Predators

No this isn’t a post on Graham Capill. It is back on the issue of cats. A reader e-mailed to say:

If Gareth Morgan had done anything sensible, like say putting “removing apex predators” in scholar.google.com, he would have found that it is well understood that removing a species such as cats (apex predator) from an ecosystem causes an explosion of smaller predators (meso predators).   In NZ that would be all the Mustelidae (Weasals, Stoats, Ferrets) and Rats.  It would also lead to an explosion in the numbers of mice who compete for food and possibly an increase in Hedgehogs (who also predate our birds).   Here’s an example of what he might have found http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01347.x/full   He could also have talked to some actual NZ ecologists, but hey.

Sci Blogs have had some good balanced posts on this also.