What 33 species have cats made extinct

The first claim in your article

The authors estimate they are responsible for the deaths of between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds and 6.9-20.7 billion mammals annually

comes from this article (full-text), where the authors state (table 2) that domestic cats are responsible for the deaths of 1.4-3.7 billion bird deaths and a much larger number of mammal deaths in the US and Europe combined. They also state that the majority of these deaths are caused by unowned/feral cats.

This is a meta-study examining the existing literature on domestic cats with some novel analyses, and assuming that you agree with their analysis, this claim is true.

The second claim is that

Felines accompanying their human companions have gone on to prey on the local wildlife, and they have been blamed for the global extinction of 33 species.

is a slight misinterpretation of a statement in this (full-text) paper that states

Based on our database, feral cats on islands have contributed to 33 (13.9%) of the 238 global bird, mammal, and reptile extinctions (including species extinct in the wild but extant in captivity) recorded by the IUCN Red List.

What this says is that cats have contributed to, but are not solely responsible for these extinctions. Be aware though, that the paper is talking about extinctions in island fauna, which are often a special case because of restricted ranges and limited population sizes, especially when it comes to endemics. Such extinctions have been ascribed to several introduced predators (rodents, ferrets/minks), not just cats.

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ParameterNumber of studies used* Distribution typeDistribution parameters
Owned cats
 Number of owned cats in contiguous United States 2 Normal Mean=84 M, s.d.=2.5 M
 Proportion of owned cats with outdoor access 8 Uniform Min=0.4, max=0.7
 Proportion of outdoor owned cats that hunt 3 Uniform Min=0.5, max=0.8
 Correction for owned cats not returning prey 3 Uniform Min=1.2, max=3.3
BIRD return rate per cat per year
 US studies 4 Uniform Min=1.0, max=34.1
 US and Europe studies 11 Uniform Min=4.2, max=18.3
 All temperate studies 17 Uniform Min=3.4, max=13.2
MAMMAL return rate per cat per year
 US studies 1 NA† NA
 US and Europe studies 7 Uniform Min=11.1, max=29.5
 All temperate studies 13 Uniform Min=8.7, max=21.8
REPTILE return rate per cat per year
 US studies 0 NA NA
 US and Europe studies 1 NA NA
 All temperate studies 8 Uniform Min=0.4, max=2.21
AMPHIBIAN return rate per cat per year
 US studies 0 NA NA
 US and Europe studies 1 NA NA
 All temperate studies 5 Uniform Min=0.05, max=0.5
Un-owned cats
 Number of un-owned cats in contiguous United States 5 Uniform Min=30 M, max=80 M
 Proportion of un-owned cats that hunt 2 Uniform Min=0.8, max=1.0
BIRD predation rate per cat per year
 US studies 8 Uniform Min=24.4, max=51.4
 US and Europe studies 11 Uniform Min=23.2, max=46.2
 All temperate studies 19 Uniform Min=30.0, max=47.6
MAMMAL predation rate per cat per year
 US studies 6 Uniform Min=162.3, max=354.9
 US and Europe studies 7 Uniform Min=139.4, max=328.6
 All temperate studies 13 Uniform Min=177.3, max=299.5
REPTILE predation rate per cat per year
 US studies 1 NA NA
 US and Europe studies 2 NA NA
 All temperate studies 10 Uniform Min=4.2, max=12.4
AMPHIBIAN predation rate per cat per year
 US studies 0 NA NA
 US and Europe studies 0 NA NA
 All temperate studies 3 Uniform Min=1.9, max=4.7

  1. *Number of studies found that include an estimate of the model parameter.
  2. †No calculation was conducted for this data grouping because of limited data.

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