If I didn’t have several other projects in the works right now,

• texturizing walls and then painting/glazing
• the Big Egg Conspiracy talk
• polishing floors before the hoo-ha next Sunday
• company coming*
• new books from the Palmer Home to talk about
• &c.,

I could have a field day with this:

The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States

Anthropogenic threats, such as collisions with man-made structures, vehicles, poisoning and predation by domestic pets, combine to kill billions of wildlife annually. Free-ranging domestic cats have been introduced globally and have contributed to multiple wildlife extinctions on islands. The magnitude of mortality they cause in mainland areas remains speculative, with large-scale estimates based on non-systematic analyses and little consideration of scientific data. Here we conduct a systematic review and quantitatively estimate mortality caused by cats in the United States. We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.4–3.7 billion birds and 6.9–20.7 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals. Scientifically sound conservation and policy intervention is needed to reduce this impact.

[my emphases]

There’s data at the link!!!!! 

But alas! And quite fortunately, I think, I have walls and talks, and floors, and company and books to talk deal with. 

One comment, tough. This revolutionary research was funded by you. Not only are taxpayers paying these guys salaries, I bet there’s an NSF grant tucked away in there somewhere. Author information.

Affiliations
Migratory Bird Center, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, P.O. Box 37012 MRC 5503, Washington, District of Columbia 20013, USA
Scott R. Loss & Peter P. Marra
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Migratory Birds, Midwest Regional Office, 3815 American Boulevard East, Bloomington, Minnesota 20013, USA
Tom Will

Please note that there will be no intervention here at the Farm. Sadie killed a mouse the other day & we are gosh-danged proud of her. Were there to be interventions with respect to the feral cat hanging out here… . Just sayin’.

~~
Backtracking: here from here.

*There’s talk A. Leland is coming.