They are cute and everyone loves them but they kill birds and many of those birds are rare or endangered. Cats are invasive species and they disrupt the natural ecosystems they inhabit. There are bird species that will go extinct if something is not done about them.
But we love cats. Many love cats more than birds. So what can be done that isn't cruel? Culling them is out of the question!
So far what we think is the most humane way to handle this problem is to capture ferel cats, spay/neuter them, and then release them if we can't find anyone willing to adopt. Most cats get released with a clipped ear so we know not to catch them again. This solution doesn't solve the problem but itll slow or stop the problem from getting worse.
There is a silver lining. There are these other birds, the common house sparrow, that are invasive and have taken over. They are cute the way they chirp and play together but they don't have any songs and they challenge our native bird species. Despite their small size, they will gang up on and kill other birds. They also destroy nests. But the sparrows suck at flying so they are usually the ones that the cats get. So some people argue that the cats are actually helping the native species of birds by culling the invasive sparrows; but I disagree.
Don't you go thinking that this rant about cats and birds is actually some cheap metaphor for demographical changes in western countries! That'd be very wrong and very bad, you racist. Its literally just a rant about birds and cats.
Hawaii has a problem with an invasive slug eating crops. It has no natural predators there so authorities brought in another invasive slug to fight it, a carnivorous slug that eats other slugs. The result: The new slug completely ignored the invasive slugs and proceeded to decimate Hawaii's native slug species. Hawaii had over 700 species of endemic slugs and within a few years over 90% were extinct. Those 2 invasive slugs now dominate the islands.
Sometimes you can fight fire with fire. But you can't always fight invasive species with more invasive species.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuiK7jcC1fY