker 1: Island rand no more. It is completely extinct. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so that is that's one single instance where they can
Speaker 1: say this cat did this. And I've even seen it,
Speaker 1: like said, in places like this, the legend goes or
Speaker 1: the story goes or something like that. So I'm not
Speaker 1: certain exactly how well documented it is. Um and more
Speaker 1: to the point, even if that is a accurate it's
Speaker 1: really difficult to extrapolate that onto you know, the rest
Speaker 1: of the world, onto wildlife in general. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of factors and a lot of pressures the go into
Speaker 1: a species going extinct. But from what I'm seeing, the
Speaker 1: conservation biologists and wildlife biologists who are UM doing meta
Speaker 1: analyzes of you know, smaller studies and kind of putting
Speaker 1: the numbers together, they typically tend to UM to make
Speaker 1: suppositions on the lower end. So these numbers may actually
Speaker 1: be under reported, they may be much higher UM than
Speaker 1: what we think. But the upshot of it is that
Speaker 1: there seems to be a UM. Cats seem to be,
Speaker 1: if not directly or solely responsible, in some cases, they
Speaker 1: are largely responsible for some species extinction. That's right. Um
Speaker 1: Cats also spread disease. If you look at rabies in twoteens,
Speaker 1: not that long ago, cats accounted for six of all
Speaker 1: rabid domestic animals in the United States. UM. So, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, people talk about like possums and raccoons
Speaker 1: and they're just and rats and they're like, oh god,
Speaker 1: there you know, rabbit animals. Yet they will feed a
Speaker 1: stray you know feral cat, which is something that even
Speaker 1: you know, animal people say you shouldn't do because that
Speaker 1: just means there will reproduce and there will be more
Speaker 1: feral cats. And feral cats don't do so well. They uh,
Speaker 1: they struggle to live and they get they get hurt,
Speaker 1: and they get hit by cars and they get run over,
Speaker 1: and I think, uh, a large percentage of the litter
Speaker 1: doesn't even make it past six months. So if you
Speaker 1: love cats, you shouldn't be feeding feral cats. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a little you know, it's hard to wrap your head
Speaker 1: around it, but that's if you want a healthy population
Speaker 1: of cats, you shouldn't feed feral cats. Right. It is
Speaker 1: does seem very paradoxical and even mean. But we'll get
Speaker 1: into a little more. Y Um. But one of the
Speaker 1: things you said about effects cats can have on the ecosystem,
Speaker 1: especially feral cats, um is that they in particular spread
Speaker 1: um toxoplasma guy in the um, which we had an
Speaker 1: entire episode on years and years and years ago. But um,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a type of parasite that can affect um,
Speaker 1: that can create neurological symptoms and humans. It can. It's
Speaker 1: pretty rare that it actually does that. But it can
Speaker 1: cause birth effects in children, uh, in fetuses, which is
Speaker 1: why you're pregnant. You're advised stay away from litter boxes
Speaker 1: or handling cat feces, you know, in general, which is
Speaker 1: just good advice generally, um, because of toxoplasma UM. And
Speaker 1: it actually can kill other animals too, right, oh sure, uh,
Speaker 1: And you know it spreads through those feces. So any
Speaker 1: warm blooded I mean we we can get infected. You know,
Speaker 1: humans can and do get toxic. I'm sure I have
Speaker 1: toxoplasmosis by this point, Um, any warm blooded animal can
Speaker 1: get it. And yeah, it can. It can kill uh,
Speaker 1: animals as large as a seal. Yes. And the reason
Speaker 1: why cat are so important into this chain is the
Speaker 1: UM T gandhi UM eggs can only reproduce or the
Speaker 1: the parasite can only reproduce in the gut of a cat.
Speaker 1: So if you take cats out of the equation, if
Speaker 1: you take cats that are roaming around the landscape pooping everywhere,
Speaker 1: you take um toxoplasmosis out of the equation largely too. UM.
Speaker 1: And then lastly, chuck one of the other things in
Speaker 1: addition to actually you know, wreaking havoc on bird and
Speaker 1: small mammal and also vertebrate or um reptile and amphibian
Speaker 1: populations too. Um by directly eating them or killing them
Speaker 1: for sport, they're they're having an indirect effect on some
Speaker 1: other native populations of like hawks, owls, um, larger mammals
Speaker 1: that eat these things for food, like this is their food,
Speaker 1: um that the cats are are killing and eating in
Speaker 1: some cases or sometimes just killing. That's right. And we
Speaker 1: talked a lot about the trickle down effect of removing
Speaker 1: anything from an ecosystem. And certainly birds are a vital
Speaker 1: part of any ecosystem. How they uh you know, spread
Speaker 1: the seed and uh pollination, like everything ends up being
Speaker 1: affected when you start extincting extincting m sure, extincting birds. Sure.
Speaker 1: And so I know it sounds very much like we're
Speaker 1: teeing off on cats or not. That's not the point.
Speaker 1: The point is to kind of get across that what
Speaker 1: you think of as like a lovable cuddle bug of
Speaker 1: an animal actually does have negative impacts on the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: In particular the ones that are feral, the ones that
Speaker 1: are unowned, the ones that don't have a home to
Speaker 1: go to, the ones that um that it turns out
Speaker 1: we have zero idea of exactly how many there are
Speaker 1: the feral cat populations. That's right. Uh, should we take
Speaker 1: a break? Sure, all right, we'll take our second break
Speaker 1: here and we'll talk a little bit more about the
Speaker 1: problem in some solutions right after this. So there are
Speaker 1: about eighty six million pet cats in the United States,
Speaker 1: and uh, and I know I've talked about this before.
Speaker 1: About of those cats are either full time outdoor cats
Speaker 1: as your pet or uh, do you let your cat outside,
Speaker 1: you know, for large parts of the day or whatever.
Speaker 1: Indoor outdoor cats, Um that you know, it's it's a problem.
Speaker 1: I don't think people should let their cats out side.
Speaker 1: I think if you have a pet cat, it should
Speaker 1: be an indoor only cat because of the lizards and
Speaker 1: the birds and the mammals that they kill, because of
Speaker 1: the disease that they can spread. I've always been an
Speaker 1: indoor cat person since I've been an adult. I grew
Speaker 1: up having outdoor cats and there was a constant flood
Speaker 1: of dead animals on our front porch, you know, all
Speaker 1: the time, and it was pretty horrifying as a kid
Speaker 1: to grow up with that kind of thing. But um,
Speaker 1: this is one of the situations where you know, we
Speaker 1: don't like to get on our high horse very often,
Speaker 1: but you should keep your cats inside. And if and
Speaker 1: not wanting to deal with the litter box is your issue,
Speaker 1: then you might want to rethink your while you have
Speaker 1: cats Martha Stewart hawks one where like they send you
Speaker 1: a new fresh litter box every however long and then
Speaker 1: you just pack up the one throw it away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it stinks. I hate cleaning up the litter
Speaker 1: box more than anything. But I love birds and uh
Speaker 1: and chipmunks more than I hate cleaning out the litter box.
Speaker 1: That's a really good way to put it, chuck. So
Speaker 1: that's just free roaming cats is what they what they're called,
Speaker 1: what what you described. It's like they have a house
Speaker 1: to go to, they have people that feed them at
Speaker 1: that house. They're considered a pet, but they're allowed to
Speaker 1: run around the neighborhood as much as they like. Um. So,
Speaker 1: if we have about eighties six million cats um that
Speaker 1: are our pets, intent of them are roaming outdoors. That's
Speaker 1: a significant number. But from the censuses, the studies that
Speaker 1: have been conducted over decades, UM, the feral cat population
Speaker 1: vastly seems to outnumber the free roaming cat population. Some
Speaker 1: studies say, no, it's about the same. Maybe are probably
Speaker 1: a little more feral cats, maybe thirty million. That is
Speaker 1: the lowest I've been able to come up with. His
Speaker 1: thirty million. That's the lowest estimate I've seen across the
Speaker 1: entire internet. I went everywhere on the Internet, and the
Speaker 1: lowest I saw was thirty million. Some sources put it
Speaker 1: more in line with about the total number of pet cats,
Speaker 1: that there's about eighty million feral cats running around again
Speaker 1: the United States alone, just the US UM and that
Speaker 1: if if that is the case, um, then you really
Speaker 1: do start to get into some really big numbers really fast.
Speaker 1: About how how much of an effect those that eighty
Speaker 1: million feral cats uh could have on local bird and
Speaker 1: small mammal populations. Yeah. And you know if a cat,
Speaker 1: if a feral cat makes it to adulthood, which uh,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, the pretty high percentage die
Speaker 1: before six months of age. But if they do make
Speaker 1: it to adulthood, they are very efficient killers. And there
Speaker 1: are no natural predators for cats. Uh. And you might think, well, no,
Speaker 1: there's plenty things that can kill a cat. There are,
Speaker 1: but their populations like you know, a cougar or something.
Speaker 1: There aren't many of those left anymore. Those populations have
Speaker 1: been decimated because of all the reasons that that might happen,
Speaker 1: And what you end up with is a lot of
Speaker 1: feral cats with UM with nothing hunting them, but they're
Speaker 1: hunting everything else. Well. I found a two thousand thirteen
Speaker 1: Ohio state study and they found that UM urban coyotes.
Speaker 1: We did in another episode on coyotes, remember UM. Well,
Speaker 1: as their numbers are growing and growing, they're actually keeping
Speaker 1: feral cat populations in check. And as a result, some
Speaker 1: bird species, small mammal species are are UM. Their numbers
Speaker 1: are rebounding because urban coyotes UM tend to keep feral
Speaker 1: cats at bay, like feral cats avoid them like the plague.
Speaker 1: The thing is is coyotes tend to avoid humans. So
Speaker 1: the feral cats have just been hanging around buildings, offices, businesses,
Speaker 1: like human built areas and avoiding kind of more natural
Speaker 1: urban areas like woods and parks and tree forested areas,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing where the coyotes hang out. So
Speaker 1: the wildlife is protected in the in the forested woody
Speaker 1: areas of the city, but there there pray like around
Speaker 1: human habitation like buildings and offices and stuff, which makes sense.
Speaker 1: So we've outlined the problem. Uh. It is really sad
Speaker 1: because I love cats and I don't like the idea
Speaker 1: of cats being a problem. Um, but they are. So
Speaker 1: what are the solutions? The solutions you're leaving that to me? Huh,
Speaker 1: we'll both talk about it. But so one of the
Speaker 1: solutions that UM, and this is if you're if you're
Speaker 1: a cat advocate and activist, you're probably very much in
Speaker 1: favor of uh type of approach called trapped now to
Speaker 1: release TNR programs. These were developed the earliest I saw
Speaker 1: is in the late nineties. UM. Where you if you're
Speaker 1: a uh like an animal, um uh animal, what's animal
Speaker 1: control like for a county or a city or something
Speaker 1: like that? If you have a trap nooter release program, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you find a cat, UM, you capture it, you
Speaker 1: take it to the shelter, the vet there, spas or
Speaker 1: nooters the cat they clipped the tip of the cat's
Speaker 1: ear off and then you release it back into the
Speaker 1: wild feral cat. UM. And as they're doing this, the
Speaker 1: point of trapped neoter release is that the cat is
Speaker 1: not euthanized. So it's like an end to euthanasia as
Speaker 1: far as animal shelters. Like you know before trap nooter release,
Speaker 1: if a cat got picked up by animal control and
Speaker 1: made it to the animal shelter, that was it for
Speaker 1: the cat. This is a chance to give cats the
Speaker 1: the opportunity to live their life out, but you've taken
Speaker 1: away their ability to reproduce. So you're now managing the
Speaker 1: reproduction rate of a feral cat colony. And if you
Speaker 1: get your hands on enough of these feral cats, and
Speaker 1: you spay and neuter enough of them, and you keep
Speaker 1: up with it fast enough, studies have shown that you
Speaker 1: have a really good chance of stabilizing and then eventually
Speaker 1: diminishing the feral cats in your area. Yeah, and there
Speaker 1: have been a lot of studies on this. UM. It
Speaker 1: was one in twenty nineteen that found over a decade
Speaker 1: UH it's called high intensity TNR was very successful at
Speaker 1: reducing feral cat populations. UM there's high density and low
Speaker 1: density TNR. And the idea it seems to shake out
Speaker 1: is that unless you are doing high density, unless you're hitting,
Speaker 1: unless you're getting to like s of the population, then
Speaker 1: they say you might as well not even be doing it. Uh,
Speaker 1: so high intensity TNR really works. And then in this
Speaker 1: one study, it had a couple of other interesting parts
Speaker 1: to it, is they weren't just measuring how many feral
Speaker 1: cats were out there, but they're trying to do studies
Speaker 1: that like say, hey, we want healthy cat population, so
Speaker 1: let's look at harm reduction for feral cats. So if
Speaker 1: you have over a population and too many feral cats,
Speaker 1: then it's there's a head points out. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of misery going around. They struggle to find food more. Uh,
Speaker 1: they spread disease more. They are constantly pregnant. Cats reproduce
Speaker 1: like bunnies do. Uh, they can have up to three
Speaker 1: litters a year and up to you know twelve the
Speaker 1: fifteen cats per litter. And you know these cats walking
Speaker 1: around constantly pregnant, constantly giving birth to kittens that don't
Speaker 1: live more than six months, constantly looking for food because
Speaker 1: they're overstressed. Is that's that's not if you're a cat lover. Again,
Speaker 1: that's not what you want. And so they tried to
Speaker 1: measure the harm reduction and they found that high tensity
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, high intensity TNR reduce preventable cat deaths by
Speaker 1: or thirty times yeah, thirty times, not thirty times fewer
Speaker 1: preventable cat deaths. And they define preventable cat deaths by
Speaker 1: cats that were picked up and euthanized at a shelter
Speaker 1: or cats that died before reaching adulthood. And cats have
Speaker 1: a really high UM mortality rate for young cats. UM.
Speaker 1: I saw a study from two thousand three or four
Speaker 1: that found UM a mortality rate of about forty eight
Speaker 1: percent within three months of birth and seventy percent within
Speaker 1: six months of birth. And this is you want to
Speaker 1: talk about harm reduction. UM. The most common cause of
Speaker 1: death was trauma. So they were getting malled by dogs
Speaker 1: or eagles or owls. Yeah, getting hit by cars. Um.
Speaker 1: So it is a really harsh, unhappy life for feral cats.
Speaker 1: And the premise of TNR is, Okay, we can actually
Speaker 1: lead to a reduction in these kittens that are being
Speaker 1: born in these horrible conditions, living three months and then
Speaker 1: getting malled by a neighborhood owl or something like that.
Speaker 1: Like that's that's a bonus, that's a plus. But you
Speaker 1: hit on something that's really important, Chuck that there is
Speaker 1: a pretty decent amount of research on Actually that's not true.
Speaker 1: There's not that much research on the effectiveness of trapped
Speaker 1: now to release, but the studies that have been done
Speaker 1: on them that are high quality studies do emphasize that. No,
Speaker 1: there's definitely a threshold to where you're just completely wasting
Speaker 1: time and energy, and even worse than that if you're
Speaker 1: not hitting I think what you say about the sevent
Speaker 1: threshold of spaying and new during feral cats in a
Speaker 1: given colony. If you're not hitting that mark, you're doing
Speaker 1: worse than nothing, because the people who are aware of
Speaker 1: t n R, the TNR program in your city and county,
Speaker 1: think you're doing something but not. It's worse than doing
Speaker 1: nothing because if everyone knows you're not doing anything, then
Speaker 1: people might say we got to do something. But if
Speaker 1: they think you're doing something but you're not actually really
Speaker 1: doing anything, that's harmful. And that's ultimately harmful not just
Speaker 1: to these kittens that are being were by that like that,
Speaker 1: but also to the um, the birds and small mammals
Speaker 1: that those kittens are eating within their three to six
Speaker 1: months on earth. That's right. Uh. T and R is expensive.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of time. You know, trapping and
Speaker 1: trapping any animal is hard. Like one of our dogs Charlie.
Speaker 1: We we trapped it was a feral dog in the woods,
Speaker 1: and it took five days to trap these dogs. It's
Speaker 1: it's a commitment to trap an animal. Wait anut, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, you have a dog that you trapped that
Speaker 1: was ferial. Yeah, yeah, Charlie, I didn't know that. Yeah, Charlie,
Speaker 1: we found in the woods with four other dogs and
Speaker 1: just you know, these dogs would not come near anybody
Speaker 1: when they were puppies, and we we spent with our friends,
Speaker 1: uh A, Dare and Elliott spent uh I think you
Speaker 1: have like five days trying to trap these dogs and
Speaker 1: Charlie was the last one that was holding out that
Speaker 1: we could not get and a Burger King cheeseburger is
Speaker 1: what finally did it. And Charlie spent the first as
Speaker 1: a result, spent the first six years of her life
Speaker 1: very afraid of people and would just do rounders through
Speaker 1: our house when people would come over and not come
Speaker 1: near anybody. But since my daughter came along, were people
Speaker 1: at the house and just over time, she's just the sweetest,
Speaker 1: sweetest girl now and goes up to everybody after like
Speaker 1: twenty seconds. And it used to take days or weeks.
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. It's a great success story there. But
Speaker 1: mud imagine I have to say chuck while I can.
Speaker 1: Just while you were describing tracking Charlie and her pals,
Speaker 1: I just imagined that that music in that scene from
Speaker 1: Planet of the Apes where they're rounding up the humans
Speaker 1: with nets, is that basically what was going on. Now
Speaker 1: we had a big cage, traps on horseback, like dog
Speaker 1: goes in to get food and then the door swing shut.
Speaker 1: But Charlie was very smart and Charlie just durned thirteen,
Speaker 1: so oh, happy birthday. But a long way of saying
Speaker 1: that trapping an animal takes a lot of time and
Speaker 1: cats are super smart, and uh, it' time consuming. If
Speaker 1: it's expensive, and TNR is just it's hard to get
Speaker 1: a lot of people rallying around it and funding funding it,
Speaker 1: especially if you're expecting, like the county to fund it,
Speaker 1: like most of that stuff is going to come from donations.
Speaker 1: Plus also, if you're a wildlife or conservation biologists, you
Speaker 1: might say, no, I don't want to do TNR at all.
Speaker 1: Like these cats, like let's say you pick one up
Speaker 1: at six months and you neuter it and release it
Speaker 1: into a feral colony. Most of those feral colonies are
Speaker 1: managed by the city or the county, meaning that they're
Speaker 1: fed right, which ends up attracting more abandoned cats that
Speaker 1: haven't been neutered or spade yet. And then worse than that,
Speaker 1: let's say these cats live an extra four or five years,
Speaker 1: how many animals do they kill? Yeah, they're not reproducing,
Speaker 1: but you're releasing them back out to kill these birds
Speaker 1: and mammals. And those biologists say this is too big
Speaker 1: of a problem to to take up t nur um programs.
Speaker 1: We need to do something else. And everybody says, okay,
Speaker 1: well what else? What can we do? And the biologists
Speaker 1: clear their throats and like kind of like put their
Speaker 1: hands in their pockets and look at one another and say, like,
Speaker 1: who's who wants to say it? And uh, the one
Speaker 1: who's on his phone not paying attention to suddenly realizes
Speaker 1: everyone else has taken a step back and he's he's up,
Speaker 1: oh boy, oh and that's me. Um. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a terrible thing. But the other solution, uh, is that
Speaker 1: you know, I don't even want to say it, but
Speaker 1: it's killing cats. Australia does this pretty effectively. Uh. In
Speaker 1: they begin using a poison. Here's the deal. His cats
Speaker 1: probably won't eat poison. So they have these traps where
Speaker 1: a cat will go in and it will spray their
Speaker 1: fur with poison. The cats groom themselves by looking their fur,
Speaker 1: they ingest the poison and they die. Uh and this
Speaker 1: is you know, Ed points out. He's like, listen, this
Speaker 1: is uh. No one cries for the dead rats and
Speaker 1: the dead mice, but uh, you know, dead cats is
Speaker 1: You're going to get some public outrage, yes, for sure.
Speaker 1: And there's I mean there's a lot that's mixed up
Speaker 1: with that one. You know, we've chosen cats. There's like
Speaker 1: only just a small handful of animals on the planet.
Speaker 1: Out of all the animals on the planet, there's such
Speaker 1: a select group that we've said, come come live in
Speaker 1: our human world, our human culture, and cats are one
Speaker 1: of the top ones. I mean, like cats are pets.
Speaker 1: Come into our house, right, yeah, have my milk. And
Speaker 1: again the cats like, please, this is really bad for me.
Speaker 1: I can't I can't turn it away. Please stop tempting me.
Speaker 1: But it's that's a huge part of it. So like
Speaker 1: even even knowing that cats are out there having this
Speaker 1: huge effect on on birds and mammals. Um and and
Speaker 1: like possibly creating species extinction. Um, it's still like that
Speaker 1: that doesn't just trigger something in us humans like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: then we gotta get rid of cats. That's just not
Speaker 1: that's just not how it works. Um. But that's what
Speaker 1: a lot of biologists suggest we do, and not get
Speaker 1: rid of all cats, but you know, get rid of
Speaker 1: feral cats, like get do away with t n our
Speaker 1: programs and instead go back to if you pick a
Speaker 1: cat up, you take it in and euthanize it. And
Speaker 1: that's that because not only is it not reproducing any longer,
Speaker 1: it's also not killing small animals in the time where
Speaker 1: between where it's picked up in in spade and neutered
Speaker 1: and then released back into the wild and then the
Speaker 1: time that it dies of whatever cause. You know. But again,
Speaker 1: how are you ever going to get anybody behind something
Speaker 1: like that? We even want to get behind something like that?
Speaker 1: And like, is that is that a thing that humans
Speaker 1: would want to take on? Like, Okay, we've got this
Speaker 1: big problem. We need to handle it. Um. If we
Speaker 1: handle it this way, we can probably handle basically once
Speaker 1: and for all. Um. But is that something we want
Speaker 1: to do? Is that? Is that okay to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean these are the big questions. I hope you're
Speaker 1: not looking to me for an answer. No, I mean
Speaker 1: it's unfortunately, it's definitely rhetorical right now. I mean some
Speaker 1: people would answer obviously one way or another. But I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of people who are like, man,
Speaker 1: I really do care about birds, and I really do
Speaker 1: care about chipmunks and biodiversity, and I really don't like
Speaker 1: invasive species. Like what am I to do? You know,
Speaker 1: at the very least, if you have outdoor cats, bring
Speaker 1: him inside. Yeah. And that's another thing too. Is one
Speaker 1: of the things that that you would have to do
Speaker 1: part and parcel with this is you know, in most
Speaker 1: cities and counties you have to get a license to
Speaker 1: have a dog. You don't necessarily have to do that
Speaker 1: for a cat. You could start creating laws like that,
Speaker 1: create leash laws for cats, like really step it up
Speaker 1: and say, we love cats. You can have a cat,
Speaker 1: but you have to keep your cat in the house.
Speaker 1: If your cats out of the house, you have to
Speaker 1: keep your cat on a leash. If a cat's feeral,
Speaker 1: it's and get picked up. Um. So there's yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's stuff you can do it's just a question of
Speaker 1: will is what it is. Yeah, and you know, uh,
Speaker 1: when we said when I said that, before I got
Speaker 1: met with emails of but my cat loves being outside.
Speaker 1: They all they do is want to be outside. It's
Speaker 1: because they want to go kill things almost exclusively. Like
Speaker 1: cats love to lay in the sunshine. But that's why
Speaker 1: you'll find them on sunny spots inside your house. And
Speaker 1: those sunny spots are just fine. Um. The cats want
Speaker 1: to go out and kill things. That's why they scratch
Speaker 1: at the door if you let them out once. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I know I'm finding an uphill battle here,
Speaker 1: but I love cats and I hate the idea of
Speaker 1: running over a cat in my car. That's very traumatizing
Speaker 1: for an individual in a family. UM, and the cat Welsh. Sure.
Speaker 1: Uh so that's where I stand. Go ahead and email
Speaker 1: me if you're mad at me. So there's there's UM
Speaker 1: a group of vocal critics and opponents to the very
Speaker 1: UM people who who produced these studies starting in two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, and basically anybody who who criticizes tn R programs,
Speaker 1: UM who say this, these studies that are getting all
Speaker 1: of this media exposure, they're based on like bad science.
Speaker 1: Their numbers are inflated, they're basically making all this stuff up. UM.
Speaker 1: One of the arguments that they make is that cats
Speaker 1: UM tend to prey on old or weak um members
Speaker 1: of like bird or small mammal species that probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: have made it to reproduction time anyway, so they're not
Speaker 1: actually having an effect on the population. And there's answers
Speaker 1: to all these two that they they've had. There's actually
Speaker 1: like there's a flame war going on between this group
Speaker 1: of wildlife biologists and specific group of like cat advocates UM,
Speaker 1: and they're like answering one another and calling one another out. UM.
Speaker 1: But one of the answers to that is, well, okay,
Speaker 1: that's still there's still animals that are suffering harm because
Speaker 1: cats are killing them. Even if they were going to
Speaker 1: die anyway, they're still being mauled by a cat. And
Speaker 1: then also, what data are you basing that on that
Speaker 1: cats tend to kill infirm and weak members of species?
Speaker 1: Like where did that come from? So each side, in
Speaker 1: classic twenties fashion, is accusing the other of um basically
Speaker 1: have like like junk like basing all their stuff on
Speaker 1: junk science, making things up, making kind of character attacks
Speaker 1: being snyed one another. It's just a beautifully twenties twenties argument,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's it's interesting to read about. But
Speaker 1: then you step back and you think this is really
Speaker 1: serious stuff. We need to do something. Everybody says, we've
Speaker 1: got to do something, either a good t in our
Speaker 1: program or something. We can't just keep going on like this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because doing nothing creates a uh again, colonies of feral
Speaker 1: cats that are not living their best life. Right? Oh,
Speaker 1: you got anything else? No, not right now? Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about um cats as
Speaker 1: invasive species and in particular trap nowter release programs, you
Speaker 1: can read all about that stuff all over the internet.
Speaker 1: There's a ton of it out there. And since I
Speaker 1: said there's a ton of it out there, it's time
Speaker 1: for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this Greenbrier Bunker. Addendum,
Speaker 1: We heard from a few people that have been there,
Speaker 1: taken the tour, and had other interesting things to say.
Speaker 1: And this is from Greg Soster and Columbus. Oh hi,
Speaker 1: oh okay, uh let me see here. Let me skip
Speaker 1: the beginning. Uh. My family returned to the Greenbrier they
Speaker 1: had previously been there in ninete uh for a Christmas
Speaker 1: stay the time. This time the bunker was known by
Speaker 1: the general public, and we signed up for the guided tour.
Speaker 1: So I guess when they went in nine it was
Speaker 1: still not known as as a thing, so they were
Speaker 1: those kind of shrouded in mystery at that point. Um,
Speaker 1: here we go. Number one. The back entrance also as
Speaker 1: an enormous blast doors with a very long haul leading
Speaker 1: to the under the mountain. A truck has to be
Speaker 1: able to drive in the ear pressure when they close
Speaker 1: it is amazing. Other interesting rooms included dennis office, surgical
Speaker 1: operating room, and a crematorium, a TV studio, and a
Speaker 1: water purification plant. Uh the answer, and we heard from
Speaker 1: quite a few people here. Families do not go to
Speaker 1: the bunker. Each member of Congress is an assign bunk,
Speaker 1: and each bunk has their prescription medicines fully stocked and
Speaker 1: spare prescription eyeglasses for everybody as well. Oh that's such
Speaker 1: a great touch. Yeah, otherwise, you call Vanderbilt right. Congress
Speaker 1: arrives by plane. There's a giant airstrip about ten miles away,
Speaker 1: and the Army built a wide super highway from the
Speaker 1: airport straight to the bunker. Secret Service would one run
Speaker 1: drills to get the president to the bunker in eleven
Speaker 1: minutes or less. Uh. And then finally it is strange
Speaker 1: to drive there because uh it is. It was windy,
Speaker 1: and it was a two lane road and then suddenly
Speaker 1: the last two miles it's like a race track. I
Speaker 1: remember joking my wife that the Greenbrier had a heck
Speaker 1: of a driveway. So they're talking about the super highway
Speaker 1: that leads right to it. And just to finish out,
Speaker 1: Greg says the entire hotel staff in many towns, people
Speaker 1: knew about the secret for decades, and they kept the
Speaker 1: secret out of a sense of duty and pride. They
Speaker 1: hated that when the secret was revealed by Mr ted
Speaker 1: Gup because the pronational Trevor treasure was lost. That's pretty neat.
Speaker 1: So who is that from? That was from Gregg in Columbus? O. Hi, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's right, Thanks a lot, Greg, that was a good one.
Speaker 1: Appreciate that info. Uh. And if you want to be
Speaker 1: like Greg and send along some info to us, uh,
Speaker 1: we'll try to sort through it from all the hate
Speaker 1: mail we're getting from cat lovers. In the not too
Speaker 1: distant future, you can wrap it up spanking on the
Speaker 1: bottom and send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. H