“Outdoor cats” are an invasive species that kill billions of animals every year, are a significant contributor to dozens of species’ extinction, and live shorter lives than cats properly cared for (i.e. kept indoors) including nearly 3x the risk for infections.
It’s a plague. We can’t keep normalizing this.
Going into your own backyard is a lot different than running through the neighborhood uninhibited.
- I don’t think most people’s backyard is some kind of wildlife exclusion zone, and the problem isn’t specifically that cats are killing animals in other backyards that the neighbors called “dibs” on first.
- The cat obviously isn’t being attended to while it’s outside.
- The owners clearly imply that their other two cats have done the same thing and brought them dead animals before.
-
Cats don’t give a fuck about ‘property lines’. Period.
-
Cats will kill even when they don’t need to feed. Lock them up.
-
I love our cat, and I don’t want to see it squished in half by a car. I keep it inside. It’s a rescue, I know it was an outdoor cat before. It’s fine now.
-
Maybe not, but you’re not going to change anybodies mind on the internet. Its just not gonna work.
We’re going through the biggest disinformation crisis in human history thanks exclusively to the Internet’s profound ability to change minds by spreading and normalizing bullshit, but “it’s just not gonna work” when it’s something you specifically don’t want to hear.
Edit: ironically, my mind was changed after hearing someone bring this up on the Internet and then reading the scientific literature.
This is a great argument for the possibility of changing some minds. You’ve definitely changed mine. My policy is unchanged though; I’m not going to set out with the goal of changing minds in online discussions.
Yes, but disinformation being spread far and wide isn’t the same as a single commenter on the internet trying keep people from letting cats outdoors. And for the record, I agree, letting cats outside isn’t good for the environment. Just pointing out you’re not gonna change a lot of minds.
Doesn’t have to be a lot. Even one changed mind for the positive is a gain. Simple as.
Hearing about this online changed my mind because I had no idea, and it’s easy to verify.
Shutup they changed my mind you have no idea what youre talking about.
you’d need a very special backyard to fence a cat in
My dad actually did this with their patio. It’s fenced in with a 2.5m high net. Of course, this assumes the cat in question is docile enough to not want to climb it, which their current cat happens to be.
The whole reason for the fenced patio is because of their previous cat, which became blind at old age. So she could then still safely explore the outdoors.
that’s amazing! we currently keep ours indoors but i have plans for a catio
Thanks tech, did not appreciate the original post b/c of how lightly it treats the killing of wonderful beautiful birbs
Yeah but birds aren’t real.
Those numbers are suspect. https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast and probably are a majority unowned cats. It’s not important to make sure your cat is spayed or neutered than making sure it stays indoors.
What you’ve presented is a deeply biased opinion piece, and it wears this immense bias on its sleeve. It fearmongers that thinking about cats as killing wildlife could cause “extremism” (it then cites as its lone example a man who suggested banning cats in New Zealand; soooo scary). It cites some organization called “Alley Cat Allies” who call it extremely biased with ostensibly zero credentials. They cite lobbyist and serial sexual harasser Wayne Pacelle formerly of the Humane Society who questions the methodology but even concedes: “We don’t quarrel with the conclusion that the impact is big.” And lastly, King herself does her own analysis on this meta-analysis’ methodology despite being – I emphasize – a professor of anthropology with no background in this field.
So your article has no one familiar with this field who could challenge if these statistical assumptions are actually reasonable. And here, given the authors are experts (and absent some published literature rebutting this in the 12 years since), I have no reason to believe their methodology would be so off as to meaningfully change the idea that “outdoor cats” are severely problematic.
I want you to know that I read through and appreciate this in depth write up and critique of the previous person’s source/citation.
Mine was a deeply biased opinion piece, and yours weren’t full of emotionally charged imagery and language? OK
Here’s the key:
- The first source I use is just a scientific article. That’s it.
- The third source is just a scientific article. That’s it.
- The second source that I use to cite “dozens of extinctions” is quite emotionally charged, but here’s where that’s different: I could find a billion sources more credible than that NYT article about the dozens upon dozens of species who’ve met their end thanks to the domestic cat. These sources would give it an unemotional, academic treatment, yet I like how the NYT piece is narratively engaging rather than dry-ass “X et al. reported…”
I used scientific sources for (1) and (3) because those are claims people might actually think to contest. Moreover, the NYT doesn’t let itself slip into using garbage sources for the sake of its narrative. I could replace this source in two minutes, and then your argument about emotionally charged imagery would dissolve.
The reason I care so much about King’s massive bias in that article is because that bias is reflected in how absolutely egregious her sources are. She seems to genuinely not care how factual what she’s saying is as long as it conforms to her personal feelings, and so she turns it into assembling literally every source she can possibly find no matter how obscenely flimsy. She’s grasping at straws the entire article.
and there’s this great news: https://scitechdaily.com/bird-flu-is-now-killing-cats-at-a-90-fatality-rate-experts-warn-it-could-jump-to-humans/
This is the opposite of great
You should be aware this is an extremely American sentiment bordering on ignorant. Nowhere else in the world do you find people berating people for letting cats go outside.
Even in America, you won’t find it. It’s only coming from chronically-online people who are afraid of everything.
I’m sure if you could communicate the dangers to your cats, most of them would still choose to go outside. Locking cats indoors their entire lives is cruel.
Did Australia recently sink into the ocean and I just missed it?
Locking cats indoors their entire lives is cruel.
Um… I guess the rescue I got my cat from is cruel for adding a “keep the cat indoor only” clause? 🤔
Edit: I’m not taking a position on the indoor vs outdoor argument, just saying that its not exactly “cruel” to keep a cat indoors.
I think that’s a YMMV depending on the cat. One of my cats constantly begs to go outside (he gets walks), the other refuses to leave the house.
I’ve heard it my whole life from my vets. I don’t know what you mean by “even in America you won’t find it”
I’ve got bad news: your vet is a chronically online loser who is afraid of everything!
Humans along with their cats and pigs have done a lot of damage to biodiversity around the world. It’s just one element of the 6th mass extinction we are causing.
Years ago my indoor housecat would always try to rush out the back door whenever it was opened. One day she finally managed it and then wouldn’t come back in. Okay, shut the door. She proceeded to freak out and start yowling when we shut the door and left her out there for a few hours. Whatever, weather was nice and yard was enclosed.
Let her in after a few hours when it got dark, and she stopped trying to bolt outside. Nobody suffered, cat finally appreciated her cushy indoor life, and that was a win.
None of the shelters or adoption agencies near me will even let you get a cat if you don’t say it will be kept indoors on the papers. Cats can easily be given the same level of enrichment indoors by playing with them.
Keeping your cat indoors is only cruel when you don’t care enough about them to play and provide enrichment to make them happy, in which case you shouldn’t have a cat.
just stfu, you’ll live, ik your chronically online but you don’t have to be scared of everything
It’s reasonable to be
scaredapprehensive of contributing to the extinction of a few species.
Good job Larry
Leaf pursuit Larry
😂😂
Maybe he’s a vegan
Cats are so different. Our current ones bring in so many little critters and let them go in the house, still alive, we had to close the cat door so we can check them before they come in. A past cat used to bring us paper and paper-like items, from food wrappers to people’s junk mail, and one time the next door kid’s report card. My wife’s theory was that that cat thought paper things would please us because she saw us doing a lot of things with paper - we used to do a lot of printing. But I think the cat just didn’t really get the whole hunting concept.
