Dont forget that cats also are invasive in a lot of places. Now get that rooftop chicken before it gets an actual bird.
on a serious note: the good PR that cats have is INSANE they are dangerous for avifauna but saying that ones cat is an “outside cat” who needs to roam around freely is somehow considered a valid statement - it is a pet ffs. But doing the same with a dog usually is not.
Yeah that can be a valid context from my POV, especially in a farm or sth similar.
But at least in my country the majority of outside cats are in suburbs or similar family homes with no agriculture around that is threatened by vermin.
On the other hand now I am wondering on the efficiency of cats as pest control.
i’m in a multifamily home right on the edge of suburbia/agriculture. our cats are still pest control (the weeks the fields get sprayed we are overrun with mice and rats. folk who have indoor cats didn’t have to deal with it indoors, just the attics and garages, and a few years later everyone had cats. ours don’t catch anything but bugs, but just their scent keeps the rodents away. also the frogs thank the gods that was a year when a frog moved in. tiny fucker was so loud and we couldn’t find him. ended up being the size of a dime. we had to make our indoor/outdoor mouser (we didn’t know 20 years ago, also were more rural) go hang out near where the frog was but the damn racket even scared off our cat at first)
when the cats don’t work as pest control, we have to start using poisons and shit (the cats are better than traps. usually better than traps well okay i got another story i was in the hospital for one of the big ones and so my parents were only visiting home to bathe and maybe sleep a little (i’ve convinced them they don’t have to sleep in my hospital room at this point thankfully). I’m young and my home is not well established outside my parents and i’m using theirs as a base to recoup and recover. Joffrey, a black tuxedo kitty and my soulcat, has been staring at this part of the roof and we can’t tell if something’s actually up or the cat’s just trying to get us to look so she can pounce on us. so my mother thinks she sees a snake fall off the roof from where the cat’s been staring, and she thinks that’s weird and that she probably saw something wrong and so she goes and grabs a trap. heads off to the hospital for four or five hours, comes home to sleep. when she gets home she hears a delighted MROWR and Joffrey trots in dragging a dead rat whose body is half the size of hers and whose tail is so fucking long. in a rat trap. all as if to say “LOOK WHAT I DID GRAMMA!” now i should mention my father has a mortal phobia of rodents, which means my cat was really playing a fun game with my parents while i was being parted out at the sausage factory.
Back before we realized the extent of it, we were really proud of how good our indoor outdoor mouser was. Could sneak into a flock of pigeons unnoticed and catch a hummingbird without killing it. I miss that cat. She personally extincted some bluebirds.
Don’t cats also keep rodent populations in check? It’s not all bad. Cities are completely transformed for humans anyway, so it’s hard to say what fauna “should” survive on the streets.
But outside of cities, you’re damn right. There was that one individual cat that is responsible for the extinction of multiple species!
Not sure how effective of a pest control cats are. And don’t be mistaken on the role of cities as ecosystems. They can harbour birds a lot, especially with greenspaces.
As required where I live cats should be neutered/sterilized.
That is sufficient.
The invasive argument is often used as an excuse by cat haters (there seem to be a lot for some reason) and sadists who do the most horrible things to them.
My cat was as good as a family member.
Always said if theoretically there were 2 people in a burning house and my cat, the first thing I’m doing is save my cat.
Not even a question.
And I don’t want to think about what I would do if I caught one of those sick animal torturers.
Dont forget that cats also are invasive in a lot of places. Now get that rooftop chicken before it gets an actual bird.
i mean our “outside cats” are usually doing work killing rats and shit, so
Yeah that can be a valid context from my POV, especially in a farm or sth similar.
But at least in my country the majority of outside cats are in suburbs or similar family homes with no agriculture around that is threatened by vermin.
On the other hand now I am wondering on the efficiency of cats as pest control.
i’m in a multifamily home right on the edge of suburbia/agriculture. our cats are still pest control (the weeks the fields get sprayed we are overrun with mice and rats. folk who have indoor cats didn’t have to deal with it indoors, just the attics and garages, and a few years later everyone had cats. ours don’t catch anything but bugs, but just their scent keeps the rodents away. also the frogs thank the gods that was a year when a frog moved in. tiny fucker was so loud and we couldn’t find him. ended up being the size of a dime. we had to make our indoor/outdoor mouser (we didn’t know 20 years ago, also were more rural) go hang out near where the frog was but the damn racket even scared off our cat at first)
when the cats don’t work as pest control, we have to start using poisons and shit (the cats are better than traps. usually better than traps well okay i got another story i was in the hospital for one of the big ones and so my parents were only visiting home to bathe and maybe sleep a little (i’ve convinced them they don’t have to sleep in my hospital room at this point thankfully). I’m young and my home is not well established outside my parents and i’m using theirs as a base to recoup and recover. Joffrey, a black tuxedo kitty and my soulcat, has been staring at this part of the roof and we can’t tell if something’s actually up or the cat’s just trying to get us to look so she can pounce on us. so my mother thinks she sees a snake fall off the roof from where the cat’s been staring, and she thinks that’s weird and that she probably saw something wrong and so she goes and grabs a trap. heads off to the hospital for four or five hours, comes home to sleep. when she gets home she hears a delighted MROWR and Joffrey trots in dragging a dead rat whose body is half the size of hers and whose tail is so fucking long. in a rat trap. all as if to say “LOOK WHAT I DID GRAMMA!” now i should mention my father has a mortal phobia of rodents, which means my cat was really playing a fun game with my parents while i was being parted out at the sausage factory.
)
Also all the birds.
Back before we realized the extent of it, we were really proud of how good our indoor outdoor mouser was. Could sneak into a flock of pigeons unnoticed and catch a hummingbird without killing it. I miss that cat. She personally extincted some bluebirds.
Don’t cats also keep rodent populations in check? It’s not all bad. Cities are completely transformed for humans anyway, so it’s hard to say what fauna “should” survive on the streets.
But outside of cities, you’re damn right. There was that one individual cat that is responsible for the extinction of multiple species!
Not sure how effective of a pest control cats are. And don’t be mistaken on the role of cities as ecosystems. They can harbour birds a lot, especially with greenspaces.
As required where I live cats should be neutered/sterilized.
That is sufficient.
The invasive argument is often used as an excuse by cat haters (there seem to be a lot for some reason) and sadists who do the most horrible things to them.
My cat was as good as a family member.
Always said if theoretically there were 2 people in a burning house and my cat, the first thing I’m doing is save my cat.
Not even a question.
And I don’t want to think about what I would do if I caught one of those sick animal torturers.
been in that theoretical and the first thing all of us did was corral the cats.
👍