Selected passages from the new book "Cat Wars" by Peter P. Marra and Chris Santella, Princeton University Press, 2016, hardcover, illustrated, 212 pages with index, $24.95. Marra is the director of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. This is a most interesting and very well done book. I recommend it.

====

Cats are animals with fascinating and alluring personalities, but they can be destructive to native wildlife. Wild birds and mammals, however, also have rights that do not seem to receive as much attention as the claimed rights of cats to wander freely outdoors.

Domestic cats have been in North America for at least 500 years, if not longer, and their spread, through both unintentional and intentional actions of humans, earns them the status as one of the most successful invasive species on earth.

To be considered an invasive species, the plant or animal, whose movement is assisted by humans, must be nonnative to a particular location and to spread like wildfire there, causing ecological damage to native species and the habitats they occupy.

There are more cat owners in America now than at any time in history. But far fewer people, it seems, can summon affection for both cats and wildlife — and empathy for those they perceive to be on the "other side." As each side has swelled in numbers, the stage has been set for "bird people" and "cat people" to square off, forgetting, perhaps, that they are all animal lovers in the first place.

Globally, there are 40 native cat species in the family Felidae, indigenous to all continents except Australia and Antarctica. Most familiar are the large cats — Lion, Cheetah, Leopard, Jaguar, Snow Leopard, Cougar, and Tiger. The remaining species, all smaller, are the African Golden Cat, Andean Mountain Cat, Chinese Mountain Cat, Asian Golden Cat, Bay Cat, Bobcat, Black-footed Cat, Canada Lynx, Caracal, Clouded Leopard, Eurasian Lynx, Fishing Cat, Flat-headed Cat, Geoffrey's Cat, Kodkod, Jaguarundi, Jungle Cat, Iberian Lynx, Leopard Cat, Marbled Cat, Margay, Pallas' Cat, Pampas Cat, Ocelot, Rusty-spotted Cat, Sand Cat, Serval, Iriomote Cat, Oncilla, Colocolo, Pantanal Cat, and the Wildcat, the progenitor of the newest and most controversial species of feline — the Domestic Cat.

A female cat can produce a litter of as many as eight kittens. The average number of kittens in each litter is four to six. The female can be impregnated again within days of giving birth. Cats average three litters a year. Kittens can come into estrus as early as four months after birth.

Cats do not always kill out of hunger. They seem to be stimulated by the chase, and if not hungry will still kill.

===== My note:

Feral cats are animals that have been abandoned by their owners, or are runaways, consequently allowed to hunt and and breed uncontrolled. Cats make wonderful pets as long as they are kept indoors, always.