by Ashley Martens
Last summer, the Keep Cats Safe Committee visited the Heart of the Valley Animal Shelter to teach the Pet Pals Summer Campers about how outdoor cats affect wild birds. We gathered in a grassy lawn in the blazing sun to play a modified version of The Great Migration Challenge Game with 20 very enthusiastic children. Each child chose a bird identity and then “migrated” through a series of stations that taught of the helpers and hazards along the way. To emphasize the effects that outdoor cats have on wild birds, we added several extra stations where kids might end up in the game that said “A pet cat catches you and eats you. Sorry! You died.” The majority of kids that played the game reported that their assumed bird-identity was “killed by a cat.” Indeed, these statistics represent the truth: outdoor domestic cats are the leading cause of human-related threats to birds and kill around 2 billion wild birds annually (see figure at left).
The Keep Cats Safe Committee aims to educate the public about these impacts and empower cat-owners to take good care of their cats and wild birds by keeping cats indoors, training cats to walk on leashes, and creating “catios” for cats to enjoy outdoor time without harming birds.
For more information, please visit Sacajawea Audubon Society’s Keep Cats Safe webpage at https://sacajaweaaudubon.org/cats-safe-at-home.
