Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi my daughter did this experiment for her 7th grade life science class. It's been done a lot and well documented. she has finished everything except the part that says "why is this experiment important." We've been researching and we can see this experiment was actually state funded once but we can't find out why, why was it important to know if cats become predatory with non-local birds? I find a lot of article on the importance of cats in balancing the ecosystem by hunting small animals to keep their population down but I can find nothing that states the significance of knowing if cats respond differently to local and non-local birds. Can anyone tell us why this knowledge is vital? Thank you so much.

Hello and thank you for your question.

Through searching the scientific literature available, cats do cause significant mortality of wildlife in the United States, including birds. It would be very important to have a state-funded study of this, especially if the prey of the cats are becoming endangered. Here is an article I have found that details this problem:

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4 ... s2380.html

A rationale for the state-funded study you mentioned could be that if cats prey preferentially on non-local birds, then cats could be seen as a major source of their mortality [the non-native birds]. This could lead to actions to try to curtail this problem starting with the legal system.

I hope this helps to point you in the right direction. Feel free to ask further questions. Good luck!

-Pharma