![]() ![]() On a larger scale, cats versus birds became the subject of a lawsuit in New York, where a colony of 30 cats living in a state park threatened the endangered piping plovers that nested there. "My product addresses the actual truth that many people let their cats outdoors." Nancy Brennan tweet this "I know COVID has made birders out of many folks out there, so I hope this message finds some traction," wrote another, who said they'd been chasing cats away from a downy woodpecker nest outside their home. "Could you please put a bell and collar on your cat? There are nesting birds around my home that this long haired black cat is preying on, not to mention chipmunks," pleaded one poster in a Burlington neighborhood. On a local level, this often comes in the form of Front Porch Forum posts. The cat-bird conflict has, inevitably, led to quite a bit of human-human conflict. And, for years, outdoor cats have been at the center of a roiling debate around the threat they pose to birds, many of which are already vulnerable to climate change and human encroachment into their habitat. ![]() Many of them are allowed to wander outside. has somewhere between 58 million and 94 million pet cats. In Duxbury, Brennan and George were living out a dynamic that exists in millions of homes across the country. If I don't do this, who will? Birdsbesafe was born. What about all the other cats? She asked herself. "It was such a difference, and was so close to 100 percent for him that it was stunning," she said.Īfter about a year, during which George seemed to lose interest in hunting altogether but never showed any negative effects from the collar, Brennan thought it might be time to bring her innovation to the world. But as the days went by, and then the weeks, she realized the collar was working. "At first, it was almost hard to believe that he had stopped," Brennan said, referring to the cat's hunting. So Brennan went to her sewing machine and made George a collar out of brightly colored, patterned fabric, sort of like an Elizabethan ruff. Human eyes contain three color receptors, but many types of birds have four, meaning they're seeing colors in ways we can't even imagine. She'd recently been reading about how songbirds, due to a unique eye structure, are extremely sensitive to bright colors. One day, George brought home a ruffed grouse, and an idea popped into Brennan's head: What if I make George more obvious? Once cats are accustomed to going outdoors, Brennan said, it's extremely difficult to keep them inside. George's hunting prowess couldn't be hindered by a bell, and making him an indoor cat was not an option. "I tried a couple different ways to stop him. When Nancy Brennan, a bird-watcher, moved in with George and his owner, who would become Brennan's husband, she found George's hobby upsetting, especially when he dragged his prey into the house. His name was George, and he was a skilled killer with an eye for birds. It all started with a murderous house cat. ![]()
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