How to Protect Birds from Cats and Vice Versa

Domestic cats and wild birds can coexist peacefully, if you just take a few steps to ensure that your pet cat, or your neighbor's cat, or the local feral or barn cat, can't reach your bird feeders. The most important step you can take is to keep your cat indoors, and if you do let her go outside, walk with her or confine her in an outdoor containment system to make sure she doesn't get into any mischief or become a victim herself. You can make an indoor cat's life infinitely more fascinating if you position bird feeders near windows so she can watch and stalk to her heart's content without risk of harming the birds.

But if you allow your cat to wander alone outdoors or there are roaming cats in your neighborhood, be sure to place the birdfeeders away from bushes or any area where cats may lurk. In our yard, currently we have a square bird-feeding platform on top of a tall post which has proved squirrel-proof as well as cat-proof, as well as two bird feeders hanging from the ends of tree branches. You can also hang a bird feeder on a nail in front of a window. Putting a bell on a cat's collar is not much help. I've tried that. At best, the noise may give a bird an instant's warning to fly away, but that may not be enough time.

Don't leave food such as kibble, or anything that might seem edible to a hungry cat, on your property. If you do encounter unknown cats, try to determine who they belong to and advise their guardians of the dangers of allowing their cats outdoors, both to the cat and to birds. Roaming cats are preyed upon as well as being predators. They are subject to theft, disease, injury and death (from dogs, coyotes, raptors, snakes, other cats, bad weather, and cars, to name just a few hazards) and have shorter lives than house cats. I was foolish enough, years ago, to allow my recently adopted young cat Tigger to spend the night outside, where she was captured and eaten by an owl. Also, if roaming cats are not spayed or neutered, they will only contribute to the cat overpopulation crisis.

The populations of wild birds are steadily decreasing because of human encroachment on their territories and other factors. How large a role domesticated and feral cats play in this decline is not completely clear and remains a source of controversy among cat and bird lovers. The best thing you can do is to give birds the benefit of the doubt by not being an irresponsible cat guardian, because you'll be protecting your cat at the same time.