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yeah, i guess iād say āmanyā not āmostā, but those who do, REALLY do. And i donāt think thatās inherently bad either. But, itās a value, a judgement statement. We all make these every day and thatās ok. Do i value my life, or my kidās life, or my dogās life (i donāt have a dog but probably will one day) over the chickadee in my bird house? Yes and i donāt see that as a bad thing, it would be kinda weird otherwise. But do I value your outdoor catās life over my chickadee, or 50 chickadees? To be honest, no. I am not advocating people harming other peopleās cats, and i donāt ever do so, but i think itās important for the pro cat people to understand that just because you value your cat more than 50 chickadees, doesnāt mean i do, or should. And there isnāt some sort of set in stone ethical reason for it either. itās just your values. Andā¦ the only real ethical balance to this is your cat stays on your land, and doesnāt eat āmyā chickadees.
If you take it back to the original question you are basically saying that the lives of feral or outdoor cats are more important than the literal existence of a whole species, instead of chickadees being eaten, some bird species is gone forever. I guess i just canāt conceptualize why someone would feel that way, though i recognize that some people do.
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Yes. Of course they do. We all do. Including iNaturalist Iām sure. However, there is nothing hidden about said agenda and thus you can take or leave their scientific citations if you so choose.
Iāll assume that wasnāt meant personally towards me. Your rebuttal doesnāt address my concern thoughā¦if diseases are kept in your house, fine. If theyāre affecting my water supply, thatās a different story. Also, Toxo isnāt the whole deal. Thatās something normally found in catsā feces not contracted in my understanding. There are other diseases that, according to DVMs, are avoided by cats being kept safely indoors.
That being said, I respect your right to disagree as this is a difficult issue for all Iām sure.
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Australian here- I support cat culls wholeheartedly and unashamedly. Our native wildlife is in desperate need of it for their very survival. Some may talk of small islands with cat problems- well weāre a whole continent overrun with them!
In rural and remote areas the feral cats can be several generations old. Given the harsh environment thereās a bit of selection for survival of the fittest/smartest so the cats you get out there are some real hard wild creatures who are expert specialists at targeting our native wildlife. Theyāre not your suburban pet cat. Its been hypothesised these overgrown wild cats may even account for āurban legendsā like the Penrith Panther, as the general public has a poor grasp on just how well a feral cat can thrive and how big they grow. Feral cats need to be culled out of necessity. Adoption is not an option, they are true wild creatures (and thereās just far too many of them to adopt out anyway!).
As for urban cats- some city councils have adopted a policy of confining cats to the owners property, with offending felines impounded. I think this is a good idea, both for the wildlife and the catsā own safety. Blows my mind that pet owners let their animals freely wander the high-traffic streets, and in high snake season (Iāve known several people who lost cats to snakebite in the city). If you cant provide a safe home enclosure for your cat you shouldnāt own one imo, same as any other pet. I donāt understand the attitude that cats are somehow an exception to the rule of a confined, controlled pet.
Further reading-
https://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2007/03/04/australias-new-feral-mega-cats
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-17/feral-cat-proof-fence-to-be-built-in-australia/9766830
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ABCās agenda is fewer dead birds and restoring the health of bird populations. Outdoor cats are an environmental disaster. They are a human-created species native to nowhere with a prey drive divorced from hunger through millenia of selective breeding. I love cats. I have two. They are inside only for their health and the safety of the neighborhood wildlife. All free-roaming cats should be subject to culling on sight. Owned or unowned there is no reason they should be out without a leash or in a catio or other enclosure.
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If anyone has concerns about the feasibility of large-scale cat culling, Iād just like to point out that Alberta has managed to keep itself virtually free of rats since their initial arrival in the 1950s:
If they can do it with rats, the same should absolutely be feasible with cats. There just has to be an ongoing commitment to maintaining that status.
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Yes, absolutely! Allowing cats, whether pets, strays, or ferals, to remain and roam outdoors is one of the leading human-caused factors of wildlife declines worldwide. Just as we have a responsibility to properly care for and manage our domesticated animals, we also have a responsibility to protect and conserve our native wildlife species.
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In the area we live in people releasing domestic cats or as they call them fixed cats has had devastating effects on our rabbit, ground squirrels
And tree squirrels here in the southern Sacramento Mtns of New Mexico the bird populations have felt it to, itās gotten so bad people up here are now shooting or using traps on the feral cats but
These folks keep dumping them off
Claiming that these are caught here and all they are doing is fixing them and giving them a home
Well they donāt belong here I wish they would stop itā¦
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how odd that invasive hippos are protected in Colombia. The horse situation is a weird one, because on the one hand there really WERE similar animals here a few millenia ago, but on the other hand, there were also saber toothed tigers, huge lions, dire wolves, etc, and currently there arenāt many predators out in the desert that will mess with wild horses and the chance of a solution like ākeep them on the landscape but with people hunting themā seems tiny as it would piss off both āsidesā.
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In some areas out here in New Mexico
They are considered invasive as they come
hippos? :)
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Horses that would be
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Over the past six months here in my part of South Korea Iāve noticed quite a few homemade shelters and feeding stations for cats popping up along a nearby stream. Many (most?) of them appear to be made out of larger-sized styrofoam boxes which are also an eyesore among the reeds and other plant life.
Thereās also a project in a district of Seoul to set up 21 feeding stations with 70 volunteers to man them. At least with this initiative thereās a plan to catch and neuter cats in an effort at population control.
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New article from the New York Times about cat culling in Australia- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/magazine/australia-cat-killing.html
A longer read but very worthwhile (and all pictures are benign, nothing gory).
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Iāve lost track of how many social media comments (presumably from cat lovers) Iāve seen in response to this article saying āOh, now Iām never gonna go to Australiaā
Itās really depressing seeing how much of the public values free-ranging cats over native wildlifeā¦
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People in my area started a petition asking the city to remove coyotes because some cats were presumably killed by them, and a few small dogs attacked. They all live right on the city edge and say they enjoy the ācountry settingā. They donāt even know it is the coyotes since the killings werenāt witnessed, but they saw coyotes so they must be the problem. Many animals will kill cats and small dogs. I wonder if they knew that how much of the ācountry settingā they would want removed? This is a people problem not a cat problem, so I have little hope it will be solved. Those who love and care for feral cats will go to great lengths to save one cat, but 1,000 birds not so much. They simply deny they kill anything because they are fed and donāt need to. Not sure how they spend so much time saving an animal and donāt even know its nature. Bitter? You bet. I tried working with them to prevent wildlife deaths and it is impossible.
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Itās there loss
The native wildlife their needs a break
And it looks like people are finally doing something to help
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Iāve got strong beliefs on this issue as well, and have a cat that does not go outside unless on a leash. The main reason for that is that my wife does not want the cat to catch a disease like feline leukemia or hiv from other cats. I have other reasons, but as long as sheās happy with a ācat - centricā approach, Iām happy too. Cats can get lethal diseases if they interact with feral cats, so perhaps that information could be used to stop people letting their pets outside without supervision. As for feral cats, kill, trap, poison, whatever, to get rid of them. If someoneās pet gets caught up in that, well the damned thing should not have been outside alone in the first place.
Sorry about the vehemence but this has grated on me for decades.
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Hereās an interesting new study
āThese debates are so divisive,ā says Wayne Linklater, an ecologist at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Yet āboth sides are conservationists. We both care about animals and our relationships with nature.ā
ā¦ dealing with human dimensions is essential: without buy-in from people responsible for cats, solutions are not likely to be durable ā¦ the researchers could then identify interventions that occupied a sweet spot of likely adoption by cat owners, support from vets, and potential for reducing wildlife death.
The highest-rated solution proved to be keeping cats indoors at nightāsomething thatās relatively uncommon in New Zealand, though already routine in many other parts of the world.
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Iām in rural NZ. Where I live it is simple - any cat spotted is shot. If missed, the settlement is notified and we all keep an eye out for it. We may see a cat about once or twice a year - but never the same one as it would have been dealt to quickly.
Same thing goes for dogs - any spotted where it shouldnāt be is shot on sight.
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