A guest on This Morning is calling for cats to be banned in a bid to save the birds and 'help them thrive'.
Sally Jones appeared on the sofa to discuss a proposal to phase out cats in a New Zealand village to protect areas of The Bush and wildlife.
She admitted to agreeing with the idea of banning cats from some areas after she recalled watching one 'crunch' on a bird in front of her...
The journalist claimed that cats are 'evil' and that 55 million birds are killed each year by pets.
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Sally told hosts Phillip and Holly, Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby: "I was watching a beautiful yellow hammer on our bird table... and within about five seconds a big grey cat had jumped on it and crunched it.
"There's something we can do about cats, I think there's lots of things we can be doing as humans... there's lots we can do but one easy thing we can do close to home is control the number of birds out cats kill."
She added: "We're one of the worst culprits of depriving birds of their habitats.
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"They're natural born killers. Something like 275 million small mammals including birds are killed."
Holly came to the defence of the felines, as she has a pet cat, pointing out that many people use their pets to soothe anxiety and learn about bereavement.
Holly said: "A lot of people say their pets keep them calm, they help with anxiety. They help a family understand what it's like with the first thing of bereavement, is that a pet that's died."
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Sally went on to explain that she doesn't want a full ban of the household pets but suggested that there was more of an effort to stop them killing birds.
She suggested keeping cats inside, trying to rehome any feral cats and keeping them spayed and microchipped.
Phil pointed out to Sally that there was "no clear significant scientific evidence that that sort of mortality is causing populations to decline."
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Viewers were divided on the issue. One user against the ban said: "We need to control where they go this woman has obviously ever owned a cat #ThisMorning[sic]".
Another added: "My cat doesn't kill birds. She even followed a baby bird around the garden, sniffed it then left it alone. Ban cats and I will protest by getting more cats #thismorning[sic]".
Some viewers did agree with Sally, but for different reasons. One user wrote: "Ban cats, yes! I get sick and tired of finding cat poo in my garden[sic]".
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This Morning continues, weekdays on ITV at 10.30am.
Featured Image Credit: ITV/This Morning
Topics: This Morning, Celebrity News, TV News, TV Entertainment