They lock their doors, huh? Afraid you're going to bust in and start industrializing their house?
I don't want to be a party pooper here, but please only do this if their house is behind a mountain range or other natural obstacle against invading fascists.
"Hi, yes. I'm calling because I'm concerned. Your son was seen passing out Kalashnikovs to my weekly maid service.... Well, of course I respect the 2nd Amendment.... Alright, but I really don't want to get into the LTV right now.... No, I don't have a Winter Pala- I mean ski lodge... Well, that's very sweet that you want to throw me a party in February, but I think I've got to go now."
The Satanic Panic rides again.
Maybe we'll even get to the point where people believe Socialism is transmitted off of toilet seats.
This is awesome, haha. But really, cats can be extremely bad for local ecosystems and food chains. It's just bringing in apex predators to neighborhoods and setting them free. A bell at a minimum.
Yes. it seems bizarre that when the topic of outdoor housecats comes up, people talk about the handful of birds a year a cat kills like it has any relevance at all to the suburb that has already been devastated. The figure that is usually thrown around (~2 billion birds killed by cats a year) includes feral and stray cats, so really all it does is highlight the importance of spay and neutering.
I hear what you're saying, but I'm not sure if I understand what you're getting at. Like, you think they should be spayed\neutered but allowed to be outside?
I feel the need to point out, I'm not disagreeing, just trying to be sure about what you mean.
Essentially, yes. A typical housecat isn't a good hunter, anyway, and I don't think animals are fit to live inside. Could you imagine never going outside? better to not have one in the first place.
A typical housecat isn’t a good hunter,
Completely and demonstrably wrong.
No, flat earther, I will not waste my time to Google shit for you when it is the first thing that will pop up when you search.
If you actually cared about correcting yourself and not just taking the opposing side you'd have looked it up already.
We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually, and that un-owned cats cause the majority of this mortality.
un-owned cats cause the majority of this mortality.
Yes, feral cats.
Additionally, outdoor cats are just feral cats in function, except someone is sponsoring their invasive activities.
Wrong, estimates differentiate between owned cats and unowned by a factor of like 10
eat shit and die. you are the one that made the initial claims, and failed to back them up. go fuck yourself.
http://www.ace-eco.org/vol8/iss2/art3/#killed
Sorry I missed that you're the same person from earlier when replying to inbox messages.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
Here we conduct a systematic review and quantitatively estimate mortality caused by cats in the United States. We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals.
Yes, if your argument is that feral cats do more damage than owned "outdoor cats" you are right. There are more feral cats.
But to point to feral cats as support for the argument that outdoor cats don't do that much damage is a simple whataboutism. People are pointing out that both are a problem, and deeply intertwined.
Outdoor cats make feral cats, they breed with feral cats, they become feral cats. And both hunt equally per-cat. The study is not saying that a feral cat individually kills more than an owned cat, it is saying most of the bird mortality is caused by the population of feral cats which is estimated to be between 60–160 million. Equal or more than the number of owned cats, of which many are not "outdoor cats" and actually have responsible owners.
An "outdoor cat" is estimated to kill about 2 birds per week on average, and that is far from your statement of "people talk about the handful of birds a year a cat kills" unless you have some massive hands.
Outdoor cats make feral cats, they breed with feral cats, they become feral cats.
Have you ever heard of anything called neutering?
And no, both do not "hunt equally per-cat". did you read the study I liked, or even your own?
TNR does not work and that is supported by almost every scientist in the field.
Neutering your "outdoor cat" is certainly better than not doing so. But it ignores how outdoor cats still kill hundreds of birds, small lizards, insects, rodents, etc. every year.
In no way can you argue outdoor cats is a net benefit. It's ridiculous to take that position beyond a desire for contrarianism.
I literally said not having a cat would be better than having one above. and no, an owned indoor-outdoor cat does not kill hundreds of animals a year. try reading your own sources
Why the hell are you arguing in favor of having an outdoor cat then?
I'm wondering that about yourself when all you've done in this comment chain is post falsehoods
Pets are good for human health and can have educational uses as well. Thats more importent than some birds. The decrease in bird population is much more related to insecticides and the suburbs usually kill or drive out all natural predators who would also kill birds.
You can have a cat and not let it destroy local ecosystems for funsies.
just because something is good for human health doesn't give humans the right to destroy the ecosystem. companion animals are fine but it's your responsibility to make sure they're not harming the ecosystem you share with billions of other lives.
We put our cat out on a leash and let him do his thing in the yard. Cats absolutely kill wild birds.
Yeah, I agree with that. I'm not knowledgeable enough to speak on the exact effect it has on the environment or anything, but definitely spay and neuter. Every animal I've had has come from the pound, spayed neutered, etc.
cus it's not about the enviroment, it's just people who hate cats. these same people were saying it should be okay to kill your neighbors cat cus it walked in your yard. now they're spreading the entirely unscientific idea that cats are some massive bird killer, even though every actual study done with peer review has shown they're not a problem (other than on islands or aus/nz, different ecosystem there)
Yeah, why try to remove cats when you could remove chuds? Chuds contribute at least 1000x more CO2/methane/etc
I never trapped one or anything. Probably a smarter idea. There are just so many feral cats where I live, it's awful. Then my mean ass pound puppy pitbull kills em. Which, I feel bad about, but it's the outside? Like, how can I police that.
seriously I love my cats but ferals need to be straight up hunted down like it's 18th century England so they don't destroy every other animal in a 5 mile radius.
I know someone who bought a raccoon trap just to bring ferals to the feral cat spay and neuter and honestly god bless em.
Spay and neuter is useless. Unless you then keep them indoors you've done almost nothing a released them back to destroy the environment.
If you trap a feral cat, kill it. Invasive cancer to the outdoors.
Killing eliminates the thousands of colonies of TNR ferals across the country. Killing versus TNR is the difference between the amount of feral cats being the same as domesticated cats in this country (current) and no feral cats. Take note from other countries like Australia that do their best to kill them, not sustain them.
at this point it's better to TNR, not cull. with TNR you can control population growth and they keep unfixed cats out of your area. when you cull, new cats constantly move in because other places don't TNR.
I also provide biodegradable toys for my ferals so they have something to play with that's not a living creature. it helps some, but they do still hunt.
This is wrong. Every actual scientist on the issue agrees TNR does not work. Cats hunt for enrichment regardless of being fed and you're letting them continue their full lives hunting birds and other small animals. While people release more cats.
my evidence is obviously anecdotal, but since I started TNR a few years ago, the amount of cats that come to my feeding station has gone down as kittens are removed and given homes. i don't see as many adults walking around.
it does seem to work for my area and it's what all of the groups in the area recommend. idk there's no way I'm killing a cat who didn't ask to be born in this situation.
Anecdotal evidence holds no weight over actual science. These cats are invasive and if you care about saving the environment and all the other animals who didn't ask to be killed by this virus of an animal we introduced you wouldn't feed them and allow them to live out the rest of their lives continuing to kill any small being they can capture just for fun.
https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Castillo-and-Clarke-2003-TNR-ineffective-in-controlling-cat-colonies.pdf
link to something that isn't 17 years old at least.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5704110/
17 year old science doesn't suddenly become not science, what?
so what, is geocentric theory still valid? science can form the wrong conclusions from the data present at the time. please read the one i linked that is much more recent. it includes this note:
"Nevertheless, it has been suggested that an “information vacuum” exists relative to the innumerable TNR programs carried out across the U.S. over the past 25 years [7] (p. 1). Because robust data from these programs have been scarce, determinations about program impacts have typically been based on anecdotal evidence [7,18,24]."
if they're saying that when this was published in 2017, what does that say about the 2003 one?
also btw, i'm not downvoting you.
You're here flaunting science and logic then go and say something as stupid as "is geocentric theory still valid"?
These two studies support each other. That's why, the 2003 one is not disproven by later studies. There is nothing wrong with having linked that one.
it was a joke.
the study i linked supports community cat management strategies like TNR, a local cat shelter (no questions asked surrenders = less cats being dumped), and adoption of sociable cats. it does not say TNR is ineffective.
it varies from field to field, but in general around the 10 year mark is when the probability that a specific study is likely to be disproven becomes greater than the probability that it's results will hold. in some fields that have lots of attention/researchers or rapidly changing methods/tech, it's much shorter (look at how quickly the scientific evidence on mask effectiveness with airborne virus transmission turned over during corona). scientific shelf-life is real and one of the reasons why consensus among many studies is considered better evidence than individual studies.
I suppose that's fair and more up to date studies are preferred, but to be massively downvoted for linking a study from 2003 feels very strange. That's not a very old study and everything in it is maintained today.
I like rodent populations in metropolitan/urban areas under control, thanks
cats can be outside if they're under supervision. it's recommended for behavioral issues. most of mine have no interest, but there's one naughty boy who has a harness and leash for some supervised outdoor playtime. 😁
Yea, we bring our cat out whenever we're out on a leash and harness. It makes him much more tolerable, and we watch him to make sure he doesn't fuck with shit that shouldn't be fucked with.
Their whole like, biology changes?
Explain this please, I'm interested
Their behavior changes. I work in a fragile ecosystem that has a population of feral cats. They don’t respond to humans how strays do. I haven’t see any but apparently they’re vicious and avoid people at all costs.
eh. from experience it depends. my ferals have a range of reactions. I have one I can pick up and handle. if I had room inside I'd let him indoors, but gaining his trust was pretty lengthy.
one who had kittens (they live with me now, except one we found a home for) was super wary of us and now she screams for food when we come outside. can't touch her, but she's comfortable in our presence. both of those two pretty much live on my porch and allow my dogs to sniff them.
I've never seen an aggressive feral cat in the two years I've worked with ferals. scared, yes. but they will choose to run away before attack.
I don't think that's accurately described as a biology change, usually that would indicate some morphological difference. Behavioral changes in any feral animal are of course expected.
Thank you though!
I was imagining killer feral cats with spikes sticking out of their spine or something
Did not know this, I'll look more into that. Is there a term I can search for? "Bigger feral cats" isn't the best track to go down for good results. Thanks
you'll wanna search something like "why are tomcats so big?" since tomcats are the term used for unneutered males.
tomcats have some major changes that occur after the typical time a male cat is neutered (they're considered fully grown around 3y/o). their head and neck in particular becomes very thick and they're usually just larger in general because of testosterone.
kittens are typically spayed/neutered anywhere between eight weeks and five months old, well before they have the opportunity to become fully grown.
Doesn't it worry you that your pitbull has gotten a bit of a bloodlust? Who's to see he doesn't maul someone pet some day?
Eh prey drive (the desire to hunt and kill smaller animals) is different than intra animal aggression. All owners of large powerful dogs have a responsibility to train and manage them appropriately. I wouldn't worry.
That's true, but the scenario where a dog would go after a toy breed is called predatory drift. People are also much less likely to leave their toy breeds roaming around into other people's yards.
Yeah, in some senses it worries me. My original comment may have misrepresented the dog a bit. She interacts with dogs and cats fairly regularly, without fighting. But when she and feral cats fight, it's pretty violent.
I'm not sure if bloodlust would really be the correct word for it, but she certainly has a capacity for violence. Guess every animal does.
Then you know how neurotic they can be , and that folks go into it prepared for that.
Well, yeah, but my rescue doesn't have the biteforce to do much harm. He's just a Lhasa, but even then, when he really had a go at my new dog I didn't want to leave them alone together.
Keep your motherfucking hands off of my family members and I won't have to break your femurs. lmao.
if you let your cat out, people who TNR likely aren't going to know or care if it enters their trap if it's not fixed. accept the free surgery and keep your cat indoors. only take them out while supervised
The local ecosystem is fucking concrete and monoculture grass lawns. If you use your Karen entitlement to touch a member of my family then don't be surprised with what happens next.
No matter what justification you give yourself, if you try to kill a member of my family you can 100% find out.
Oh cute, the guy fantasizing about killing small animals is flipping the script on me.
If you decide my family member deserves to die because he likes to take naps under my fig tree, you're not going to have pronouns at all.
Not even a member of your species, let alone family.
Science is real. Keep your ecodestructive pet Within your walls, it's just a cute lil kitty. Outside of them, it's a toxoplasmic homicide rat.
Holding onto someone's property due to that property killing wildlife that doesn't belong to you won't look good in a police complaint
Do you think that the police are going to think that far
I mean, really, the people who can't tell a bird and bat apart, you think they're going to process "opportunistic pest"
I TNR cats. I'd probably never know if I had trapped someone's pet. they'd get their cat waltzing back in with an ear tip and fresh surgery.
I want to replace this with my cat's face and hang it on my wall. I have seven cats. I could have an army on my wall.
So many in this thread wanna kill the cat, like it has anything to do with it’s owners chud philosophy. If anyone fucked with my cat they’d end up in a box ⚰️
I only see one person who said kill the cat and they were very downbeared
Simple solution, don't let your cat outside without supervision.
Literally, yes.
Or do you live in some world where you don't own your pet cat?
I mean legally sure but that's certainly not how I primarily think about that relationship.
It's how this woman does.
And beyond that, this being isn't "property" to you but is still your responsibility. If you release it to rampantly murder other living creatures it deserves to be taken away from you.
Nobody here is denying responsibility, but congrats on owning property I guess.
I'm shocked to see a militant vegan is fine with the slavery of pet ownership I guess
The person you replied to is a vegan who thinks I'm not a real leftist because I'm not a vegan, so I was shocked to see their take on pets
There's a big difference between owning pets and acknowledging pet ownership is real.
Also you are a fucking liberal and you cry about it in other threads like a bitch.
You’re a fucking idiot if you think that the birds in question are theirs, and not just birds that show up in OPs backyard. If they’re OPs birds wtf are they doing loose in the backyard? You can’t control animals, but if you’re a human harming other people’s pets you deserve to get iced, stfu you stupid shit.
https://ak6.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/5226086/thumb/1.jpg
"ecosystems"
It pisses me off to no end when talking to chuds who 1) have no idea how much leftists within capitalist states and leftist states were persecuted and attacked during the last century
Was honestly thinking about this recently when someone on twitter was talking about how people in the US aren’t persecuted for their political opinions. Like even if we ignore the subtle ways people still are, this is only because the powers that be have so thoroughly crushed the left. The history of labour in this country during the 19th and early 20th century was basically just as brutal as the political repression in the USSR or Maoist China.
We see this in Latin American countries as well, a military junta comes to power and tortured and slaughters anyone left of hitler and only then is “freedom and democracy” restored.
People are just ignorant or delusion if they think capitalism/liberalism didn’t require just as much blood to entrench itself.
During those times the US also wasn't under siege by most of the other powers in europe as well.
as brutal as the political repression in the USSR or Maoist China
I'm sure everything you've heard from the capitalists is true, they wouldn't lie
I’m sure they did about a lot, but political repression of the bourgeoise is still necessary.
Tried Lemon Juice, it doesn't work. I guess you have to peel them?
Not diluting it with water? Getting like 20 lemons, juicing them down for the super soaker?
And making lemonade after, and inviting the cat for some if they come around and see reason
Wait, which type of pussy am I trying to chase away in this scenario?
#BASED
You know you've won when people are legit scared of you.
Eh, that works too. Cat might be birding in the yard 'cause it doesn't feel like it's getting its nutrients at home. If it just eats a shitton then birding becomes recreational rather than important
Except if the cat gets sick for whatever reason you've got the "YOU POISONED DR. KITTERSON" thing to deal with
Could always tell the cat to read theory enough times that he joins the birds and rises up against his former owner
Regrettably then OP would also be put in the kennel for being counterrevolutionary
As funny as this solution is, that's not going to be cat food. That's going to be rat or racoon food.
