The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-05-02
The Problem
 Of The Cat
A Great Destroyer of Useful Birds-Preventative
 Measures

On a wild tract of land in Con1ecti- cut used as a game preserve, remote from any town or village, during the first year and a half of it's recent operation the keeper in charge killed forty rowing cats, and during the next were evidently homeless, having re- lapsed into the condition of wild anil mals. Others were house cats, ac- customed to roam, mostly by night, miles from their homes. All were preying on birds and wild game. This is no exceptional case, but typical of what goes on everywhere.
 People often wonder why our song and insectivorous birds which are pro- tected by law, do not increase. The real wonder is that they have not long since been exterminated, with an army of hunting felines, especially in the vii cinity of towns, roaming everywhere in the breeding season, searching for nests and young birds. If the nest is on the ground or anywhere that a cat can climb, the case is almost hope less. Even if out of reach, the young when learning to fly are almost sure to flutter down and get caught. If one will look around near home, he will often find empty nests which have been robbed of eggs or young.
 The cat is born hunter, and near ly all of them hunt for wild game, even though their owners do not sus- pect it. It is a. very moderate esti- mate to assume that each cat, on the average, stays one bird week, say fifty each year. Think of the count less thousands of useful birds thus killed in the United States every year!
 In most parts of Europe birds are said to be much more abundant than with us, though they are shot and fro known naturalist who has travelled much in those countries considers this due in considerable measure to the comparative absence of cats. It seems to him a local peculiarity of the Amer ican people to tolerate in their homes numbers of these half-wild animals, a queer, abnormal fad. In Europe the possession of cats is said to be regu lated by law.
 A common barbarity is the practice of abandoning cats by people chang ing their residence, leaving them to pity I have taken in these homeless starving creatures and fed them. At one shore resort in Connecticut I have been told that there are from fifty to one hundred homeless cats, abandon ed by summer cottagers, eking out Wretched existence around the piers.
 With us the cat has no standing in law, and is not recognized as property No one can obtain redress if his cats are poisoned or shot. Yet even this permission to kill does not abate the nuisance Alike from the standpoint of kindness to animals, of the owner of the cat, and of the lover of birds is it not high time that this matter should be regulated by law-how many and what sort of cats one may keep, how they must be treated and re- strained? Any one who is sufficiently responsible to be permitted by society to keep a cat ought to have public spirit enough to be glad to pay a small license fee for the privilege. This could be attended to by the same of ficials in charge of dog licenses. A fund wpuld thus be provided for the maintenance of the work and for the protection and attracting of wild birds, to help save our foliage. fruit, gardens and crops.
 Hitherto this matter has been laugh ed out of court, but the problem has now ceased to be joke. The many are beginning to realize that quail, grouse and woodcock cannot be ex- pected to raise many young amid thls growing host of marauding fellnes. If they and humane people generally will actively take up this matter we can soon get wise legislation, capable of enforcement.
 Meanwhile birds are now beginning to nest, and will be under way with family cares nearly all summer, but particularly in June. It Is surely a duty to society of everyone owning