By Dr. Robert Thorson

Spring is the time for the musical ensemble of singing birds, chattering chipmunks and peeping frogs. As we progress toward summer, however, I expect to hear fewer of these wildlife sounds due to predation by bored housecats, who hunt them for sport.

According to the American Bird Conservancy, “There are more than 90 million pet cats in the U.S., the majority of which roam outside at least part of the time. … Scientists estimate that free- roaming cats kill hundreds of millions of birds, small mammals, reptiles and amphibians each year. Feline predation is an added stress to wildlife populations already struggling to survive habitat loss, pollution, pesticides and other human impact.”

So, because I like wildlife better than housecats, I have three win-lose propositions to make.

The first is to treat cats as 100 percent wildlife by letting them go truly wild, rather than partly wild. Because cat populations are now being sustained at unnaturally high levels by human care, a stopfeeding ordinance would cause a proportionately greater die- off for cats relative to their prey. After crashing to a low point from starvation, coyote predation and competition with other small predators, the Felis catus population would evolve toward more healthy, stealthy and sexy felines. All other things being equal, the wildlife population would also increase.

The second proposition is to treat cats as 100 percent domestics by either keeping them indoors or restraining them in some way, perhaps with a fence or a tether. Cats would no longer be predators because all their victuals would be served on a platter. As with the first scenario, the cat population would likely shrink because it would be more hassle to care for them, and because potential owners might feel guilty for imprisoning them. All other things being equal, the wildlife population would increase across the board.

The third proposition is to treat cats as 100 percent genetically engineered pets. If we can breed a chicken for big breasts, a cow for mucho milk and a sheep for dumb docility, then certainly we can breed a cat to be cute and clumsy. All other things being equal, the wildlife population would increase across the board.

All three scenarios present a gain for wildlife in exchange for some loss to cat lovers. But none sound acceptable to me. If forced to choose, however, my favorite would be the “wild kingdom” because it would increase the wildness of our world — for both predator and prey — without threatening us in any way.

At some point in the future, seeing a sleek, truly wild tomcat could be as thrilling as seeing a bobcat today. But I’m too much of a realist to believe this will ever happen. The co-evolved symbiotic bond between Homo sapiens and Felis catus is too strong to make the starve-a-cat scenario emotionally palatable.

My least favorite scenario is the fully domesticated one. Even a bad zoo would look good to a cat that has been treated as a shut-in for too long. Given the circumstances, the genetically engineered scenario might be the best unhappy compromise. This way, the prey species are not unfairly targeted, cats can roam freely (albeit slowly) and people can cuddle cuteness. The downside of this scenario is a psychic cost of taking the cat out of the cat. This is devolutionary