News @lemmy.world stopthatgirl7 @kbin.social 7mo ago

The murderous creature you live with is a murderous creature, study confirms

www.npr.org /2023/12/12/1218895581/cats-research-study-environment

More scientific evidence has surfaced to show that while mittens may be your sweet angel, letting her roam outside is also a big threat to biodiversity.

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108 comments

Keep your cat indoors and/or supervise them outdoors. Don't be a shitty pet owner.
- The coyotes in my neighborhood disagree. Let ~~dinner~~ kitty roam!
- Its fine. Good pet owners will never have their cats inside for too long.
Catios are a win-win situation for housecats and wildlife.
OTOH, I have a cat who can't effectively jump onto the bed by himself. Your mileage may vary. :)

I have had cats who live with murderous intent, but then I also have this football.
- You're probably solely responsible for the extinction of an entire species by letting that murder machine outside.
  
  If only, he could use the exercise, but he's terrified of outside.
We need to get outdoor cats off the streets. They're Argentine ants with a cute face, which makes them all the more sinister.
- Agreed. Maybe we could convert unused office space into giant stray cat condos.
Some days after our old cat passed away we noticed birds singing in our garden.
- Cats are apex predators even at an old age.
  
  House cats are highly effective hunters. They are by no means apex predators.
  
  House cats are NOT apex predators. Apex means they're at the top and nothing preys on them. Cats are preyed on by cougars, wolves, coyotes, foxes, eagles, etc.
Three letters that keep my cat on a leash outdoors.

F.eline
I.mmunodeficiency
V.irus

Its cat aids, its real, and if caught your mittens is not going to have a good time.
- While I definitely lean towards not letting cats roam free (not even possible in our current living situation), I'd say that FeLV and FIP scare me way more than FIV. FIV+ cats can live relatively normal, long lives when living in safe, caring homes with some very basic precautions
  
  FIV is primarily transmitted via saliva in deep bite wounds when one cat bites another, and the majority of those bites occur when an intact male cat bites another intact male cat, so if your cats are spayed/neutered, the risk of contracting FIV drops significantly. With proper slow introductions between altered cats, FIV+ and FIV- cats can live together with minimal risk of transmission.
  
  I only mention this because there's so many FIV+ cats that get stuck in the shelters due to stigma, and wish I could save them all.
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feline_immunodeficiency_virus
This story always gets spicy comments. Every. Single. Time.
- Yeah, folks gets tetchy about being told they need to keep their cute little murder fluff inside for both its sake and the local wildlife.
  
  And being told we’re poor owners and don’t deserve to have a pet. You should really knock that shit off.
- That's because it's clickbaity bullshit posted to drive engagement. It's not a bug, it's a feature 😉
  
  Clickbait - yes Bullshit - no
What a trashy headline.
- Found Mittens' owner.
Can confirm.
I adopted a stray recently. She has expressed zero interest in Outside ever since. She just wants love and cuddles. One less on the streets.
People get absurdly angry when I bring out this fact, street cats are pests, and pest must be controlled.
But of course. Australia alone proves this.
"There were even cows on that list, though they were probably the result of scavenging rather than hunting." I'd like to think that no, house cats took down a 2000 pound cow.
Predators do what predators do.

I had two cats from the same litter. The female was superfocused on birds, rarely paid any attention to mice or voles which are pretty abundant here in the countryside. She very rarely managed to catch any birds in the wild, but if one made the mistake of flying into the house, it was game over in seconds. She could jump surprisingly high.

The male on the other hand was only interested in rodents. It was like to him birds didn't exist. For yeard he kept our house totally free from mice, roaming the yard and doing his thing very effectively. I'd pay good money to have a cat like him again.

I wouldn't let my cats out in the city, but out here I'll let them live by their insticts. The nearby highway kills a lot more birds and mammals daily than they ever could.
- Collisions with cars kill approximately 214,500,000 birds per year in the US.
  
  Cats kill 2,400,000,000.
  
  Source.
  
  They very obviously weren't talking in total across the US. Just their property and their nearby highway. I find what they said to be quite believable even with the total amount of birds cats kill across the US
Thank goodness moles, rabbits and squirrels aren't endangered, or my dog would never be allowed outside again.
Fuck birds I want my cat to kill them
Nature does its thing. News at 11.

edit: downvotes are disabled for my instance. Knock yourselves out with that if if makes you feel better. It makes no difference at all.
- Only, cats aren’t natural to many environments. When they’ve gotten introduced to new places, they did a lot of ecological harm, and continue to do so. That’s why cats need to be kept inside.
  
  And my little senior citizen buddy will continue having good mental health to his final days by still being allowed outdoors.
- Nature does its thing.
  
  You know how pooping is natural, but we get sick if we poop where we eat?
  
  Cats’ instinctual predatory behavior = natural.
  
  Invasive predators = serious and unnatural threat to ecosystems.
  
  —
  
  …so I won’t hear that line if I catch you taking a dump in my kitchen right 😄
  
  I’m not ready to commit one way or another at this time.

108 comments