Cats

[JoeWeber 2,302]

Lot's of people love cats and others believe that feral are cats worthy of rescue. But around the world loose house cats are a real problem. They are killers. So where are SC posters on this real problem?

https://www.salon.com/2023/11/26/cats-have-driven-many-species-to-extinction-experts-share-tactics-for-reducing-feline-destruction/

Edited November 27, 2023 by JoeWeber

[gowlerk 1,914]

I'm firmly on both sides. I like cats, had cats in the house growing up, but don't want to own one now. On the other hand I am the meany who knows that they are just another form of livestock and they are not "fur babies". Feral cats should not be allowed to exist if anything can be done to eliminate them. Pretty much the same goes for dogs. Spending stupid amounts of money on animals that are sick and should be put down also bothers me. I know, the haters are going to hate on me.

[ryoder 1,388]

Anyone else open this thread expecting a critique of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical?

[winsor 186]

3 hours ago, ryoder said:

Anyone else open this thread expecting a critique of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical?

 

5 hours ago, gowlerk said:

I'm firmly on both sides. I like cats, had cats in the house growing up, but don't want to own one now. On the other hand I am the meany who knows that they are just another form of livestock and they are not "fur babies". Feral cats should not be allowed to exist if anything can be done to eliminate them. Pretty much the same goes for dogs. Spending stupid amounts of money on animals that are sick and should be put down also bothers me. I know, the haters are going to hate on me.

I'm allergic to cats, so I'm somewhat biased.

I suppose feral cats are an improvement over rats and the like, but they're more likely to wipe out songbirds.  

I've heard the comment that any veterinary condition that costs more than $1,000 to address is fatal.  Having an epileptic, diabetic dog at home, I wouldn't repeat that sentiment in my kid's presence.

Wild dogs, feral cats and pigs are invasive species, and I've lived places where game regulations allowed them to be shot on sight with no season or limit.  All of them are considered edible by one culture or another, and there is a nonzero chance that I've been served them in my travels - though only wild boar knowingly.

I never watched the show, but I seem to recall mention that ALF liked to eat cats.  To each their own.

.

[wmw999 2,123]

I currently have two cats. Neutered. My ex-husband rescues strays, and neuters them. He enjoys the challenge of trying to rehabilitate a feral cat. But they don't belong outdoors any more, unless they're barn cats on a farm -- then they have the purpose of catching mice (and some of them are really good at that). To me, they deserve the respect for life that other animals deserve -- no needless suffering, feed critters in your care appropriately. And while $1000 might not be my cutoff, I did determine with a dog years ago that $7000, with a poor outlook, was definitely past it.

Wendy P.

[lippy 773]

TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) is the most effective way to deal with feral cats.  Take a trapped cat in to a TNR facility and they'll give them shots, spay/neuter and cut off the tip of the left ear...The tipped ear is an internationally recognized indicator that the animal is fixed.

TNR lets the animals go about their business (after a shitty day or two) and keep living their best kitty lives, killing rodents and other  pests (and unfortunately, the occasional bird) while keeping the population from completely ballooning out of control.  

Years ago I built a jig that could be bolted onto a live animal trap.  It had a solenoid to actuate the door of the trap, and a Bluetooth SOC where when an animal entered the trap, I'd get an alert on my phone and then could confirm what animal was in there and if it's the one I was trying to catch, actuate the door from the app.  The idea was to keep from trapping a possum or trapping a cat that's already been fixed if there were multiple cats around.  I think part of the reason it never went much further than my back yard and a few people in the local TNR community was that most TNR people are retirees volunteering their time, and they weren't super huge on new technology.  

[JoeWeber 2,302]

3 hours ago, winsor said:

 

I'm allergic to cats, so I'm somewhat biased.

I suppose feral cats are an improvement over rats and the like, but they're more likely to wipe out songbirds.  

I've heard the comment that any veterinary condition that costs more than $1,000 to address is fatal.  Having an epileptic, diabetic dog at home, I wouldn't repeat that sentiment in my kid's presence.

Wild dogs, feral cats and pigs are invasive species, and I've lived places where game regulations allowed them to be shot on sight with no season or limit.  All of them are considered edible by one culture or another, and there is a nonzero chance that I've been served them in my travels - though only wild boar knowingly.

I never watched the show, but I seem to recall mention that ALF liked to eat cats.  To each their own.

.

They're often seen hanging from roadside meat stands in northern Vietnam. The word for them is Meó.

[JoeWeber 2,302]

26 minutes ago, lippy said:

TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) is the most effective way to deal with feral cats.  Take a trapped cat in to a TNR facility and they'll give them shots, spay/neuter and cut off the tip of the left ear...The tipped ear is an internationally recognized indicator that the animal is fixed.

TNR lets the animals go about their business (after a shitty day or two) and keep living their best kitty lives, killing rodents and other  pests (and unfortunately, the occasional bird) while keeping the population from completely ballooning out of control.  

Years ago I built a jig that could be bolted onto a live animal trap.  It had a solenoid to actuate the door of the trap, and a Bluetooth SOC where when an animal entered the trap, I'd get an alert on my phone and then could confirm what animal was in there and if it's the one I was trying to catch, actuate the door from the app.  The idea was to keep from trapping a possum or trapping a cat that's already been fixed if there were multiple cats around.  I think part of the reason it never went much further than my back yard and a few people in the local TNR community was that most TNR people are retirees volunteering their time, and they weren't super huge on new technology.  

The problem is that it not an occasional songbird. Over a billion, possibly 2 or 3 billion, annually in the US are not unusual estimates. 

[lippy 773]

1 hour ago, JoeWeber said:

The problem is that it not an occasional songbird. Over a billion, possibly 2 or 3 billion, annually in the US are not unusual estimates. 

Fair enough. I don’t like the thought of dead birds either, but cats are predators and hunters ‘gonna hunt. The best way to minimize the damage is to control the feral population, and the best way to do that is TNR. 

[Phil1111 911]

The US is shortly to have bigger problems if you pardon the pun: Hordes of "super pigs" are running amok in Canada, and may soon spill across the border into the northern U.S. The biggest can weigh over 660 lbs.

No word yet if trump will build a northern wall to keep these Canadian illegals out.

[Phil1111 911]

4 minutes ago, lippy said:

Fair enough. I don’t like the thought of dead birds either, but cats are predators and hunters ‘gonna hunt. The best way to minimize the damage is to control the feral population, and the best way to do that is TNR. 

Do We Really Know That Cats Kill By The Billions? Not So Fast I agree with this NPR story. There has never been another quasi-scientific study done to show "songbirds" have been detrimentally affected in a local area by feral cats.

[gowlerk 1,914]

1 hour ago, Phil1111 said:

Do We Really Know That Cats Kill By The Billions? Not So Fast I agree with this NPR story. There has never been another quasi-scientific study done to show "songbirds" have been detrimentally affected in a local area by feral cats.

Great. Now we don't know for sure if the evil cats or the evil wind turbines are the culprit.

[Phil1111 911]

5 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Great. Now we don't know for sure if the evil cats or the evil wind turbines are the culprit.

Be it immigrants or invasive species some are good, some are neutral and some are detrimental. I personally would kill Lionfish that I found anywhere in the Caribbean. I know they cause huge harm. Calling cats an invasive specie is akin to calling White men an invasive species for native tribes. Although sometimes when frustrated by old republican white men thoughts of unleashing my 30-06 briefly come to mind.

[JoeWeber 2,302]

2 hours ago, Phil1111 said:

Do We Really Know That Cats Kill By The Billions? Not So Fast I agree with this NPR story. There has never been another quasi-scientific study done to show "songbirds" have been detrimentally affected in a local area by feral cats.

Reports are that this one was detrimentally affected.

[Phil1111 911]

7 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

Reports are that this one was detrimentally affected.

English sparrows aren't songbirds. Good kitty! Yes, house sparrows are an invasive bird species.

[JoeWeber 2,302]

2 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

English sparrows aren't songbirds. Good kitty! Yes, house sparrows are an invasive bird species.

So really, it's just another immigrant getting their just desserts. 

[wmw999 2,123]

2 hours ago, Phil1111 said:

The US is shortly to have bigger problems if you pardon the pun: Hordes of "super pigs" are running amok in Canada, and may soon spill across the border into the northern U.S. The biggest can weigh over 660 lbs.

No word yet if trump will build a northern wall to keep these Canadian illegals out.

Wild hogs are a big problem in the southern US; maybe a different kind, but definitely problematic. I can hardly wait.

Wendy P.

[gowlerk 1,914]

Where I live feral the feral cat population is somewhat limited by the harshness of our winters. As is the bird count.

[JoeWeber 2,302]

2 hours ago, lippy said:

Fair enough. I don’t like the thought of dead birds either, but cats are predators and hunters ‘gonna hunt. The best way to minimize the damage is to control the feral population, and the best way to do that is TNR. 

The American Bird Conservancy believes that TNR not only doesn't work but in fact can make the problem worse: 

 

 

[Bigfalls 110]

Maybe if we trapped, neutered and released people, there wouldn't be so many screwing up the earth.

[Phil1111 911]

33 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

The American Bird Conservancy believes that TNR not only doesn't work but in fact can make the problem worse: 

 

 

A biased attack video that fails to mention the benefit that TN&R programs have on the actions of cats to control non-native birds! Such as: Invasive Birds of the U.S.: Seven of the Most Common Species Since this article is put out by the same makers as the video I have to call out species bias here!

No mention of the damage and carnage that bird watchers cause as they gather and rubber-neck to view birds. A bunch of elitist swine who talk incessantly about Swarovski, Zeiss, etc.

[JoeWeber 2,302]

1 minute ago, Phil1111 said:

A biased attack video that fails to mention the benefit that TN&R programs have on the actions of cats to control non-native birds! Such as: Invasive Birds of the U.S.: Seven of the Most Common Species Since this article is put out by the same makers as the video I have to call out species bias here!

No mention of the damage and carnage that bird watchers cause as they gather and rubber-neck to view birds. A bunch of elitist swine who talk incessantly about Swarovski, Zeiss, etc.

Species bias? Trap and release has never worked. For example, every weekday morning collection vans drive the neighborhoods collecting kids who are then released into a colony of kids where they do little harm. Has that worked? Nope, there are more of them all the time. 

[Phil1111 911]

5 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

Species bias? Trap and release has never worked. For example, every weekday morning collection vans drive the neighborhoods collecting kids who are then released into a colony of kids where they do little harm. Has that worked? Nope, there are more of them all the time. 

And in Canada more and more Black, Asian, East Indian ones. Native children can hardly be seen anywhere. Well except for Winnipeg.

[gowlerk 1,914]

10 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

And in Canada more and more Black, Asian, East Indian ones. Native children can hardly be seen anywhere. Well except for Winnipeg.

I have a colony just across the street from me. Every weekday for 10 months of the year the big yellow vans arrive with more of them. Where do they come from? And minivans crowd the local street all vying for choice places to park as the hunt and trap the feral 12 to 15 year olds. 

[lippy 773]

1 hour ago, JoeWeber said:

Species bias? Trap and release has never worked. For example, every weekday morning collection vans drive the neighborhoods collecting kids who are then released into a colony of kids where they do little harm. Has that worked? Nope, there are more of them all the time. 

It's just 'cause they forgot to neuter the little fuckers