Cats everywhere!

[GoldfinchFeather]

Since we have plenty of threads to moan about dogs and dog owners, how about a bit of balance and a thread for the same about cats?

I, for one, am not a fan of the things and think there are too many around. And sure, while the problems they cause may be less obvious than dogs/dog ownership, I personally think they're worse in many ways. Particularly for the terrible effect they have on local wildlife and birds in particular.

On numerous occasions I've had the misfortune to come across birds and animals that have clearly been attacked by cats. One distressing incident occurred just a few weeks ago - on an evening walk I came across a domestic cat that had just attacked a tiny baby wild rabbit. Despite shooing the cat off and it still being alive when I got to it, it didn't survive.

Seeing that made me just want to go and give the bloody thing a boot up the backside.

Yet many cat owners seem to find this behaviour either a mildly amusing part of their cat ownership ("you'll never guess what my Tiddles caught the other day!"), or have no qualms about letting their cats roam freely and slowly kill all wildlife within a several mile radius. When really, they should just be kept indoors.

And if they were, there'd be far less of them that were always going bloody missing or being stupid enough to get themselves run over on the road.

Surely I can't be alone in my hatred of cats?!

When did I say any of this? You're forming strawman arguments around something I haven't even said. This thread is specifically about cats and the effect they have on wildlife, not dogs, humans or aliens from another galaxy.

'Cats desire killing them'.

Wow, you really aren't making them sound any better. 😂Why on earth would you want a pet like that?!

Awful, psychopathic creatures.

Appreciate I’m not exactly doing them any favours 🫤

Just pointing out we don’t actually need to eat animals to survive. So we are no better.

Awful, psychopathic creatures? Because they enjoy hunting? It's an evolutionary feature for survival.

You sound increasingly unhinged.

All carnivores enjoy hunting and will engage in hunting behaviour even if they are being fed. It's very strange anthropomorphising to think of that as a character flaw.

Do cats in the wild 'toy' with their prey in the same way domestic cats do? Or do they kill it immediately?

Psychopathic creatures lol

Sounds like you need to meet the right cat. You can’t tar them alll with the same brush: not all cats are psychopathic killers lol. Just some… Oh wait no I’m thinking about men!

Yabu

One of my cats was feral (and very pregnant when she turned up here, hence the rest of my cats 😂). She plays with her kills (she has a preference for rodents).

I looked it up and apparently they all do, something to do with 'tiring them out'. Poor prey though.

Hello from Mia. 😻

I personally am shocked by how often cats get run over. My local Facebook group has a post about a dead cat at least weekly. I know several people it's happened to. Based on that I think it's cruel to own a cat who goes out. Getting run over is a HORRIBLE way to die and people who have cats know this can happen and yet choose to own a cat anyway. Do you love your cat if you know it might just get crushed to death any time? Or is it that you want a cat for your own gratification, and fuck the cat I suppose it can go get flattened.and it's just one of them things.

Er you did actually, in your first post

while the problems they cause may be less obvious than dogs/dog ownership, I personally think they're worse in many ways. Particularly for the terrible effect they have on local wildlife and birds in particular.

yes cats do catch birds, mice rabbits etc but dogs also chase and kill rabbits. Most farmers would disagree it is less obvious. In 2024, dog attacks on livestock in the UK cost an estimated £1.8 million to farmers. Swans are also a target and lets not forget Elvis the seal who was killed in an unprovoked ferocious attack by a dog by the Thames. Horses are attacked by dogs quite regularly.

If I want to go for a walk and actually see birds, squirrels, deer etc I avoid peak dog walking time to actually see them. Dogs have chased everything off.

As for Fenton the deer chasing lab...

It's not that straightforward though is it? I live very rurally, there's very little traffic on our lane. My cats are out at night (when there's hardly any traffic). Should I restrict them to indoors because of the very slim chance they might get hit by a car?

'How can cats possibly be superior to dogs? Do you get guide cats? hearing cats? cats that sniff out cancer? police cats? cats that rescue people from burning buildings?
Obviously dogs are better'

You may have a point here

That’s ridiculous, I have kids that walk to school, didn’t have them to be flattened either, the alternative half life of being stuck indoors is not a life I’d want to live or enforce on another.

Cats don't have a negative impact on my life in the way dogs do. People don't take them everywhere, they don't expect to take them to offices, into cafes (except specific cat cafes) or onto trains. And the cats themselves don't try to trip me up or jump up at me or make a lot of noise. I don't have to rethink my walking and running routes to avoid out of control cats.

However, they do invite themselves into peoples' houses/gardens/offices/and even make it onto trains on occasion ;)

True psychopaths want to hurt animals…just like you daydream about 😂

I lost one cat to a car. The clocks had changed in the autumn and we'd not managed to get him in by 21:00. Since then we try and get our cats in by 16:00 in the winter and 19:00 in the summer and not let them out until 09:00 in the morning so they are not out at peak traffic times. We don't live there anymore

We are semi-rural but not far away is a busy A road. We have been looking to move and proximity to even a B road will rule the property out for us

Mine don’t venture out of our garden

A lot of birds have become much rarer in my lifetime. Grey partridges, curlews and lapwings for example. All down to increasingly industrialised farming practices.

Many seabirds. Down to overfishing and bird flu, the last deadly strain of which was incubated in....poultry farms.

Insectivores such as swifts. Down to a catastrophic insect decline, due to climate change AND INCREASINGLY INDUSTRIALISED FARMING PRACTICES.

Anyone spotting a trend there?

In contrast, the garden birds most commonly taken by cats in Europe- such as wrens, sparrows, robins and blue tits- are thriving. Possibly because they evolved alongside wildcats, among other predators. Garden songbirds naturally have an insane attrition rate in their young- out of a clutch of ten blue ties, only one or two are likely to make it to maturity. This happens with or without cats present.

you’re making the false equivalence of a cat and a human. Humans know better, cat’s don’t. Animals killing other animals is different to humans killing animals. On that note, do you eat animals?

Kids getting hit by cars is pretty rare though, cats getting hit by cars happens all the bloody time. It's a massive, massive risk for cats. The alternative of keeping them indoors is shit for the cat too though yes. You'll have a cat anyway though because you want one, doesn't matter that the cat is either trapped indoors or in huge danger outdoors.

Mine go in the garden, M25 doesn’t go through there 😂 all pet ownership is selfish, it doesn’t begin and end at cats.

Meg and Mog want to know if another cat counts as pest