Migratory Bird Center, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, P.O. Box 37012 MRC 5503, Washington, District of Columbia 20013, USA.
Nat Commun. 2013;4:1396. doi: 10.1038/ncomms2380.
Anthropogenic threats, such as collisions with man-made structures, vehicles, poisoning and predation by domestic pets, combine to kill billions of wildlife annually. Free-ranging domestic cats have been introduced globally and have contributed to multiple wildlife extinctions on islands. The magnitude of mortality they cause in mainland areas remains speculative, with large-scale estimates based on non-systematic analyses and little consideration of scientific data. Here we conduct a systematic review and quantitatively estimate mortality caused by cats in the United States. We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.4-3.7 billion birds and 6.9-20.7 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals. Scientifically sound conservation and policy intervention is needed to reduce this impact.
人为威胁，如与人为结构、车辆碰撞、中毒和被宠物捕食等，每年导致数十亿野生动物死亡。自由放养的家猫已在全球范围内引入，并导致多个岛屿上的野生动物灭绝。它们在大陆地区造成的死亡率仍在推测之中，大规模的估计是基于非系统性分析，很少考虑科学数据。在这里，我们进行了一项系统的综述，并定量估计了猫在美国造成的死亡率。我们估计，自由放养的家猫每年杀死 14 亿至 37 亿只鸟类和 690 亿至 2070 亿只哺乳动物。造成这种死亡率的主要是无主猫，而不是宠物猫。我们的研究结果表明，自由放养的猫导致的野生动物死亡数量比之前认为的要多得多，它们很可能是美国鸟类和哺乳动物人为死亡的最大单一来源。需要采取科学合理的保护和政策干预措施来减少这种影响。
