Even if they don’t kill, say, a bird, a cat’s mouth and teeth are loaded with bacteria. It generally doesn’t harm humans that much, but birds and small mammals stand a good chance of dying from infection if they’re bitten or scratched up by a cat.
If there’s a setting where cats can survive and kill “wildlife”, I would push back against the use of the term “wildlife”, because in order for this to be true humans have eliminated most predator species in the “biome”. All I hear when people in a city say they don’t want feral cats is they want cute birds at their feeders.
In an area rural enough to have coyotes…feral cats can be a positive addition to the biome so you don’t get overrun by rodents. Birds don’t have to worry because the cats need to stay close to cover due to various predators.
You clearly have done zero research on the topic and are simply telling us what you would like to be true. “Common sense” is what you use when you don’t know better. But in this case, data exists, and you don’t need to be speculating about things you don’t know about.
Cats have no natural predators most likely wherever you are, so no. If you live in Turkey, or around there, fine. That’s where they (rather, their ancestors) are native. They do have natural predators. If you live anywhere else then this excuse is bullshit just to make yourself feel better for being a shitty pet owner. It’s bad for their health and for the environment. You aren’t doing them or anything else any favors by not doing your job as a caretaker.
That’s something these anti cat people can’t reconcile…they live in a city that’s become a pretty finch paradise because they drove all the owls out when they paved their nests. Owls would have a smorgasbord…kill far more pretty birds than cats…if they could nest in parks.
I’m not really pro cat…I’m actually anti people. I just think it’s dumb for people to think cats are a serious problem because they watched some doc sponsored by a bird watchers society.
You know cats are here because of people, right? They, along with our cities, are issues we crested.
I’m not anti-cat. I’m anti-destruction-of-the-environment. Cats are our responsibility, and fault, as much as the destruction our cities and roads are.
If you feel that way then maybe you’ll understand that cats are really low on the list of how we’re being harmful. Top of the list is stop being a materialist. Solve that problem, and the 1000th problem on the list, cats, will solve itself.
The message a lot of the anti-cat people propagate is: have indoor cats. Terrible idea. All the nonsense you buy for your indoor cats is also going to destroy the environment…but it won’t be some cute bird at the feeder so you don’t care. The literary “you”.
I live in a rural area where there are no outdoor cats or dogs because they’re instantly killed by predators.
I don’t live in a city that has an artificial environment with no predators created by the presence of humans. People who live in cities who are opposed to outdoor cats just can’t stomach having predators in their midst, to put it bluntly. A good chunk of the birds and rodents they kill are also imported species. Comparing any of these interactions to something happens in the wild is naive.
Seriously. People are claiming to be worried about biomes in the middle of a city where the only lawns allowed are grass and pavement and the town is bombed with bug killers every year and mice are dealt with by having them killed indiscriminately by pest control. It’s actually illegal in my city to plant edible plants on our forested parts because of some bullshit about drawing homeless populations.
But yeah the outdoor cats are the issue. That shit ain’t even close to the top on my triage.
The issue is people thinking there is just an issue. When will you children learn that one bad thing does not justify another? All that you said is an issue, yes. I can also point out much worse issues, so we shouldn’t worry about those, right? Of course that isn’t correct! More than one thing can be bad at the same time, and we can also work on more than one thing at a time. Work on bringing back native plants and animals to suburbia and reduce how many evasive species we release into the environment. This isn’t an exclusive or situation. We can work on all of it.
When we start actually giving a shit about the local biome then I’ll consider giving my cat the shittiest life possible. Until then? Y’all can go fuck yourselves.
Indoor cats live longer healthier lives on average.
Anyway, you’re a shitty person. No one would ever improve anything if everything else had to be fixed first. You can always come up with some excuse for something else that needs to be improved before you hold yourself accountable for your own actions. No, this is all a lame bullshit excuse because you don’t want to do the right thing. It isn’t about other people. It’s about you being a lazy selfish asshole.
Nah, I do lots of local activism for the environment and the community. Going around and telling everyone in my neighbourhood to keep their cats inside doesnt feel helpful.
I think I’ve read that they can really hurt the local wildlife as they’re excellent hunters. Also they poop in sandboxes and you can get really sick from it.
It’s cruel to the cat. There is no shortage of outdoor hazards that can injure then or make them sick. It’s also very bad for biodiversity. Domestic cats alone are responsible for the endangerment and extinction of hundreds of species. There are other, better, more targeted ways to deal with pests. Do not keep your pets outside.
That argument is made by a particular group. It’s really important to include the context of when cats are “harmful” to the wildlife. It can only be in a setting where humans have completely modified the environment…**then** you create a scenario where cats become just another pest species. It should go without saying that when the anti cat people get all the feral cats eliminated…then many other pest species with a different set of problems come back. What it comes down to is which pest species you prefer.
Anyways…that’s all off topic because this post was about a cats being eating by coyotes….which are also both pest species. But from experience in a setting where you have pest weasels, raccoons, skunks, weasels, foxes, etc…it’s preferable to have cats…because if you don’t have enough coyotes a skunk is going to move under your house if you don’t have a cat. It’s all the weird version of the animal kingdom that humans create around us.
It can only be in a setting where humans have completely modified the environment…then you create a scenario where cats become just another pest species.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. But, like most suburbs do in fact host some songbirds- especially during migration. Parks, wooded areas, etc. Cats don’t really care if it’s a suburban park or a shitty nature preserve that apartments maintain because they bought the land but it’s wetlands (and set it up as a sort of “we bait deer and racoons and shit so your kids can catch rabies and other exciting diseases pet them.”
There are very, very few places that humans haven’t modified in some way. and I’m not sure they even exist at all.
There’s peregrine falcons that hunt doves in downtown minneapolis (and they’re super fun to watch if you can catch them. Animals can and do adapt to humanity’s bullshit. feral cats are more of that bullshit.
Cats should absolutely not be let out. it’s not safe for the cat (Coyotes, owls. diseases. cars. Just getting stuck. and enviromental exposure.) and it’s not safe for other wildlife (songbirds, rodents. etc,)
Not a lot to disagree with here, except your conclusion is really out of place.
Those falcons don’t really hunt doves…they mostly hunt imported pigeons…and that’s not a unique thing…I live in Canada where we have far more exciting prey birds in every city.
Anyways. People in cities get really weird about focusing on things that really aren’t significant…this kind of reminds me of wind turbines killing birds. Sure…it’s true…but neither cats nor wind turbines could possibly threaten birds. What threatens birds more profoundly is driving a gas vehicular or subscribing to Netflix so you can watch a documentary about how evil cats are. Or…living in a city in the first place.
I could wax philosophical and wonder if it’s a general aversion to witnessing predation that makes people anti cat…but it’s probably just people who have bird feeders being really loud. Hope you win, and have fun with all the rats…another totally natural species lol.
I don’t give a shit about cats…insofar as they’re only useful if they can survive long enough to kill mice for me.
My interest in this topic is fleeting…I think it’s amusing that some city people believe that cats are on any list that’s important. Be an anti materialist…you’ll save a lot more “wildlife”.
They have been implicated in the extinction of several species and local extinctions, such as the hutias from the Caribbean, the Guadalupe storm petrel from the Pacific coast of Mexico, and the Lyall’s wren from New Zealand. In a statistical study, they were a significant cause for the extinction of 40% of the species studied.[15] Moors and Atkinson wrote, in 1984, “no other alien predator has had such a universally damaging effect”.[14]
In a global 2023 assessment, cats were found to prey on 2,084 different species, of which 347 (or 16.5%) were of conservation concern.
House cats are an invasive species. They reproduce quickly and are very effective hunters. They are absolutely a recognized threat to local ecosystems.
I’d really like to see where you get these facts. I am not awa of any species that went extinct because of cats specifically, and I never saw a cat with a territory of more than a few hundred meters radius.
The home ranges of male feral cats, which are generally two or three times larger than those of female cats, are on average under 10 ha (25 acres), but can vary from almost 300 ha (740 acres) to under 1 ha (2.5 acres).
I’ve personally witnessed one of my cats well over a mile from home back when they were allowed outside.
Pretty much. To me it’s such a “boutique” opinion to get outraged about how dangerous cats are…without any context or consideration for the context in which cats exist in the first place.
Like…it’s akin to a first world problem…a bunch of people saw a documentary about cats, felt that they had some measure of power to deal with cats…and haven’t considered any of the major problems created by routines that they participate in that actually mean something.
Yes, cats are terrible. But killing all the owls (another commenter brought this up) and putting up all the bird feeders that gave the cats so much easy “prey” is also worth considering.
The weird thing is the OP is about cats getting killed by coyotes…who are a much more dangerous pest species (in the contexts that they’re eating cats) than the cats.
I’m definitely overthinking this…but my angle is I’m a rural person who has livestock and rodent problems. A much different scenario to somebody who lives in an apartment and got radicalized by some amateur birder who hates cats because they don’t want to leave the city to see birds
Humans are an invasive species, and many of the species that cats kill are also invasive.
My comments are criticizing the notion that cats are somehow uniquely or critically dangerous. If it were up to me I’d get rid over all the imported species, including humans.
Cats are dangerous to birds that show up at bird feeders because humans killed all their natural predators like owls. It’s not a huge issue…it’s a symptom of a much larger problem.
I wholeheartedly agree that humans are invasive, but one need only look at a place like New Zealand to see how one of homo sapiens’ most environmentally-damaging qualities is that it brings other invasive species with it. Treating birds at bird feeders as if they’re all invasive is deeply reductive and objectively wrong. Animals migrate in some cases hundreds of miles in a day.
Cats are universally deeply invasive once feral, and humans letting those cats (and dogs) get out has been the primary threat to the wildlife of New Zealand. Not humanity itself. This is almost universally true on any island, from islands that have been completely taken over by rats, to the Spaniards’ tendency to leave behind feral hogs that outcompete even the most deadly of predators within a couple generations. But in only one case does everyone treat this like it’s some endearing quality: outdoor cats.
Just because there’s a much bigger problem doesn’t mean that the small one doesn’t exist. That’s just whataboutism. ALL of these need to be dealt with, but you know which one is the easiest to tackle FIRST? (Hint: it’s not the pigs)
I never treated all or any birds at bird feeders as invasive. I said that they have no predators because we killed them all. I haven’t seen any data on how many birds a cat can kill vs an owl…I suspect an owl is more effective. I haven’t seen any data that suggests that cats are threatening any bird populations.
It just sounds like something that need to be managed…and we should consider something other than the cute birds we want at bird feeders.
Humans brought rodents, and killed their predators. Are cats killing more rats and mice than a weasel could? Unlikely.
Some edge case about a cat wiping out a bird population on an island 100 years ago doesn’t interest me.
Note that while domestic cats are unlikely to venture far, they don’t need to, as native birds fly into residential neighbourhoods without issue. Regardless, they are between 10 and 100 times more effective at killing wildlife than a comparable predator such as a weasel or owl.
“Out
sidoor cats” shouldn’t be a thing, imo.Edit: didn’t realize I totally messed up the word, “outdoor”.
Can places still keep them for pest control? What’s wrong with an outdoor cat?
EDIT: It’s so weird getting downvoted for a genuine question. See y’all in the next thread about why isn’t Lemmy more popular.
They kill a lot of wildlife, which in many settings is not desirable.
Here’s the often cited study from 2013 that estimates outdoor cats kill billions of birds and mammals annually in the US alone:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
Even if they don’t kill, say, a bird, a cat’s mouth and teeth are loaded with bacteria. It generally doesn’t harm humans that much, but birds and small mammals stand a good chance of dying from infection if they’re bitten or scratched up by a cat.
A cat’s bite can absolutely hurt humans. That bacteria can be lethal.
If there’s a setting where cats can survive and kill “wildlife”, I would push back against the use of the term “wildlife”, because in order for this to be true humans have eliminated most predator species in the “biome”. All I hear when people in a city say they don’t want feral cats is they want cute birds at their feeders.
In an area rural enough to have coyotes…feral cats can be a positive addition to the biome so you don’t get overrun by rodents. Birds don’t have to worry because the cats need to stay close to cover due to various predators.
You clearly have done zero research on the topic and are simply telling us what you would like to be true. “Common sense” is what you use when you don’t know better. But in this case, data exists, and you don’t need to be speculating about things you don’t know about.
You didn’t say anything.
Feel free to engage with my reply.
I can translate for you!
translation: shut up
Someone pointing out logical fallacies is most definitely them saying something.
Unfortunately, often the willfully ignorant and those who live lifes free of logic cannot understand these words and decide they are meaningless.
They also tend to think people smart than them are dumber than them, but that’s often a defense mechanism over a paper thin ego.
Man, mind like an ocean indeed… Mostly empty, with a few bits of bacteria and just enough sentient meat to function.
Cats have no natural predators most likely wherever you are, so no. If you live in Turkey, or around there, fine. That’s where they (rather, their ancestors) are native. They do have natural predators. If you live anywhere else then this excuse is bullshit just to make yourself feel better for being a shitty pet owner. It’s bad for their health and for the environment. You aren’t doing them or anything else any favors by not doing your job as a caretaker.
large owls will happily predate on cats. They’re like flying cats that are even more Murder Hobo-ish.
I said natural predators. Sure, there are still things that will eat them, but nothing evolved to hunt them.
Owls are badass.
That’s something these anti cat people can’t reconcile…they live in a city that’s become a pretty finch paradise because they drove all the owls out when they paved their nests. Owls would have a smorgasbord…kill far more pretty birds than cats…if they could nest in parks.
I’m not really pro cat…I’m actually anti people. I just think it’s dumb for people to think cats are a serious problem because they watched some doc sponsored by a bird watchers society.
You know cats are here because of people, right? They, along with our cities, are issues we crested.
I’m not anti-cat. I’m anti-destruction-of-the-environment. Cats are our responsibility, and fault, as much as the destruction our cities and roads are.
If you feel that way then maybe you’ll understand that cats are really low on the list of how we’re being harmful. Top of the list is stop being a materialist. Solve that problem, and the 1000th problem on the list, cats, will solve itself.
The message a lot of the anti-cat people propagate is: have indoor cats. Terrible idea. All the nonsense you buy for your indoor cats is also going to destroy the environment…but it won’t be some cute bird at the feeder so you don’t care. The literary “you”.
You’re projecting.
I live in a rural area where there are no outdoor cats or dogs because they’re instantly killed by predators.
I don’t live in a city that has an artificial environment with no predators created by the presence of humans. People who live in cities who are opposed to outdoor cats just can’t stomach having predators in their midst, to put it bluntly. A good chunk of the birds and rodents they kill are also imported species. Comparing any of these interactions to something happens in the wild is naive.
Where the hell do you live that dogs are getting killed by predators instantly? Do you mean like small dogs? I could see that.
The biggest predator of them all: automobiles
Drunk neighbors if I had to base it on my experiences living in the country…
Canada.
Sigh I suppose I should have said most dogs…not dogs bred to kill wolves and fight bears, for example.
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Seriously. People are claiming to be worried about biomes in the middle of a city where the only lawns allowed are grass and pavement and the town is bombed with bug killers every year and mice are dealt with by having them killed indiscriminately by pest control. It’s actually illegal in my city to plant edible plants on our forested parts because of some bullshit about drawing homeless populations.
But yeah the outdoor cats are the issue. That shit ain’t even close to the top on my triage.
The issue is people thinking there is just an issue. When will you children learn that one bad thing does not justify another? All that you said is an issue, yes. I can also point out much worse issues, so we shouldn’t worry about those, right? Of course that isn’t correct! More than one thing can be bad at the same time, and we can also work on more than one thing at a time. Work on bringing back native plants and animals to suburbia and reduce how many evasive species we release into the environment. This isn’t an exclusive or situation. We can work on all of it.
When we start actually giving a shit about the local biome then I’ll consider giving my cat the shittiest life possible. Until then? Y’all can go fuck yourselves.
Indoor cats live longer healthier lives on average.
Anyway, you’re a shitty person. No one would ever improve anything if everything else had to be fixed first. You can always come up with some excuse for something else that needs to be improved before you hold yourself accountable for your own actions. No, this is all a lame bullshit excuse because you don’t want to do the right thing. It isn’t about other people. It’s about you being a lazy selfish asshole.
Nah, I do lots of local activism for the environment and the community. Going around and telling everyone in my neighbourhood to keep their cats inside doesnt feel helpful.
Also “you’re a shitty person because you’re okay with cats being allowed outdoors” is an insane take.
I think I’ve read that they can really hurt the local wildlife as they’re excellent hunters. Also they poop in sandboxes and you can get really sick from it.
And cats hunt for fun, not just food.
Hunt for practice.
On a farm you pretty much need a cat or you’ll be overrun by mice.
What you call a pest, the ecosystem calls native wildlife. The “pest control” is what’s wrong.
Alrighty then!
Offer yourself to the rats!
It’s cruel to the cat. There is no shortage of outdoor hazards that can injure then or make them sick. It’s also very bad for biodiversity. Domestic cats alone are responsible for the endangerment and extinction of hundreds of species. There are other, better, more targeted ways to deal with pests. Do not keep your pets outside.
In Australia? Definitely.
In the US? IDK probably?Somewhere like Istanbul? Its controversial but probably not.
Edit: Technically speaking ‘outsidoor’ cats don’t exist?
LOL I didn’t even notice my typo. I wrote outside cat, then thought I fixed it to outdoor.
That argument is made by a particular group. It’s really important to include the context of when cats are “harmful” to the wildlife. It can only be in a setting where humans have completely modified the environment…**then** you create a scenario where cats become just another pest species. It should go without saying that when the anti cat people get all the feral cats eliminated…then many other pest species with a different set of problems come back. What it comes down to is which pest species you prefer.
Anyways…that’s all off topic because this post was about a cats being eating by coyotes….which are also both pest species. But from experience in a setting where you have pest weasels, raccoons, skunks, weasels, foxes, etc…it’s preferable to have cats…because if you don’t have enough coyotes a skunk is going to move under your house if you don’t have a cat. It’s all the weird version of the animal kingdom that humans create around us.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. But, like most suburbs do in fact host some songbirds- especially during migration. Parks, wooded areas, etc. Cats don’t really care if it’s a suburban park or a shitty nature preserve that apartments maintain because they bought the land but it’s wetlands (and set it up as a sort of “we bait deer and racoons and shit
so your kids can catch rabies and other exciting diseasespet them.”There are very, very few places that humans haven’t modified in some way. and I’m not sure they even exist at all.
There’s peregrine falcons that hunt doves in downtown minneapolis (and they’re super fun to watch if you can catch them. Animals can and do adapt to humanity’s bullshit. feral cats are more of that bullshit.
Cats should absolutely not be let out. it’s not safe for the cat (Coyotes, owls. diseases. cars. Just getting stuck. and enviromental exposure.) and it’s not safe for other wildlife (songbirds, rodents. etc,)
Not a lot to disagree with here, except your conclusion is really out of place.
Those falcons don’t really hunt doves…they mostly hunt imported pigeons…and that’s not a unique thing…I live in Canada where we have far more exciting prey birds in every city.
Anyways. People in cities get really weird about focusing on things that really aren’t significant…this kind of reminds me of wind turbines killing birds. Sure…it’s true…but neither cats nor wind turbines could possibly threaten birds. What threatens birds more profoundly is driving a gas vehicular or subscribing to Netflix so you can watch a documentary about how evil cats are. Or…living in a city in the first place.
I could wax philosophical and wonder if it’s a general aversion to witnessing predation that makes people anti cat…but it’s probably just people who have bird feeders being really loud. Hope you win, and have fun with all the rats…another totally natural species lol.
House cats have literally been responsible for the extinction of several species. Their roaming territory can be a several mile radius.
They are absolutely a major threat to local wildlife regardless of human changes to the area.
Cats haven’t made anything go extinct, don’t be silly. You’re likely talking about that one cat on that tiny island.
Cats don’t live near wildlife…or they’d get killed by predators.
I like how confidently incorrect you are.
Hm? I’m perfectly correct. Figuratively :)
I don’t give a shit about cats…insofar as they’re only useful if they can survive long enough to kill mice for me.
My interest in this topic is fleeting…I think it’s amusing that some city people believe that cats are on any list that’s important. Be an anti materialist…you’ll save a lot more “wildlife”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife
House cats are an invasive species. They reproduce quickly and are very effective hunters. They are absolutely a recognized threat to local ecosystems.
I’d really like to see where you get these facts. I am not awa of any species that went extinct because of cats specifically, and I never saw a cat with a territory of more than a few hundred meters radius.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_cat
I’ve personally witnessed one of my cats well over a mile from home back when they were allowed outside.
Your room-temperature IQ is showing.
Such nuance.
Such a lack of intelligence.
Insults are the perfect argument. You win.
Lots of claims from you in here about being personally fine with allowing invasives into your area, but is there any researched evidence for it?
I never said I was “personally fine with invasive species” you’re projecting.
Looks like he’s just trying to steelman the things you say into something that is at least logically defensible.
Someone gets it
Pretty much. To me it’s such a “boutique” opinion to get outraged about how dangerous cats are…without any context or consideration for the context in which cats exist in the first place.
Like…it’s akin to a first world problem…a bunch of people saw a documentary about cats, felt that they had some measure of power to deal with cats…and haven’t considered any of the major problems created by routines that they participate in that actually mean something.
Yes, cats are terrible. But killing all the owls (another commenter brought this up) and putting up all the bird feeders that gave the cats so much easy “prey” is also worth considering.
The weird thing is the OP is about cats getting killed by coyotes…who are a much more dangerous pest species (in the contexts that they’re eating cats) than the cats.
I’m definitely overthinking this…but my angle is I’m a rural person who has livestock and rodent problems. A much different scenario to somebody who lives in an apartment and got radicalized by some amateur birder who hates cats because they don’t want to leave the city to see birds
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Tell me you cannot even conceive of an “invasive species” without telling me you are incapable of understanding that basic concept.
Feel free to read and respond to my comment rather than lob insults.
If the concept of an invasive species is an insufficient response in your eyes, then I maintain that my prior response is not insult, but observation.
Humans are an invasive species, and many of the species that cats kill are also invasive.
My comments are criticizing the notion that cats are somehow uniquely or critically dangerous. If it were up to me I’d get rid over all the imported species, including humans.
Cats are dangerous to birds that show up at bird feeders because humans killed all their natural predators like owls. It’s not a huge issue…it’s a symptom of a much larger problem.
I wholeheartedly agree that humans are invasive, but one need only look at a place like New Zealand to see how one of homo sapiens’ most environmentally-damaging qualities is that it brings other invasive species with it. Treating birds at bird feeders as if they’re all invasive is deeply reductive and objectively wrong. Animals migrate in some cases hundreds of miles in a day.
Cats are universally deeply invasive once feral, and humans letting those cats (and dogs) get out has been the primary threat to the wildlife of New Zealand. Not humanity itself. This is almost universally true on any island, from islands that have been completely taken over by rats, to the Spaniards’ tendency to leave behind feral hogs that outcompete even the most deadly of predators within a couple generations. But in only one case does everyone treat this like it’s some endearing quality: outdoor cats.
Just because there’s a much bigger problem doesn’t mean that the small one doesn’t exist. That’s just whataboutism. ALL of these need to be dealt with, but you know which one is the easiest to tackle FIRST? (Hint: it’s not the pigs)
I never treated all or any birds at bird feeders as invasive. I said that they have no predators because we killed them all. I haven’t seen any data on how many birds a cat can kill vs an owl…I suspect an owl is more effective. I haven’t seen any data that suggests that cats are threatening any bird populations.
It just sounds like something that need to be managed…and we should consider something other than the cute birds we want at bird feeders.
Humans brought rodents, and killed their predators. Are cats killing more rats and mice than a weasel could? Unlikely.
Some edge case about a cat wiping out a bird population on an island 100 years ago doesn’t interest me.
100 years ago? Really? Why are you assuming I’m talking about the past? Educate yourself.
Also, here’s a scientific study completely disproving your unfounded suppositions
Note that while domestic cats are unlikely to venture far, they don’t need to, as native birds fly into residential neighbourhoods without issue. Regardless, they are between 10 and 100 times more effective at killing wildlife than a comparable predator such as a weasel or owl.
You are right. It’s why many cities will release neutered feral cats to handle large rat populations.