The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States

This landmark quantitative synthesis estimated that free-ranging domestic cats kill billions of birds and many billions of mammals annually in the United States, identifying them as among the largest human-linked sources of direct wildlife mortality. By combining predation-rate data with cat-population estimates and applying systematic uncertainty bounds, the authors concluded that un-owned cats accounted for the majority of this toll. The study reframed the domestic cat as a major conservation problem rather than a benign companion, igniting vigorous scientific and policy debate over feral-cat management. It remains the central reference for understanding the ecological footprint of free-ranging cats in human-dominated landscapes.