In Arizona I didn't mind the feral cats. Phoenix alone has an estimated population of over 1 million feral cats. Both in the city and out in the desert I put out just enough food for the stray cats to congregate but to still be hungry. It's been my observation that cats kill far more rodents than birds, and by an exponential amount. They would wipe out the rats and mice, then they would eradicate the gophers. I knew that all of the rats, mice, and gophers were eradicated when I started finding the bits and pieces of stripped jackrabbit (American Desert Hare) carcasses around. Occasionally they would nail a bird, and I would find the wreckage of that here and there, but birds were much harder for them to catch.
In a state where the health department passes around pamphlets that list a dozen very serious diseases carried locally by rats and mice, including a deadly form of Hanta and Bubonic Plague, you want the rats and mice wiped out.
When the rats and mice are gone, the rattlesnakes also don't bother coming near. In a state with 11 native species of rattlesnakes, that is important. Those things always find a way into your house, and for some reason they seem to have a preference for kitchen and laundry room. When living out in the desert, away from the city, I always kept a .22 revolver loaded with CCI .22LR shotshells in an upper cupboard in the kitchen. Those won't do any significant damage to the house, and they won't go through the side of a washing machine or even a kitchen cupboard but they will kill a rattlesnake.
One of the more odd things I've seen with feral cats is that sometimes they seem to tolerate the presence of skunks and possums, almost like they considered them to be another kind of cat. I've seen them just sit there while a skunk or possum walks right up to the cat food and have a snack, yet they slaughter everything thing else.
