An animal shelter spends $1.00 per day to care for each bird and $6.50 per day to care for each cat. josiah noticed that the shelter spent $161.50 caring for birds and cats on friday. josiah found a record showing that there were a total of 46 birds and cats on friday. how many birds were at the shelter on friday? '

Let the number of birds be x and that of cats be y
The total number of animals will be:
x+y=46
⇒x=46-y

The total amount required for the caring will be:
x+6.5y=161.50

susbstituing the value of x in the above equation we get:
46-y+6.5y=161.50
solving for y we get:
5.5y=115.5
y=115.5/5.5
y=21
hence the number of cats is 21 cats, that of birds will be:
46-21=25 birds