Regarding claims that feral cat predation has an impact on bird populations... (I am published! :) )

The print version of the Mid-Atlantic Journal on Law & Public Policy arrived today. I have a 32-page editorial piece, "All Dollars and No Sense: Critique of Dr. David Pimentel's Estimated Economic Impact of Domestic Cat Predation" that begins on p. 153.

It was a year-long process, and I am very honored they included my work.



Although what prompted the piece was an examination of the financial claims, those arise (very loosely!) from information provided in cat predation studies. Thus in the end, the critique serves as a rebuttal to any claim of harm by cats due to predation on a continental-basis, anywhere.

If anyone is interested, this is a link to the journal (sadly, no links to individual articles): https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_YDdOGlQExTbS0wb1hnWnNmTUk/edit

And the home page of the Journal: http://midatlanticjournal.blogspot.com/

Congratulations!  What an honor!

That's great!   

How awesome! Congrats!!

Congratulations! Well done!

Congratulations, Laurie!  I am thoroughly impressed.  Now, we can only hope it puts a dent into some of their arguments.

Ondine said:

Congratulations, Laurie!  I am thoroughly impressed.  Now, we can only hope it puts a dent into some of their arguments.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, it's not something that will turn up in google searches.

Re.  the pressure of cat hunting on bird population.

Bird population is usually quite abundant, there is a substanial surplus.

I had once read about a different experiment, quite interesting in itself, but which thus indirectly cast some light on our problem.

Birds live in pairs, for their whole life or at least, the season, no?

And its the male who is the revire holder, and thus also the nest-owner,  that is why they sing a lot, no?

The female is thus coming to the ready made table, no?

So they had a big field try to prove or disprove these theories.

They picket up a suitable forested area, with, say 100 revires of  the song bird X   (I dont remember which, but it was told in the article).

They waited till the birds were coupled.  And they  catched all the males, leaving the females intact and whole.

And has you seen?   Practically in no time every nest and every female had a new husband helping her.

So they did it again.  Guess what? Yes.

And again.  Oh yes.

Ten (10) times!

when the years was done, there were about 100 happy pairs of adult parents, and 100  groups of  young birds - save them whom perished by other reasons outside the experiment.

Conclusions?

Its really the female who is keeping the revire.    its really the female who is the revireholder.

And also, there is a big surplus of birds, perhaps only one tenths  get hold of a suitable revire and or partner.  In this experiment they took away the males, but with all probability, there is similiar surplus of females.   The  limit seems not the number of living birds, but the number of suitable revires and access to food.

And thus,  cats predating, even IF it were true, has usually no big importance for the bird population as such.   Cant have, per definition.

Aw, nuts.  Well, are we allowed to re-publish it here?  Might be helpful!

Ondine said:

 
Aw, nuts.  Well, are we allowed to re-publish it here?  Might be helpful!

Click to expand...

Yeah, it will become google-able too.

I don't think it's something Anne would want to put up. :lol3: It's 32 pages (well, as they print it) with something like 125 citations, many combined. :lol3: Other than as a PDF.... the code to put it up would be a complete nightmare.