It must have been a very tough decision for an animal lover, to decide between the lives of an endangered bird family, and a cat, who is only loose because of some irresponsible human abandoning it. Still, with a billion birds in the USA killed each year by cats, it would be hard for a person with his knowledge and love of ornithology to do nothing when he saw a bird family in obvious danger.

Poor Kitty, and poor birds too…people have a lot to answer for.

Other false statements; if all the cats were gone it would have no impact on bird numbers. Even if each cat in the country only killed one bird per year, if there are 60 million cats, that is 60 million birds gone. Also, most bird watchers love cats. We just believe they belong indoors because of their non-native status. Cats kill even when they’re not hungry. As for the mice and rats cats take; it’s no wonder native hawk and owl populations have plummeted. Cats are helping to deplete their food source too.

The only thing Kim is right about is habitat destruction. We destroy the land for our homes and businesses and then we bring in non-native predators to kill the wildlife that survived the initial destruction of the habitat.

Dogs can be shot for chasing deer. What gives cats the right to kill other forms of native wildlife? Whether it’s birds or rodents you think because birds are small, they’re brainless?

As for global warming; where is your proof of this? Al Gore is the only nutcase believing this. The earth constantly changes, get over it! Oh yeah and go to the archives and find some newsweek articles from the 70″s. We were supposedly entering an ice age at that time. All scientists can do is speculate. And they all have different opinions. Do the research. And besides, most of the country was covered by glaciers 10 thousand years ago. I suppose we caused them to melt as well. And besides global warming could help the birds. Instead of only being able to reproduce when it’s warm, longer warm seasons could mean more broods being hatched to replace those that have been lost to unnatural causes.

When you claim birds are pushed out of the nest by mother and siblings, please explain to the readers why! When this happens it is usually related to food availability. The youngest or weakest sometimes needs to be eliminated to ensure survival of the rest of the brood. It could mean losing the whole family if they can’t find enough food. This strategy has worked for millions of years.

And Kim, where did you find the fact about being between spiders and reptiles? Is this supposed to be the level of intelligence or where they are placed on the evolutionary scale of when they came into existence? Nobody, not even scientists can claim what animals feels more emotion than others. Until animals can speak for themselves, we’ll never know. So far, birds are the only ones who can speak.

cats are the second to primate species as the most emotional being of the animal family, as well as the second most intelligent. Anyone whose seen a mother care for her kittens doesn’t have to be told this–and outdoor ownerless, stray, feral, cats, they’re genetically the same, with the same emotional and intelligence.

Cat guardians, please know that there are neighbors like these people, using this undocumented number… 60 million bird deaths a year — to justify “eliminating” cats from their yards, how? by luring it in with bait that wafts around to your yard. ( doesn’t 60 million turn out to be 1 for every 3 cats, and most undoubtedly were sick, or fell or pushed out of the nest–yes, baby birds are pushed out of their nest by the mother and by the siblings; they do that commonly).

Birds are ranked somewhere around spiders and reptiles. Just some facts.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/scie.....s.taxonomy

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11236682/

Bird numbers are down, up to 90%, in some places, already due to habitat loss, climate change. And the worse bird loss is yet to come due to global warming.

Seems to me the bird people, which have been the most worst of the cat haters for centuries, way before anyone said there were ‘too many’ outdoor ownerless cats, are just riding the bird loss hysteria to rile up the rest of the cat haters out there, in their quest for a cat-free world.

Bird people have proclaimed a global ban on all outdoor cats, even your cat in your yard, unless you put it in a cage with a top, so a bird can’t fly into your yard. Because, even the loss of one bird to a cat is not acceptable ( acutal quote from prominent bird website).

Cat people are very different than bird people. Look at these blogs, numerous since the Stevenson trial: All this talk of killing, poisoning, calling cats criminals for walking on plants to pooping in gardens, and calling for their deaths…what about birds, pooping on our windshields, on our sidewalks, taking down airplanes, causing the avian flu that killed 50 million people 80 yrs ago, and preparing to do the exact same thing again…still are cat people joking about putting about poison bird seed, mass extermination of birds…

In the absence of any science, and to not admit their personal hatred of cats, they lie, and lie, and lie…and, notice they never mention, the victims of cats predatory instinct— NEVER EVER— the word, rodent, mouse, rat…only ‘wildlife’.

How many birds can 60 million stray cats kill in a year? I have no cats, yet I have “eliminated” more than a dozen from my yard this year alone. Not to mention more than a dozen road killed cats in the same amount of time within a mile from my house. And I wonder “Why don’t I see Eastern Towhees anymore?”

What’s even sicker is while birding Texas in spring and seeing a beautiful Painted Bunting or Scarlet Tanager or other migrant bird sitting on the ground, unable to fly another foot after crossing the Gulf of Mexico and knowing how many of these exhausted birds are being killed by “non-native” cats.

This is an ecological disaster that needs to be taken care of. But some people seem to think that cats are more alive, or higher creatures, than birds. This is false! I used to feel that way, too, until I began watching and studying birds. I never knew the toll cats were taking on our “native” wildlife until then. It’s staggering and scary to think we may soon lose Piping Plovers, Kirtlands Warblers, Black-capped Vireos, etc.

Everybody should have to take some type of ecological course in school and study the local, native wildlife. With some education, they would understand the reason behind the shooting and know that he’s not a cat killer, but rather a defender and lover of native animals. Stevenson saved many lives by removing the “non-native” cat.

I’m tired of the bleeding heart cat lovers out there who think it’s nature for cats to kill birds. Isn’t also nature for dogs to chase deer? Where I live the law says dogs can be shot for it. I doubt he would have shot a fox. They are native and part of the wildlife chain. Endangered, native animals should always take precedence over non-native, severely overpopulated ones.

In addition, any cat owner who lets their cats run free and kill native birds, which are protected by Federal law, should be charged with a felony. Guaranteed, if Stevenson would have shot the plover rather than the cat, he would be doing jail time. Newland should actually be the one on trial for letting the (alien) cats hunt native birds.

Justice was served, the jury was deadlocked. Jim Stevenson killed a cat that he thought was going to kill a Piping Plover. Cats are estimated to kill between several hundred million to one billion birds a year (American Bird Conservancy). Cats do NOT belong outdoors, even well-fed cats will kill birds just for ’sport’. Cats have caused bird extinctions around the globe, especially those introduced to islands. There is nothing natural about their roaming free in North America.

I have a cat, and she is a well-loved INDOOR cat. Feral cats should be eliminated. Period.

I love cats - got one of my own - but this whole case reeks of an ADA who is looking to forward her career at the expense of common sense and rationality.

And now - let the name calling commence, as I know that’s what’s coming from you lot.

??? Trespass?

Birds trespass on your property all the time, and poop on your step, and nest in your gutters, etc etc. I don’t see you shooting them.

The wonderful thing about both cats AND birds is that they don’t read property deeds, they don’t know what a property line is.

(Just for the record, I hope they throw his butt in jail)