Cat Wars Quotes

“The final mortality numbers showed that cats killed between 1.3 and 4 billion (median 2.4 billion) birds per year, with unowned cats causing the majority of the mortality (69 percent).”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“Few problems are less recognized, but more important than, the accelerating disappearance of the earth’s biological resources. In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it is perched.”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“Cats are opportunistic predators by nature. If given a chance to kill a bird or other small animal, most cats will take it. That is just the way cats are made.”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“At the same time, they will also express great concern about the future that awaits us should this at once powerful and fragile web begin to unravel.”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“Maybe the only explanation for people who have to ask why the Florida grasshopper sparrow matters is this: It matters not because it is a source of enrichment for human lives (although it is), not because it is a source of medicine or agent of pest control (it is probably neither), not because it is an “indicator species” that tells us we haven’t completely wrecked our habitat, not because it is anything, only because it is.3”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“many leaders would rather postpone action—take a wait-and-see attitude—than proactively work toward a solution.”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“The truth is that trap-neuter-return makes people—not cats and certainly not wildlife—feel better.”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“If current trends are not reversed, it is expected that at least one of New Zealand’s five kiwi species will go extinct within the next fifty years.”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“As with some examples we have shown earlier, these very vocal advocates seem to overlook the “genocide” of native animals perpetrated by introduced predators and display little “animal respect” for the Australian Continent’s 100-plus threatened species.”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith but by verification. —Thomas Huxley”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized that they were inside us. —Charles Darwin”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“As in the United States, this makes cats the most significant source of direct anthropogenic bird mortality.”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“6.3 to 22.3 billion (median 12.3 billion) mammals were killed every year by outdoor cats.”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“Certain bird species—herons, terns and ibises, for example—mesmerized Roosevelt. As president he insisted that killing one of these Florida exotics was a federal crime.”5”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“The cat, an introduced animal, is not needed here outside of buildings. It has disturbed the biological balance and has become a destructive force among native birds and mammals.”4”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

“By the time Lyall set foot on the shores of Stephens Island, almost a third of New Zealand’s unique species were already extinct due to Maori and European settlement, the habitats they destroyed, and the mammalian predators they brought with them.”
― Peter P. Marra, Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer