I’m so proud of my little hunters when we play with toys that simulate prey. They’re so fierce. Larry will become fierce. Good job, hunter! Good job, good job!
Fuck me that is adorable! Well done, Larry, you are indeed a mighty hunter!
Good job Larry
Cats are so different. Our current ones bring in so many little critters and let them go in the house, still alive, we had to close the cat door so we can check them before they come in. A past cat used to bring us paper and paper-like items, from food wrappers to people’s junk mail, and one time the next door kid’s report card. My wife’s theory was that that cat thought paper things would please us because she saw us doing a lot of things with paper - we used to do a lot of printing. But I think the cat just didn’t really get the whole hunting concept.
“Outdoor cats” are an invasive species that kill billions of animals every year, are a significant contributor to dozens of species’ extinction, and live shorter lives than cats properly cared for (i.e. kept indoors) including nearly 3x the risk for infections.
It’s a plague. We can’t keep normalizing this.
Those numbers are suspect. https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast and probably are a majority unowned cats. It’s not important to make sure your cat is spayed or neutered than making sure it stays indoors.
What you’ve presented is a deeply biased opinion piece, and it wears this immense bias on its sleeve. It fearmongers that thinking about cats as killing wildlife could cause “extremism” (it then cites as its lone example a man who suggested banning cats in New Zealand; soooo scary). It cites some organization called “Alley Cat Allies” who call it extremely biased with ostensibly zero credentials. They cite lobbyist and serial sexual harasser Wayne Pacelle formerly of the Humane Society who questions the methodology but even concedes: “We don’t quarrel with the conclusion that the impact is big.” And lastly, King herself does her own analysis on this meta-analysis’ methodology despite being – I emphasize – a professor of anthropology with no background in this field.
So your article has no one familiar with this field who could challenge if these statistical assumptions are actually reasonable. And here, given the authors are experts (and absent some published literature rebutting this in the 12 years since), I have no reason to believe their methodology would be so off as to meaningfully change the idea that “outdoor cats” are severely problematic.
Mine was a deeply biased opinion piece, and yours weren’t full of emotionally charged imagery and language? OK
Yeah but birds aren’t real.
and there’s this great news: https://scitechdaily.com/bird-flu-is-now-killing-cats-at-a-90-fatality-rate-experts-warn-it-could-jump-to-humans/
This is the opposite of great
Going into your own backyard is a lot different than running through the neighborhood uninhibited.
you’d need a very special backyard to fence a cat in
- I don’t think most people’s backyard is some kind of wildlife exclusion zone, and the problem isn’t specifically that cats are killing animals in other backyards that the neighbors called “dibs” on first.
- The cat obviously isn’t being attended to while it’s outside.
- The owners clearly imply that their other two cats have done the same thing and brought them dead animals before.
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Cats don’t give a fuck about ‘property lines’. Period.
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Cats will kill even when they don’t need to feed. Lock them up.
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I love our cat, and I don’t want to see it squished in half by a car. I keep it inside. It’s a rescue, I know it was an outdoor cat before. It’s fine now.
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“Outdoor cats” are just cats. They are not a domesticated species, hunting is their instinct, and should just not be introduced in places where they wreck havoc to the environment. Where they are endemic (Europe and continental Asia) they don’t cause troubles to the ecosystem
Wrong. Outdoor cats pose a significant risk to birds in Europe as well, especially because Europe has massively reduced the habitat of wildlife in recent centuries.
Cats found 200-500 meters away from any property are shot by hunters in Germany. Between 2007 and 2022 over 160,000 cats were killed in just 5/16 German states (the remaining one’s don’t publish numbers).
Source? Never heard of that. German sources are fine as well.
That’s where the 160,000 deaths number came from. The largest German nature conservation NGO is also quoted as saying cats are a danger to birds.
A single district in Northern Germany has had 660 cats shot within a year. In the dstrict’s state 2580 cats were shot in total. Note that the “landesweit” doesn’t refer to countrywide but rather to statewide (as German states are called “federal countries”).
Nobody minds them when they’re catching rats.
Domestic cats arent the problem; ferals are…usually from owners who abandon them.
We dont have a bird shortage by any stretch…they come and eat the leftover cat food.
I definitely do mind, as much as when they kill birds or even insects.
A pet shouldn’t be allowed to murder all day long.
Except they dont murder all day long. That’s human’s job.
As long as you spend time providing your cat proper enrichment to express their hunting instincts, an indoor cat will be just as happy as an outdoor cat.
In my experience it highly depends on the cat. Some are perfectly content with proper scratchers and toys inside, some just visibly suffer staying inside, it might help we are far from the busy city with plenty of green and huntable animals, but most of our cats spend ~80% of time outdoor during summer and ~30% during winter.
most of our cats spend ~80% of time outdoor during summer and ~30% during winter.
put a camera on them if you think they’re not killing birds. seriously.
edit: they won’t, because they don’t want to admit their precious baby is out there mauling the shit out of the bird population. what a coward - insists their carnivore isn’t hurting anything, but won’t verify it because afraid of truth.
I’m not saying they are not killing birds, or mice, or small preys in general. Cats are predators and amongst the best. What I’m saying is that they are invasive only in places they never were in before human brought them (like Australia or small islands). In continental Eurasia (except areas where they are explicitly been controlled), they have always been there, and the environment is adapted to their presence and will not significantly suffer, not more than any other predator.
ah ok cool
KEEP THEM INSIDE THE FUCKING HOUSE YO.
DO YOU WANT IT TO LIVE?
300 dead cats in 20 years in 18 countries? I’m guessing that house fires kill more cats than that.
I don’t knoe why people are obsesse with keeping cats inside. In a less urbanized area, they are perfectly safe staying outside.
You should be aware this is an extremely American sentiment bordering on ignorant. Nowhere else in the world do you find people berating people for letting cats go outside.
Even in America, you won’t find it. It’s only coming from chronically-online people who are afraid of everything.
I’m sure if you could communicate the dangers to your cats, most of them would still choose to go outside. Locking cats indoors their entire lives is cruel.
I’ve heard it my whole life from my vets. I don’t know what you mean by “even in America you won’t find it”
I’ve got bad news: your vet is a chronically online loser who is afraid of everything!
