Three times in the last week I found myself making emergency trips to the Springwell Veterinary Surgery in Tring. Twice I came across Wood Pigeons, probably struck by cars, floundering helplessly on the pavement and then, worst of all, a Grey Squirrel, it's back broken after having being tortured by a cat. It can be very distressing but I am unable to leave an injured animal without doing something about it – I know that if I did nothing It would haunt me for days.
Wood Pigeons and Grey Squirrels? A lot of people might say, why bother? After all, they are both common and many would regard them as pests, but surely every creature has the right to any care available and should not have to suffer a second more than necessary if anything at all can be done to help it. I have often seen pedestrians stop and stare at an injured bird before hurrying on, probably putting it out of their mind straight away. I find this hard to understand, but I think a lot of people simply do want the responsibility or the hassle. After all caring is easy but getting involved is much harder. Understandably there are many who would like to do something but are frightened to touch or pick up an injured creature. Sadly, far too many people just don't care.
Last year I remember finding a stricken Blackbird, sitting stunned in the middle of the pavement in Tring, after having hit a shop window. Shoppers were virtually stepping on the bewildered bird, barely giving it a glance as they rushed past, yet when I picked it up, a women came up and thanked me for caring and doing something. Perhaps everyone is waiting for someone else to deal with the problem. Maybe that is just human nature. Thankfully, there are thousands who will take responsibility for the injured wildlife the find regardless of how inconvenient or distressing.
Whether it's a Kingfisher or a Crow it doesn't matter – everything suffers equally and deserves the same care. How many people would walk past an injured bird but instantly rush a cat to the vet? One of the many problems that conservationists have to deal with is convincing the public that slimy, crawly creatures are just as important and worth saving as cute, fluffy and colourful ones. After all, who want to save a snake or a spider?
In our increasingly isolated urban lives we have become so divorced from the natural world that we view the it in the same way that we watch television. We try to tame nature, influence it, watch it, mess with it, sometimes even try to save it and of course we can switch it off at any time. We are not part of the natural world any more, we chose to leave it behind and now we watch wildlife through windows. We find it harder and harder to engage with the natural world. Its easier keep nature at a distance and walk on by.
When their cats kill a bird, many people will say, “it's just nature”, but of course it is not. Domestic cats are not part of nature, they have been created by us for our own purposes and introduced into the environment at a terrible expense to the natural world. Cats are a convenience pet for people who don't want to have the responsibility of truly caring for or worrying about an animal. Let's face it, a bit of food and water is all a cat requires and after that it can be forgotten about. Often people haven't a clue where their cat if for most of the day or night and all that time it can come and go, wreaking havoc on the local wildlife. Many cat owners would not like to admit it, but their pets do not need them to survive and of course it is this that makes cats so damaging. Research has shown that a bell prevents about 50% of kills, yet how many cats do you ever see with bells on their collars?. It's such a simple thing, but it seems that most cat owners can't be bothered, which makes me wonder how much they really care about the problem.
In my work I often come across the depressing sight of gardens littered with the dead bodies of birds and small animals. Latest figures suggest that cats kill 55 million birds and 275 mammals in Britain every year. These are terrifying figures and are inevitably having a huge impact on our embattled wildlife that already has so much to contend with. I realise that many of the birds taken by cats are weak or sick and probably would not survive the winter. In fact research has suggested that cats have little effect on bird populations, but I find this a bit hard to accept. Birds are in a decline across a broad front and there are many factors involved so I find it difficult to believe that the loss of such a vast numbers every year is having no effect. The millions of young birds snapped up each spring, whether weak or healthy will not have the opportunity to survive the winter and to breed the following year. They are as vulnerable as a small child on a busy road. They don't stand a chance. And surely the loss of so many small mammals each year must have an effect on the feeding opportunities of predators such as Kestrels and Owls, especially in a hard winter.
Prey and predators populations control each other's size, but an introduced predator like the cat, that does not rely on it's prey for survival, has a terrible effect on wildlife that is already struggling. Effectively, whether we like it or not, cats are vermin. Many people who happily claim to love and care about the wildlife in their gardens also keep cats, but I am sure that many cat owners do not want to face the truth about their pets. It is surprising how often that it is the neighbours' cat or the cat from down the road that causes all the mayhem!
Those 'nasty' avian predators, the Sparrowhawk and the Magpie are often blamed for the decline of our 'nice' garden birds, but humans will always find something else to blame rather than turn the mirror on themselves. The painful reality is that almost all the problems confronting wildlife and the environment in this country can be laid at our door. We just don't want to hear it.
Ok, I know this is a bit of a rant! After all, I grew up on a farm and I am not squeamish and really shouldn't let an injured Squirrel get to me, but sometimes things get through a chink in the armour, burrow inside and won't leave you alone.
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