Would you kill your pet if ordered to by the gov't?

[JackiePlace]

I read in the news this morning that at the beginning of the Covid crisis the gov't considered ordering the culling of all domestic cats in order to prevent the spread of Covid. This idea was later abandoned after it was proven that cats couldn't transmit Covid to humans.
AIBU to think that this would have caused a mass uprising? We are a nation of animal lovers, after all. Or would people have accepted it as they did some of the other draconian regulations (not visiting dying relatives, etc).

www.lbc.co.uk/news/govt-cat-cull-covid-pandemic/

No way in hell. My cats kept me sane through the pandemic and all the associated shite that went on in my own life over that period.

They have always been indoor cats in any case so minimal risk from that PoV

I was genuinely upset when I heard this today, my mind just went to the scenario and how utterly horrific it would have been. But to answer your question, they would have to have prised my cats out of my cold, dead hands before I would have killed them.

I'm getting upset just thinking about it

What's your favourite cat please ? Please keep on topic.😅👏

I did go 'fnarr, fnarr, Missus' as I wrote it. Lol. Gotta get yer kicks where you can

@NotTerfNorCis it wasn’t just that though was it? What a simplistic way to look at it. Some people lost their incomes and their homes, didn’t say goodbye to loved ones that passed or see their parents for months on end. Women having breakdowns trying to home school their children and work from home at the same time and being told not to have anyone come help them. Suicides from loneliness and the list goes on and on. People were pushed to the brink all because the government clicked their fingers and they themselves were just doing as they please clearly they weren’t scared themselves.

In theory, I can imagine a scenario where I would sacrifice my pets for human survival.

What I'm struggling with is imagining a scenario where I trusted that the government were telling me the truth about the scenario above.

Nope. I’d kill someone who came at my pets.

Stunner

@Killingmytime

Thankyou, he's adorable, very good natured and loves cuddles and a fuss!

I can’t imagine it, I adore my cat. But I do adore my kids more, so if it was something like the bird flu H5N1 50% human fatality rate and there was a high level of evidence that cats would be carriers then I suppose I’d have to consider it. I’d have thought in most circumstances keeping them inside would be enough though?

Nope. No way. Not a chance. Not happening. No can do. Not a hope in Hell.

The cat stays.

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There’s a brilliant film about a baby elephant hidden in a terraced house in Belfast during the war.
it’s a very sad but beautiful film, it’s called zoo.
it’s fantastic.

See I do understand why people say no, of course. But if we weren't talking covid. If there was genuinely a Cat Flu or Mad Cat Disease etc. and it was clear that transmitted to humans it was highly fatal, esp on children, are you honestly saying you couldn't pick your kids over your cat?

Hell no. My dog is my family, and I would never hand her over to have her killed. They would have to deal with me first.

Absolutely zero way. And if the bastards try to cull the badgers on our land that’s not happening either.

Interesting to see how much it’d damage the government though, but wouldn’t be worth the cost to the animals abd I don’t think most would comply now. WW2 were different times.

I read that as ‘pets’ and was imagining a gang of cats barricading themselves into a school.

Imagine being sat in your living room today, knowing you had killed your beloved pet. To be reading the messages that horrific little man Hancock sent.
Knowing that you killed your pet based on political point scoring and hitting targets

Imagination isn't always necessary; there are still countless people who were forced to stay away from their sick loved ones, unable even to hold their hands as they died or attend the funeral afterwards, and they too will no doubt have views about Hancock's messages

And now, in a supreme irony, this person has described the leaks as "a betrayal"

Nope. She'd be stashed in the loft like Anne Frank.

It’s a pointless question. People will say ‘of course not’ because it’s a not a real scenario and we are at a point where covid is not the threat it was, but at the beginning of the pandemic I’m sure it would have been a different story.
This is just Milgram’s experiment by a different method. That experiment (for those unaware, people were asked to give other people electric shocks if they incorrectly answered a question: most did. Even when the shock was marked ‘may cause death’ and there was screaming) was meant to prove that there was something deficient in the German people that caused the deaths of the Jews. There wasn’t. People are just very susceptible to being told what to do by authority figures.

Livestock, not pets.
There's a huge difference. Livestock is basically raised to be killed, so as long as the farmer is compensated he's ok.

api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1969/nov/11/rabies

November 1969 how the government handled a rabies scare. BADLY!!! Worth a read

For that analogy to work though, since most people would be very upset about the deaths of their pets, they'd have to be giving themselves electric shocks.

I presume there could come a point when people felt sufficiently threatened by a disease that many of them would be willing to see their pets killed, but it doesn't follow that the early days of covid was it. Additionally, we don't actually have that much in the way of police and army in our society, so it would've been very hard to enforce. Those may well be amongst the reasons why the government realised it was a bad idea.

Practically speaking, I think if it ever did get bad enough that a good number of the population would consider this, we'd have a lot of vigilante pet killing and that might be a bigger deal than our rather small police and army trying to enforce it.