Sara Van Fleet (JSIS), “For the Birds:  A Gardener’s Jour­ney into Domes­tic Cat Territory”

• Jan­u­ary 25, 3:00–5:00, Sav­ery 408

Abstract: Over the past decade, I have worked on my three-acre Vashon Island prop­erty to estab­lish it as a vibrant wildlife sanc­tu­ary.  The prop­erty is now home to 74 species of birds, 5 species of rep­tiles and amphib­ians, 9 species of drag­on­flies, and a host of other wild crea­tures.   The prop­erty is now also part of the King County Rural Stew­ard­ship pro­gram and each year I lead wildlife gar­den­ing pre­sen­ta­tions and tours as part of the Audubon’s Enjoy­ment of Birds lec­ture series.  My work with Audubon as well as with the Vashon Island Pet Pro­tec­tors involves edu­cat­ing the pub­lic about the impact that free-roaming cats have on birds and wildlife and the impor­tance of keep­ing domes­tic cats indoors. A recent edi­to­r­ial in the Vashon paper high­light­ing the nat­ural beauty of the island men­tioned a local res­i­dent who was astounded to learn that Vashon is home to a rare native fly­ing squir­rel.  The res­i­dent learned about the fly­ing squir­rel after her cat killed it and dragged it inside.  Her seem­ing indif­fer­ence to this sad and unnec­es­sary act by her cat prompted me to write a let­ter to the edi­tor.  My let­ter sub­se­quently gen­er­ated a flurry of responses over a three-week period, many in sup­port, but some ques­tion­ing the valid­ity of my posi­tion.  This inci­dent has forced me to think about how I can be a bet­ter advo­cate for birds and wildlife (and cats too—as there’s over­whelm­ing evi­dence that they gen­er­ally live much longer and health­ier lives inside). Why does it appear that many peo­ple, even when faced with sig­nif­i­cant evi­dence to the con­trary, believe that cats belong out­side and that birds and wildlife are some­how expendable—or at the very least, are col­lat­eral dam­age in our right to allow our pets to free range?  How can we get our fel­low humans to extend their love and con­cern for com­pan­ion ani­mals to include a wider range of animals?

Sara Van Fleet, Ph.D., is a cul­tural anthro­pol­o­gist, wildlife gar­dener and Audubon instruc­tor.  Her writ­ing and pre­sen­ta­tions on wildlife gar­den­ing have appeared in Fine Gar­den­ing Mag­a­zine as well as King County TV’s Yard Talk.