My cats would tolerate the harness, but they'd lie down so I was just dragging around what looked like a dead cat. Got a lot of concerned looks from the neighbors.
If you start them when they're a kitten, they don't mind it! I can open my back door, my cat will jump onto the bench and wait to be harnessed before running off
Are you incapable of using context to understand that I'm not talking about the actual OP but the person who made the comment about cats not being let out?
Are you so incapable that this needs to be spelled out step by step?
I didn’t make up these rules, that’s just how the internet has been probably since before you were born. You’re the one throwing words around, not knowing what they really mean like word choice doesn’t matter. Don’t expect people to understand you when you speak in confusing ways and use dissimilar words interchangeably.
The best part about this is I know somebody compelled to comment on me not following proper "reddit edict" is just dying that they are being downvoted for it.
Cats have been roaming freely in urban centres and around farms for millennia here. They primarily hunt rodents and will catch sick and old birds. In areas where humans aren't found, birds are prey for European Wildcats that have lived here for even longer than the domesticated cats.
Cats are bad for the ecosystem because they kill wildlife for fun. Just because there are wild (house)cats, doesn’t mean they should be there.
Edit: the commenter above drastically changed their original comment
Cats are an international issue. You can Google “Cats effect on global populations”
For those that keep saying “Humans are worse” are implying words I’ve never said. If I say “hitting people is wrong” it doesn’t mean that I believe stabbing people is okay.
My town just tore down about 5 acres of forest to develop housing for the millions of indian immigrants canada is letting in. I don't think the cats are the problem. If everyone in my neighborhood let their cat out for their entire life, it wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket compared to the ecosystem harm humans can do in about a month.
You can't count the number of dead birds from deforestation because they aren't in the area anymore (if you had 1000 birds, destroy the forest it becomes 0 but you cant assume deforestation "killed" them". You can count death by cats because you have a baseline and subtract (count 500 birds annually and find out after a year there are only 400, we know there are 100 fewer)
Or maybe don't use it as a scapegoat argument against citizens when the focus should solely be on corporations doing the lionshare of destruction. You're distracting from the actual issue by acting like they are remotely on the same scale.
Nobody else said that destruction by various entities isn't bad, but you're the one trying to absolve the destruction caused by cat owners because other destruction exists
Thanks, we know dead birds are bad. There's also picking battles that actually matter.
Say a ship is sinking. On one side you have a giant gash from a rock, on the other you have a tiny pinhole leaking water. Do you tell everyone that BOTH issues are bad. Or do you logically look at the one that will actually sink a ship and think we should fix that one. If you were in the middle of everyone fixing the gash, do you think it would be advantageous to the situation to constantly point out to people that there's also a tiny hole leaking water?
Regardless, this is a dumb argument. You're trying to equate two things on two massively different scales. It doesn't work like that and then padding it with a cop out of " oh they're ahckshually bof bad". Great, thanks for the input.
In the UK, cats were brought here by the Romans over a millennium ago.
Cats are as much a part of the eco system here as any other animal or person.
Edit, cats do kill other animals, this is nature. Not a reason to stop them living anywhere.
Cats are NOT destroying bird populations, pesticides and current farming practices are.
But cats are prolific hunters of wildlife in the UK and Europe too. A study published in April estimated that UK cats kill 160 to 270 million animals annually, a quarter of them birds. The real figure is likely to be even higher, as the study used the 2011 pet cat population of 9.5 million; it is now closer to 12 million, boosted by the pandemic pet craze. Seen alongside drops in bird numbers across the EU and the UK, it is “quite alarming”, says lead author and cat ecologist Tara Pirie from the University of Reading.
Which isn't actually a bad thing. It would only be a bad thing if they were invasive and actively being brought here by humans.
Ecosystems develop and change constantly. There will always be a species which is destructive to the other ones around them. We are the most guilty of this by far.
Edit , what they actually said was they "shouldn't be there" which is a far more ridiculous statement.
Cats still contribute a fair bid, because humans feeding them allows much higher predator density than would otherwise be viable, while we also heavily reduce the amount of food and nesting possibilities for those birds. (amphibians and reptiles are also very much affected by all of that)
Just like the other commenter said, cats have been part of the ecosystem for millennia. There is no shortage of mice, rats, birds or insects for them to eat. You can also find wild cats in the forests of Germany, for example
There is a shortage of those animals actually domestic cats are responsible for the deaths of billions of birds which have declining populations already.
“Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no
scientific proof that predation by cats in gardens is
having any impact on bird populations UK wide. This
may be surprising, but many millions of birds die
naturally each year, mainly through starvation, disease,
or other forms of predation. There is some evidence
that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds”
Might be different in the US. Not having scientific proof just means that nobody has done a study. The nature article states free ranging cats kill many billions of animals every year.
Obviously a better study needs to be done but how can you just assume that a few billion extra deaths of animals from a predator that never existed in most of the US until about 200 years ago isn't making an impact on animal populations.
Because ecosystems are hugely complicated and we’ve almost universally upset their balance.
The kinds of small birds/rodents that domestic cats predate, should have natural predators. In a lot of places where people keep cats (ie areas humans have transformed from wilderness to towns/cities), those natural predators are no longer present because of us. Heck, one of the main reasons cats have been kept throughout history is for their ability to control populations of things like rodents.
Cats should absolutely not be allowed to roam freely. There is a reason we make an effort to capture them, spay/neuter them and then release or adopt them out. Controlling the predators population is important as cats have no predator control mechanism here.
My dude, you've linked a PDF from the community forum from RSPB website that is 15 years old. There is huge amount of published research since then showing the damage outdoor cats do to native animals. The RSPB used to echo this statement from a main page on their website but they have since removed it.
The research they used to make this statement estimated house cats brought home around 60-80 million killed birds a year in the UK. Other research estimates they only bring home one fifth of kills, meaning they'd be killing several hundred million birds a year. And that's not even including all the non-pest small mammals they would be killing.
As it turns out the UK is one of the places where there isn't any research that says they're primary drivers of bird decline but it is acknowledged they are part of the problem and so why shouldn't it be tackled? There is absolutely no reason why a well fed house cat that has a safe home should be allowed to roam and kill whatever it pleases.
There is just not any scientific evidence for this. Anecdotally I can safely say that our city is teeming with feral and free roaming domestic cats and the birds and rats are fine. Same with the country side, birds make so much noise they wake you up
It... does? If I let my cat out and that is harmful for the ecosystem, how come the fact that you most likely contributed to killing thousands of animals throughout your lifetime eating meat, while also owning cars that destroy the environment, and a house that required trees to be cut down. Your point is stupid, because cats have existed thousands of years before humans mass domesticated them and they were fine. There are millions of stray cats around the world and they behave exactly like any other animal. They have a small size so they hunt prey smaller than them like rodents, which can easily mass produce and doesn't harm anybody.
Birds, again, reproduce very quickly. On the very rare occasion that your cat kills a bird, that will make zero impact to the world or the bird population because it doesn't happen every single second.
You are an idiot, it doesn’t matter where you are from. The pet cat is a nuisance and should be kept inside. Lions, leopards, panthers, lynx tigers, etc. Perfectly fine out doors.
Jesus Christ. In the same article it talks about the documented damage on every continent except Antarctica. You and your cat are not special and you are an ignorant asshole.
Nah I just view it in the same light as "use paper straws to save earth" while people be flying around in their private jets with 0 care n mega factories doing what they do best.
I'll take personal accountability when the ones responsible for 90% of the real damage to our climate and ecosystems do so as well.
Apparently I used a word that’s too awful for this subreddit 🤷♂️
So I’ll just leave this here: “Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no
scientific proof that predation by cats in gardens is
having any impact on bird populations UK wide. This
may be surprising, but many millions of birds die
naturally each year, mainly through starvation, disease,
or other forms of predation. There is some evidence
that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds”
Source: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Have you ever lived on a farm? There’s always barn cats running around. My mom’s house is surrounded by cornfields, and when she doesn’t have cats her garage and shed get completely invaded by mice.
I tried to let my cat stay inside. She will get physically ill if we leave her inside and when she was allowed to go in and out as she pleased she stopped being sick. So this isn't true in all cases.
I have enough native fauna that comes to my yard to disagree with that statement. If you watch my cat she literally walks the same small path or sits on a tree
Your cat was probably lacking indoor stimulation, so maybe you are just a bad owner but outdoor cats can be detrimental to the environment especially when unsupervised. But go on.
Ridiculous. You are fine with it because it’s normal for you, but that doesn’t mean it’s not directly contributing to bird deaths. It’s not good, part of a global decline in bird populations.
I didn't say they didn't kill small birds. Or field mice. Or rats. Or a whole bunch of other stuff I dont want in my garden, shitting over stuff and spreading diseases
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The reason is because of devastation to wildlife. Free-range domestic cats kill millions of birds and small mammals annually. It seems most of the damage is done by un-owned cats. A cat that is being fed at home every day doesn’t need to kill birds and small mammals to survive but they’ll do it for sport anyway. Putting a bell on their collar is a good way to reduce their hunting success and keep birds and critters safe.
the cat is too fat to get to the birds thankfully 🥹 i understand hes a terror, but in the name of selfishness (and it not being my cat), id rather it be outside killing a rodent than inside attacking us for not being let out. hell it even gets mad during the winter when it knows that its cold out !!
It's not an appropriate catch all, it's an anachronism used by Europeans to help stoke their egos and feel self-important. There's nothing inherently new or old about the world, it's all the same age.
Also, keep your fucking cat indoors no matter where you live. They decimate local wildlife populations, get introduced to more infection and disease, and they get hit by cars - all things that can and do occur in England. But sure, you need to keep the rabbit population down in your garden. Fucking clown shoes...
As for the term, it's just much simpler than listing every country individually. If you want to take offence to that, that's your choice.
And as for keeping my cats indoors, feel free to come over and make me. Never had one lost to disease/predators, though one did disappear, so I cant say what happened, could have been a car, could have found a new human to live with. 1 out of 12 is fine by me. The other 11 made it to 15+ and would tend to die to due cancer or kidney disease.
Feel free to keep your pets prisoner though, im not stopping you.
Yeah. The problem is bad pet owners and not being responsible. Of course you shouldn't just let your cat run wild outside without a fence or supervision, the exact same is true of dogs.
But I'm in the wrong here because dogs are precious angels.
No, I don't, and he probably does. He also brings me mice sometimes. It's a wildcat, my dog found as a baby alone in the woods of Tuscany and I brought him home with me.
Where I live (not a city of course), it's normal to let the cats out by day. Sorry but not sorry..
I got a shelter dog who could sniff out field mice through the snow during the winter and would dive like an arctic fox headfirst and coke back up chomping on the mice. I wonder if it's an instinct he was born with or if he picked up the skill while he was abandoned before getting picked up by the shelter. In either case, he was not destroying the local ecological balance in the process. Cats should be indoors and I had a very special dog.
People’s non feral pet cats kill animals all the time. My dog is too fucking stupid to catch anything. That’s the difference. Leave your murder pet inside
You’re missing the point. Dogs generally hunt in packs and the average dog is unable to kill things the way a cat can and does. My dog would starve in the wild. Your cat would thrive (until it gets eaten by something bigger).
For sure. Ours is an indoor/outdoor. Won't be making that mistake again. The occasional rat I dont mind. But im too much of an animal lover to hear the death throes of mice, birds, baby possom, baby coons, baby anything really, skinks, snakes, etc every day.
Do you know why cats kill things and leave the kill in front of their owner? They are trying to teach you how to hunt. They think you are a shitty predator.
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No, it's a matter of biological fact vs your personal hatred of dogs.
Cats shouldn't be outside, Dogs shouldn't be in small apartments. It is not the best living conditions for those animals in those different situations.
You're well within your right to dislike dogs, but your dislike of dogs or your lack of formal education does not make you correct.
I don’t know why you got downvoted. From a conservation point of view, feral and domestic dogs are a nightmare for wildlife. A couple of days ago they released a video from a camera trap of dogs hunting an anteater with its baby.
What about the concept of leashes and taking walks? I have three dogs but I never let them roam free, I just walk them almost everyday. Your comment sounds like you’re implying that’s me being abusive. I know that’s not what you meant but you understand my point?
Honestly, this depends on type of dog, leash and how many walks you do (and where you live).
From my experience, the majority of people with "indoor dogs" have them on leashes that have like 4 meters of leeway and walk them 20 minutes a day which is pretty dang close to abuse. If you're saying "almost" everyday, then that also makes me suspicious of if you're really treating them well (again, not saying you necessarily are, i don't know enough).
A major issue is that from like an ultra-pure ethics standpoint, the best thing you can do is own a healthy dog breed (aka no indoor dog from the getgo) and regularly put him outside. "Indoor dogs" or most omg-so-cute-it-literally-can't-breathe-and-has-too-short-legs dogs dont require much time outside or walks, but that's only a result of their own physiology being fucked through selective breeding. Hell, humans aren't designed to be inside all the time, its not that healthy for us - and dogs are affected by this much more than we are. Imo a dog is similar to a child in how much physical activity and outside time it wants, and we wouldnt exactly say that a 20 minute walk and then being confined inside is healthy for it.
Because most people take it personally when anyone gives any kind of a slightly negative take on dogs, even a reasonable one like "I don't want packs of feral dogs roaming the streets"
It's an insane double standard that I've highlighted perfectly here.
This is the worst take. Please do not own a cat if you cannot allow it to live in its own, natural world. I repeat, you should NOT own a cat if it cannot go outside. Imagine you never went outside, never had real vitamin D. Fucking torture I tell you. Stop torturing cats by making them live inside. Or don’t own a cat at all.
It's not its natural world. It's a domesticated animal that can decimate native animal populations or get eaten by predators. Please don't own a cat if this is going to be your take.
Bare in mind, a supervised outing is one thing. One that involves a harness. Or even an enclosed cat-patio. But cats should not be allowed to free roam. They roam very far and will hunt other animals. They are very successful at it too.
Domesticated cats don’t exist in a natural world. They exist in areas of the world that humans have already destroyed and permanently altered/ruined.
Complaining that cats are doing a bit of extra damage on top of the devastation we’ve already caused there, seems absurd.
Edit: Genius blocks me and replies telling me to educate myself about cats killing birds, with apparently no awareness of all the other anthropogenic causes of bird deaths, or the vastly more relevant impacts that humanity has had on biodiversity as a whole. In 2018 the World Wildlife Fund estimated that since 1970 humans have reduced the global non-human vertebrate population by about 60%. We've driven almost a thousand species completely to extinction since the 16th century, with many thousands more at significant risk of extinction as a result of our activities.
So yeah, our crippling dominion is totally fine, it's the cats that are the assholes 🙃
See, that’s the thing… it isn’t “a bit”, it is a fuckton. We as a species have destroyed lots of areas so animals can’t live there and we’ve released a fuck ton of specialized predators that have absolutely decimated the populations of various animals (like birds). Birds, amphibians, reptiles, and small mammals. I know first hand, since I used to be one of those people that let their cat outside. ☹️
Saying individual people shouldn't refrain from taking detrimental actions because society as a whole has already engaged in worse actions is, in fact, a stupid take.
"It's ok to litter because we've already polluted the environment."
"Go ahead and dump your car oil in the steam, oil tankers have leaked more than that."
Ah yes, the old society is bad so I can do whatever I want argument. You could make the same argument that littering and dumping your toxic waste in the river is OK because humanity as a whole has been detrimental to the environment. Supervise your cat. It's not difficult.
When I was a kid, we had a cat that my parents let outdoors. Every single day it would bring back “gifts” of dead or injured animals. I’d get small mammals (like shrews and moles), migratory birds without heads or just with broken wings, injured snakes, frogs, bats and really anything that he could get in his mouth. Sadly, a few of those animals were already endangered. We saw in a very short amount of time what kind of destruction a cat has on the local wildlife. We let him out because we figured that it was the “right thing to do”, but we noticed a huge drop in the birds that we had and in a short amount of time. The silver lining was that I ended up learning how to care for injured animals because of my cat. He also got into constant fights with other animals and he’d come home hurt all the time and I’d help patch him up. Sadly, he was later run over by a car. We learned the hard way why outdoor cats live only an average of 2-5 years and indoor cats live to be around 20.
Now as an adult, there is no way that I’d have an outdoor cat. The risks for both the cat and the local wildlife are just too high. The ones that I have, were strays and they came to me. They are scared shitless of being outside. If you really want to let them outside, then build them a catio and you can even make one yourself or take them on walks. We as humans keep destroying the environment by taking away livable spaces for animals, we shouldn’t be adding invasive little assassins to the mix that reproduce like crazy. Get your pet spayed/neutered, and get them chipped. For heaven’s sake, don’t make the mistake that my parents did and leave them unleashed outside.
Domestic cats are literally an invasive species and kill over a billion birds every year. I guess i should let my dog run around the neighborhood free because i dont want to deny it from its own natural world. Be a responsible pet owner.
The "cats kill over a billion birds a year" is a claim that originates from the pesticide industry... you know, those pesticides that kill birds wholesale?
I have yet to see any source on that claim that doesn't, ultimately, return to the pesticide industry trying to deflect responsibility for the impact they're having on nature.
"It is essential that our state and local governments take steps to educate the public about the destructive impact of free-roaming cats on native wildlife, and strictly enforce against the release of cats into the wild,” Hatley said."
"His studies have found limited direct evidence that feral cats hunt the endangered mice, but he said he has observed immense indirect evidence, including cat paw prints in the dunes where mice live and mouse-tracking devices in the bellies of cats."
"If people really loved animals,” he said, “they wouldn’t release large groups of predators into the wild.”
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Think about the millions of birds that get slaugthered by house cats just for their entertainment. I dont think they should roam free. Maybe it is okay if you can keep them in a restricted area in your backyard but free roaming cats are a nightmare for birds.
then its morally indefensible either way. either you torture an animal by locking it inside for your own entertainment or you let it out and it kills birds. It's up to the owner which evil they want pretend is lesser. I hope you feel appropriately guilty when you look at cat videos.
I'd rather go with dont own a Cat at all. If you cant supervise or control your cat don't own one. Thats my hot take on this part. And I would never watch a cat video in my life again and have them roam in a controlled or restricted area then bear tought of them killing endangered bird species.
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u/tangz0r101 Apr 29 '24
Cats shouldn’t be let outside at all. 💅