Pet cat on bird killing spree. Help!

[DrWu]

I know it's their nature and all that but our year old female cat is single handedly trying to wipe out the local population of small birds here. We quite like the little fellas and wondered if anyone had heard a a humane way to put the cats off their stride?

Thanks.

[LordAlmighty]

I would say dont keep your cats indoors as most cats like the outdoors and it would be cruel to keep them indoors, but the bell on the collar would be better because i have three cats and i can hear them clearly when they are in the garden so that would probably work best. I know its not nice that birds die but its just nature.

[babthrower]

My cat Valentino ('Tino') Finnegan catches anything smaller than himself. Presents on the deck in the morning have included dragonflies and crickets as well as birds and mice, rats, squirrels, voles, even shrews and moles, which it is said cats don't like because of their odor, all nicely laid out. *** I wouldn't mind if he caught robins (thrushes here in Canada, not like the little European robin) and starlings, which are very common, but he seems to love the rarer songbirds such as cedar waxwings and various song sparrows. He taught himself to hunt (he was an orphan, mother killed by car, so no one taught him). I can't teach him not to hunt. I've tried the negative conditioning (ignoring him, scolding him, locking him in his carrier for half an hour) and all it does is make him sulky. I have a friend who has doctored the tiny corpses with cayenne and tied them to his cat's collar and it did no good at all. *** All I know is when Tino goes to the great kitty home in the sky, I will not get another cat.

[matimage]

Doesn't it strike any of you that cats are simply not good 'pet' animals? And the argument that its cruel to keep them indoors is ridiculous, ALL animals love being outside, but I would be mad to let my hamster out and about...