On the radio I heard that scientists have been studying the bird population in Scotland. Apparently, the main food source for the Blue Tit is now peanuts. Eating this readily available, protein rich and high energy diet, this species now exists upon, has conferred a competitive advantage. Blue Tits are larger, have greater chick survival and consequently are now “crowding out” other small bird species such as finches. Another unrelated article quoted something like “the UK now produces 150,000 tonnes of bird seed each year” and that “consumers spend £250 million” on this.
Just Cats and Dogs
Recently the European Commission spent a few quid on producing a report that stated that over half of all global households now own either a cat or a dog. Globally 55m ha of land are given over to food production for these two species and that the environmental impact receives little attention by anyone. Globally 95% of money spent on pet food goes on just cats and dogs (1.)
However, we do have a solution!
The nine million cats in Britain are thought to be killing 55 million birds annually. These include such rare and declining species as house sparrows. As there are 26 times more cats than foxes and six times more cats than all wild terrestrial predators combined, no‑one can doubt that the domestic cats can be both a solution and a problem! (3)
1) Science for the environment. European Commission. The Global environmental paw print of dry pet food.
3) Look What The Cat Brought In Survey conducted by The Mammal Society's Mammal action youth group.