Anguish, by August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck, c. 1878. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

Animals

Volume VI, Number 2 | spring 2013

Miscellany

According to a study by the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute published in 2013, there are in the U.S. around 84 million cats with owners and between 30 and 80 million feral cats, most of which are hunters. The Institute estimates that felines in the latter group kill between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds a year and around 15 billion mammals.

Man and animals are really the conduit of food, the sepulcher of animals, and resting place of the dead, one causing the death of the other, making themselves the covering for the corruption of other dead bodies.

—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500