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Posted by Jeanette on 10:24:48 05/23/14
In Reply to: Re: Neighborhood cat caught baby bird! posted by kurt d.
There could have been many more bird deaths due to the two dozen farm cats that you were not aware of. Any contact with cat saliva that gets in the birds system results in 100% deaths of the birds. Birds have no immunity to a certain bacteria present in cat saliva. Even the most miniscule exposure results in the birds death. A slight abrasion or feather contact with cat saliva etc. which the bird ingests will kill the bird within 48 hours of exposure. This means many birds could have flown away after contact initially appearing fine, only to die within 48 hours. Such a small sample of evidence as your farms etc. does not seem like it could give an accurate estimate of the number of birds killed per year country wide by cats. Conditions vary from area to area and would require much more extensive scientific data collection.
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