A cat must live the life of a cat, not the life of a doll. And yes, life sometimes is risky, and there is death in life, and there is dirt and half mice. We better learn to deal with it instead to keep running towards an hyperpuritan, hypersensitive society, unable to stand the minimum amount of frustration or to make anybody happy.
To help birds, we plant trees and dense shrubs and wild hedges full of biodiversity and fruits and insects. We build nestboxes. We build ponds and birdbaths. We stop pruning like obsessed. We put seeds in winter. We know that birds and hedgehogs trive in areas full of cats. If they find any minimum refuge, this is unavoidable.
If there are none of that things around, is not cat's fault. Build it. Children need to be exposed to free animals to turn into healthy people.
The dead cats don't bother me as much as the dead birds. Introducing just one cat can completely change an entire ecosystem. Outdoor cats are a threat to global biodiversity.
I know it makes you feel better to allow your cats outdoors but please recognize that it affects the ecosystem on a larger scale.
The danger depends a lot on the area and month. There are more factors involved
Some ecosystems are resilient. Some wipe actively any cat. Some should ban entirely cats while in other places removing cats could in fact harm the birds by the rodent population explosion. It changes also if the bird is migrating or not, if is young or not...
It's my yard. It's not an ecosystem. It's my cat's one job to threaten my yard's biodiversity.
Birds are noisy. At 4:30 in the morning. Anything that wakes me up at 4:30 in the morning is a problem that needs to be dealt with immediately with whatever level of violence is necessary to stop the squawking.
You get all chirpy in my yard, you deal with Mr. Tiddlesworth. Same with the squirrels that get on the roof. Die!
Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson estimates that 30,000 species per year (or three species per hour) are being driven to extinction. Compare this to the natural background rate of one extinction per million species per year, and you can see why scientists refer to it as a crisis unparalleled in human history.[..]
I think my link speaks of a larger scale and humans are the super apex predator.
But in a smaller setting, there is a certain hierarchy of prey and predator. Cats are predator to birds. It is natural. Humans are not predators of soil or eco systems. Synthetic fertilizers are not even part of the natural eco system and are artificially introduced to destabilize the natural order.
I often think of Mao’s sparrows. Human were the destabilizers. Beyond a certain point, excess of vegetation caused more birds and rodents. Their population explosion was artificial because birds migrate and go in search of food sources. The demise of the sparrows was also due to an artificially induced agent, humans.
Think GMO mosquitoes. What could go wrong? Except mosquitoes are food source for amphibians..who are eaten by reptiles..enjoyed by raptors etc.
Humans are not part of this eco system but we have stylised ourself to be the super apex predator. As human population explodes, we are wiping out entire species at a much faster rate and replacing them with more of us. This is when trouble sets in…this is where we are..
We need insects and birds and fish and other mammals to know their place in the food chain and thrive so we can eat the end product as we can’t synthesize food ourselves.
All creatures need good soil, water and sunlight for survival because only plants can synthesize their own energy. None of us can eat soil or water or sunlight or any of the natural resources. It needs to be converted into calories by plant life through the magic of photosynthesis.
So without a balanced eco system, we are all toast. It is like cutting the trunk of a tree while sitting on the topmost branch. We will fall. And the tree dies. A cat eating a bird is doing its part by staying within the confines of the role it is meant to play. Humans disrupt the balance. We are not meant to replace all the small order species beneath us.
Your neighborhood didn't get a cat, you did. Your neighbors shouldn't be expected to take responsibility for limiting the damage your cat does.
The solution is not to make the world fit cats, the solution is for you to take personal responsibility for the animal you decide to host at your house. If you can't keep that animal at your house, then don't get an animal. It's simple.
Nobody would suggest if I buy a hyena that eats dogs that people should start putting their dogs in hyena proof armor so as to accommodate the preferences of the hyena owner and the inclinations of the hyena.
Why shouldn't the answer be don't own an animal that can't live happily while co-existing with the ecosystem around it? And if that's the case and you want a cat anyways, why shouldn't we require people to build/fund infrastructure to offset the effect it will have?
I mean yeah, it's irresponsible to let people go outside, drive cars, play sports, consume media by personal choice, engage in romantic relationships, climb stairs and ladders, drink alcohol etc. Yet we still generally feel the quality of life improvements outweigh the quantity of life decreases.
Consider also that humans confined to an indoor environment have much more environmental enrichment available in books, television, internet, games etc. The only environmental enrichment available to cats indoors are really terrible simulacra of nature (strings, balls, furniture) and many of these are only available when people are available to play.
We're talking about a species that spends 2/3rds of its time napping. I've watched outdoor cats and their behavior (when not hunting, which not all cats do) is very similar to indoor cats. They nap, they wander around, they find another napping spot, and so on. They probably spend less time interacting with humans or other animals than indoor cats do.
I recently got a new kitten and we decided it'll be an indoor cat (though I'm harness training her so she can go out on walks). I've had several cats over the years die because they were allowed outside (one got hit by a car and one I think got locked in my neighbor's crawlspace/basement though we never found her). I personally haven't had many of my outdoor cats bring me birds, but where I live now we have bird feeders and don't want the birds preyed on.
Edit: I forgot about the outdoor cat I had that I left at home when I went off to college. It got run over by my neighbor because it was sleeping under his wheel and he didn't notice.
>Is this an American thing or something? Almost all the cats I've ever known were outdoor cats in the UK.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd never allow my cats outside.
Not for ecological reasons, but because I live in a flat on the fourth (that'd be the third floor in the UK) floor of an apartment building in NYC.
If my cats got out of my apartment, they'd have to go down three flights of stairs and then wait for someone to open two separate doors in order to get out into the street.
Once on the street, there are many hazards for cats, not least of which are automobiles.
Having been to London, I imagine that there's a similar dynamic there as well.
As such, I'd say that it's more about urban/suburban/rural settings than different countries.
Yes, our cats have always been indoors; our next door neighbor's cats have been outdoors. One of them was killed by a coyote and left on our front lawn for my daughter to find.
Police officer's commit domestic violence and adultery at a rate far higher than other non-LEO civilians. Some of us who have experienced it first hand may talk about it in jest to help alleviate the anxiety and other problems it has caused.
My aim wasn't to offend anyone. Well unless you're a cop that commits domestic violence. They should probably be offended.
It was a tactless analogy, but a strong analogy nonetheless.
There were a few things that bothered me in that statement.
"what did you expect to happen" blames the victim.
"Police officer is as likely to engage in domestic violence as a cat is to kill a bird outside" is not a strong analogy. I think almost all young cats would kill birds outside. It's a far cry form "a far higher rate".
As a rhetorical device, it falls flat because it argues for something obvious by comparing it to something obscure. It would work better the other way - if you were on a thread talking about domestic violence and comparing it to cats killing birds.
Men commit violence at a far higher rate than women. But it's still lower than the "what did you expect" threshold.
A quick search can't find anything to validate the claim of police officers committing adultery more than other roles. Ironically tech and entrepreneurs rank highest among men in most polls, along with trade workers
It’s ridiculous the lengths people go to inject their politics into their every post. Also sometimes cats just get out and run away, not everyone is letting them outside. In fact I’d wager that’s almost never the case.
