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The Moral Cost of Cats


Claire.

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The Moral Cost of Cats

Pete Marra is haunted by cats. He sees them everywhere: slinking down alleys, crouched under porches, glaring at him out of wild, starved eyes.

People assume that Marra, head of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and author of the recent book Cat Wars, hates cats. This is not the case. “I love cats,” he says, calling them “fascinating, magnificent animals,” that seem to have a “freakish love for me.” He’s even considered a pet cat, despite being mildly allergic. “This is the thing people don’t realize,” Marra told me recently at a café near his office in Washington, D.C. “I’m both a wild animal advocate and a domestic animal advocate. If my mother thought I wasn’t supporting cats, she’d be flipping in her grave.”

Read more: Smithsonian.com

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i don't think any of the cats I've ever known have ever actually managed to catch a bird. They're far too quick for them. This is unfair scapegoating if you ask me. 

Edited by Grand Moff Tarkin
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1 hour ago, Grand Moff Tarkin said:

i don't think any of the cats I've ever known have ever actually managed to catch a bird. They're far too quick for them. This is unfair scapegoating if you ask me. 

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/29/170588511/killer-kitties-cats-kill-billions-every-year

"We estimate that cats kill somewhere between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds a year," Marra says. "For mammals, it's upward of about 15 billion."

I have no qualms about dispatching cats that I find on the farm. If people want domestic cats then keep them in your house. Cats in the wild are ruthless killers.

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Hey Buzz that's just nature! It's instinct, same as man's instinct to hunt n eat! If we kill every animal that hunts another to eat, there'd be nothing left. You can't blame them for fighting to survive¡

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On ‎9‎/‎20‎/‎2016 at 2:12 PM, Buzz_Light_Year said:

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/29/170588511/killer-kitties-cats-kill-billions-every-year

"We estimate that cats kill somewhere between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds a year," Marra says. "For mammals, it's upward of about 15 billion."

I have no qualms about dispatching cats that I find on the farm. If people want domestic cats then keep them in your house. Cats in the wild are ruthless killers.

As are numerous other animals & birds...........

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On 9/20/2016 at 5:12 PM, Buzz_Light_Year said:

I have no qualms about dispatching cats that I find on the farm. If people want domestic cats then keep them in your house. Cats in the wild are ruthless killers.

"Ruthless killers" that keep the numbers mice and rats and other rodents and problem pests to a manageable level.

Dogs are ruthless killers btw.  Do you "dispatch" them as well?  Snakes are ruthless killers.  Birds kill billions of insects every year....are you dispatching them?  Many humans are ruthless killers.

Cats on my property are welcome for those very reasons.

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We have seed for the birds in our yard.  Our cat is a house cat.  She sees the birds from the window.  That's as close as she gets.  But a neighbour cat comes and attacks the quail all the time.  I f we see it, we chase him off.  He has taken numerous birds from our yard. It p***es me off to no end.  

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1 hour ago, glorybebe said:

We have seed for the birds in our yard.  Our cat is a house cat.  She sees the birds from the window.  That's as close as she gets.  But a neighbour cat comes and attacks the quail all the time.  I f we see it, we chase him off.  He has taken numerous birds from our yard. It p***es me off to no end.  

Welcome to Earth.  Cat's eat birds.  Some birds eat cats.  It's a vicious cycle.

I tend to keep the animal on animal violence at a low on my property if I can.  But, life, being what it is, goes on.

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3 hours ago, Thorvir Hrothgaard said:

Welcome to Earth.  Cat's eat birds.  Some birds eat cats.  It's a vicious cycle.

I tend to keep the animal on animal violence at a low on my property if I can.  But, life, being what it is, goes on.

What p***es me off is I keep our cat in to keep the birds safe and some other cat comes in and kills them. The little b***** comes to the patio door to tease our cat, too.  It poops in our garden,  too.  I just hate cleaning up after other people's pets when mine isn't out to make a mess

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I don't exactly like it either when a cat catches a bird but that is really my problem, we react to birds on a psychological level because of their plumage and we can't imagine killing something that looks "pretty" to us.

A predator doesn't notice or care (plus the color spectrum cats see in is pretty limited) so they are focused on whatever it is that predators do. Cute, pretty, beautiful, lovely sounds......these are all human concepts and we have become so attached to these ideas that we assume every other creature sees this as well which they don't and can't.

There is another issue and that is human ego, we seem to take offense when we see a predator hunt something we see as "beautiful" and think the predator is doing it just to annoy or bother us, as if they go out of their way to make us angry when it is us that is choosing to get angry over something that has nothing to do with us at all.

Point is that predators don't care about how "pretty" the plumage or fur is and can't afford to get all enamored over it and maybe we need to realize that what goes on in nature is not all about us nor has it ever hinged on what we think.

Think about that the next time you go bird hunting and shoot pheasants, prairie chickens, ducks, geese or whatever. Why is it that at that moment that plumage or observation no longer is an issue?

 

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Outdoor cats have a lot to contend with. They can get run over by vehicles, they can get into fights with other animals, they can get injured, they can get diseases (like FIV). A lot of people don't neuter or spay, so then you have a huge population of homeless cats, some of them feral. Some folks can't afford worming and flea preventative, so the animals are miserable. It's ugly all around. I think it's better to keep cats inside. They have a rough life outside, and it shows by their shortened lifespan. You live on a farm and want them around to catch some mice, at least get them fixed, get them shots, get them wormed. It's not gonna help the birds, but at least getting them fixed keeps the population down. 

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I think the real problem is that people don't have their pets spayed or neutered and just dump kittens wherever and they grow up they become feral and it's a never ending cycle. The focus should be on the irresponsible pet owners who really need to spay neuter their animals.

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  • 4 weeks later...

It’s official: Cats are killers.

Think cats only hunt mice? Think again. A new study shows that free-roaming cats hunt and kill more than 80 native species, including blue jays, cottontail rabbits, southern flying squirrels, and even ducks. Researchers looked at 21,000 records from a hospital for wild animals and found that 14% of them had been injured by cat attacks. Of the injured animals, 80% of birds and 70% of mammals didn’t survive their injuries, the researchers write in the Journal of Wildlife Management.

This study agitates the feud between conservationists, who fear free-roaming cats are devastating wildlife, and animal welfare groups that argue neutering feral cats is a better solution than removing them from the environment altogether. The researchers write that cats aren’t to blame, and they hope that both conservationists and animal welfare groups will collaborate to deal with the carnage free-roaming cats are leaving in their wake.

Source: Sience

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Trump pushed them over the edge years ago ...

~

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On 9/20/2016 at 1:00 PM, Grand Moff Tarkin said:

i don't think any of the cats I've ever known have ever actually managed to catch a bird. They're far too quick for them. This is unfair scapegoating if you ask me. 

Oh yes they do.  Most cats don't bring them home but I had a cat that loved to show off and would bring a bird or a mole home nearly every day.

 

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That's kitty's way of saying she loves you ... and if you get angry at her for that it tears her feline heart apart ...

~

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29 minutes ago, third_eye said:

That's kitty's way of saying she loves you ... and if you get angry at her for that it tears her feline heart apart ...

~

Being that so much bad news has been posted about cats of late, I nominate you to head their public relations campaign.

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4 minutes ago, aka CAT said:

Being that so much bad news has been posted about cats of late, I nominate you to head their public relations campaign.

Do I say mew mew or meow meow :yes:

~

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23 hours ago, third_eye said:

Do I say mew mew or meow meow :yes:

~

Aren’t you

serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Ft1.gstatic.c

     ?

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PLease excuse me while I purr ...

:yes:

~

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You think it's bad now?  Just imagine...

 

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I've rescued many cats over the years, but I don't want them anymore. My husband doesn't like them to live in the house and I love the chipmunks, rabbits, birds and other wildlife that regularly visit. A new neighbor moved in with a cat that comes to our house to hunt because I regularly feed the native wildlife. I have seen a huge decline in the wildlife population, I have not seen a rabbit all year, and the cat is going to have to learn it's not welcome here. This cat has a whole, wooded mountain to hunt on and it comes onto my property to kill other animals.

If you can't control your pets you shouldn't have them.

Edited by Michelle
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On 9/26/2016 at 7:46 AM, Ryu said:

I don't exactly like it either when a cat catches a bird but that is really my problem, we react to birds on a psychological level because of their plumage and we can't imagine killing something that looks "pretty" to us.

A predator doesn't notice or care (plus the color spectrum cats see in is pretty limited) so they are focused on whatever it is that predators do. Cute, pretty, beautiful, lovely sounds......these are all human concepts and we have become so attached to these ideas that we assume every other creature sees this as well which they don't and can't.

There is another issue and that is human ego, we seem to take offense when we see a predator hunt something we see as "beautiful" and think the predator is doing it just to annoy or bother us, as if they go out of their way to make us angry when it is us that is choosing to get angry over something that has nothing to do with us at all.

Point is that predators don't care about how "pretty" the plumage or fur is and can't afford to get all enamored over it and maybe we need to realize that what goes on in nature is not all about us nor has it ever hinged on what we think.

Think about that the next time you go bird hunting and shoot pheasants, prairie chickens, ducks, geese or whatever. Why is it that at that moment that plumage or observation no longer is an issue?

 

unless their chickens, geese, ducks, or turkeys.

 

cats hunt morte types of wild life than any wild cat does.

Edited by danielost
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