MONTGOMERY, N.Y.—Authorities are investigating the deaths of dozens of cats found at an upstate New York home after the former owner was evicted.
The Times Herald-Record reports that the remains of 89 cats had been removed from the house in Montgomery as of midday Friday.
Montgomery town Police Chief Arnold “Butch” Amthor says conditions in the house were “horrific.”
Boxes containing more dead cats were found in an open grave behind the house. A label on one box read, “RIP Zippy you were a good little girl.”
The cat remains were discovered when a work crew arrived to clear out the house. Animal Control Officer Anne Ilkiw says about eight cats survived.
Authorities say animal cruelty charges may be filed by the Orange County district attorney’s office.
Too Many Cats: There Are Consequences
North America’s skies are lonelier and quieter as nearly 3 billion fewer wild birds soar in the air than in 1970, a comprehensive study shows.
The new study focuses on the drop in sheer numbers of birds, not extinctions. The bird population in the United States and Canada was probably around 10.1 billion nearly half a century ago and has fallen 29% to about 7.2 billion birds, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science.
“This is a landmark paper. It’s put numbers to everyone’s fears about what’s going on,” said Joel Cracraft, curator-in-charge for ornithology of the American Museum of Natural History, who wasn’t part of the study.
“It’s even more stark than what many of us might have guessed,” Cracraft said.
The common house sparrow was at the top of the list for losses, as were many other sparrows. The population of eastern meadowlarks has shriveled by more than three-quarters with the western meadowlark nearly as hard hit. Bobwhite quail numbers are down 80%, Rosenberg said.
Grassland birds, in general, are less than half what they used to be, he said.
Not all bird populations are shrinking. For example, bluebirds are increasing, mostly because people have worked hard to get their numbers up.
The study didn’t go into what’s making wild birds dwindle away, but past studies blame habitat loss, cats and windows.
A 2015 study said cats kill 2.6 billion birds each year in the United States and Canada.
That’s why people can do their part by keeping cats indoors, treating their home windows to reduce the likelihood that birds will crash into them, stopping pesticide and insecticide use at home and buying coffee grown on farms with forest-like habitat, said Sara Hallager, a bird curator at the Smithsonian Institution.
“We can reverse that trend,” Hallager said. “We can turn the tide.”
