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Whatever your views on outdoor cats, it’s unavoidable that indoor cats are safer to birds – a study from 2013 found that domestic cats kill billions of birds and mammals each year.
In colonial India, a popular pastime was to put a wild cat in a pen with pigeons. Bets would be made on how many birds the cat would bring down with one paw-swipe. The period of the British colonisation of India may have introduced this concept, and hence the phrase to the English language. [6]
Experts suspect that the SARS virus originated in the China due to contact between a civet (wildcats common in Chinese trade) and humans. Avian flu (H5N1) is caused by a highly pathogenic virus. It can infect humans through contact with infected crested hawks [40] and other wild birds, but can be transmitted by contact with poultry as well.
Human influence on cat evolution can be seen morphologically after the domestication of the cat and the increase of global trade routes, as cats were recruited for rodent control. [ 60 ] [ 61 ] Unlike other wild predators, cats are given different forms of aid from humans such as food, shelter, and medical treatment.
Feral and free-roaming cats can be a neighborhood nuisance and a bane for wildlife populations, with estimates that billions of songbirds have fallen prey to cats each year.
The 5-year-old Harris Hawk, along with falconer Ricky Ortiz, were recently hired to patrol this San Francisco Bay Area metro station to keep pigeons at bay and protect commuters from pigeon poop.
Mobbing can also be used to obtain food, by driving larger birds and mammals away from a food source, or by harassing a bird with food. One bird might distract while others quickly steal food. Scavenging birds such as gulls frequently use this technique to steal food from humans nearby. A flock of birds might drive a powerful animal away from food.
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