Birds kill trillions of worms and insects each year

[cthulu2016]

Well... they do.




Hence the saying the early bird gets the worm. But it's also the fashionably late bird, the tardy bird and even the truant bird. No worm is safe, and the soil will not aerate itself.



It is, however, always the second mouse that gets the cheese.

All of that said, cats killing birds is not intrinsically trivial. It is entirely possible that cat populations are larger than a local ecosystem could support, since we feed cats, and thus their population is not currently limited by starvation from lack of prey. If every cat were set free to fend for itself there would probably be a (short-term) bird and mouse-pocalypse. On the other hand, it seems likely that populations of some bird predators are smaller than the number the bird population could support. So with no cats we might find ourselves knee deep in birds. There is some number of billions of birds that are expected to be killed by some creature or another.

[NYC_SKP]

1. You should post this in GD.

[cthulu2016]

4. Y'know Skp, I am considering doing just that. (It does have a point, though...)

The number of birds killed by cats keeps being posted in successive articles in GD, but birds kill waaaaaaay more bugs than cats could ever hope to kill birds, so I guess it's about where one's sympathies lie.

[NYC_SKP]

6. Do you have a number for the microbes destroyed by worms and their slimy ilk?

Well, do you?

[cthulu2016]

8. I am confident my choice of dinner killed a trillion gut microbes.

[NYC_SKP]

10. You are a shill for the Vermiculobby!llE!!o11!!!11

Of course, I tease!

[cthulu2016]

11. Yes, I am in the pocket of Big Microbe

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

2. Caught a bird in a mousetrap the other day. It pretty much cut the bird in half.

I think there should be a clever saying for that.

[pinboy3niner]

7. A bird in the hand is worth 2 halves of a bird in the mousetrap

Or something.

[The Straight Story]

3. Only the government should be able to own birds, in them we trust

[Fumesucker]

5. Eh, they kill more damn sunflower seeds than that just around here n/t

[SpartanDem]

9. Those bloodthirsty murders!!!

SHAME SHAME!!!

[Jamastiene]

12. Now all we need is a humans kill x amount of x animal a year thread.

[cthulu2016]

13. Or God killing X number of humans per year

[KittyWampus]

14. which impacts bird populations more > deforestation/pesticides or cats?

[NoOneMan]

16. Deforestation for the purpose of growing cat food

Its a double whammy. Plus the cats don't like their wheat food.

[NoOneMan]

15. Im furious with our feathered friends