Cats should all be killed - to save our bird life, scientist claims

An American professor has come up with a bold new idea on how to preserve wildlife - which may not go down to well with cat lovers.

He wants to kill every free-roaming cat.

Dr Peter Marra says that free-roaming strays (and domestic cats who are allowed to roam) are responsible for millions of deaths of birds - and have made 63 species extinct.

His solution is that domestic cats should not be allowed to roam free, at all - and stray cats should be ‘euthanised’.

Dr Marra - author of a new book, Cat Wars - says, ‘In the UK there are 8.1 million cats and they kill about 275 million prey items per year. 55 million of those are thought to be birds.

‘From a conservation ecology perspective, the most desirable solution seems clear — remove all free-ranging cats from the landscape by any means necessary.

‘And cats have been implicated now in 63 extinctions of mammals, birds and reptiles.’

He is frank about his solution.

Dr Marra says, ‘Those cats need to be captured and unfortunately if they can’t be adopted out, they will need to be euthanised.’