Pet lovers upset after Polish institute classifies cats as ‘invasive alien species’
- The Polish Academy of Sciences said its decision was based on the dangers cats pose to birds and mammals
- But Dorota Suminska, author of The Happy Cat, argued that other causes of shrinking biodiversity, including a polluted environment, can kill birds in flight
A Polish scientific institute has classified domestic cats as an “invasive alien species”, citing the damage they cause to birds and other wildlife.
Some cat lovers have reacted emotionally to this month’s decision and put the key scientist behind it on the defensive.
Wojciech Solarz, a biologist at the state-run Polish Academy of Sciences, wasn’t prepared for the disapproving public response when he entered Felis catus, the scientific name for the common house cat, into a national database run by the academy’s Institute of Nature Conservation.
The database already had 1,786 other species listed with no objections, Solarz said on Tuesday. Invasive alien species No 1,787, however, is a creature so beloved that it often is honoured in Poland’s cemeteries reserved for cats and dogs.
Solarz described the growing scientific consensus that domestic cats have a harmful impact on biodiversity given the number of birds and mammals they hunt and kill.
The criteria for including the cat among alien invasive species, “are 100 per cent met by the cat”, he said.