New Zealand has announced plans to eradicate feral cats by 2050, as part of efforts to protect the country’s biodiversity.
Speaking to Radio New Zealand on Thursday, conservation minister Tama Potaka said that feral cats are “stone cold killers” and would be added to the country’s Predator Free 2050 list, which aims to eradicate those animals that have a negative impact on species such as birds, bats, lizards and insects.
Cats had previously been excluded from the list, which includes species such as stoats, ferrets, weasels, rats and possums, but Potaka used the interview to announce a U-turn.
As somebody who (1) loves the beauty of the natural world and (2) lives in the USA, I’m hearing that NZ might be a most excellent place to retire, or even move to earlier.
Big fan of removing cats from my country in general, they are blight on the native wildlife.
It is not personal but they should all be gone. Boom in mice and rats for a bit after
Cats must only be indoor pets. We can easily separate pet mice and rats from their feral counterparts and we need to do the same to cats. And I am a cat person big time.
+1 for indoor only cats. Those cunts are ruthless - they can’t not murder wild animals and we’ve got a lot of native birds here so keep em indoors.
Same.
Love cats.
Keep them in doors.
Outdoor cats and feral cats are walking, prowling ecological disasters.
If you care about cats and/or if you care about the environment, you keep your pet cats indoors. Simple as.
A lot of reactionary, super-sensitive, chronically online children in this post wailing into the void because they’re imagining some kind of housecat Auschwitz.
You can’t claim to care about the environment and be fine with feral cats eliminating some of the most unique biodiversity on the planet. You midwit pussies out there have to make a choice.
I wish “middlebrow dismissal” had become a more common term. It basically means a knee-jerk rejection of an idea without seriously engaging or investigating it. A “cache dump of prejudices” rather than argument.
This thread is absolutely filled with people who think they know better than kiwi conservationists that have studied and discussed this topic in depth.
Most people didn’t read the story, and don’t actually care, they are just feeling emotions and need to vomit it out. Even if they did read the story, most people don’t really understand things like ecology anyway so it’s unlikely to change their emotional reactions.
It’s still weird to dismiss the insane destructive power of the domestic shorthair. Killing is practically their only pastime
The “baby-fication” of pets is an incredibly damaging culture. People don’t see dogs and cats for what they are and it causes problems in the lives of animals and humans alike.
Feral cats cause the ultimate destruction to local wildlife. They are so common, one of the worst invasive species. And New Zealand’s an island with precious endemic wildlife not found anywhere else in the world. So yeah - it’s about time! Bravo NZ for doing the right thing.
Edit: They need to do this in Hawaii too!
Cats have the exact same right to bring extinction to this world as we do.
The indigenous species have priority to exist.
Funnily enough I just got recommended to rewatch this old vid from tom scott
Maybe it’s the cadence or the accent but I cannot process anything he is saying
I feel so terrible
Are you a feral cat?
Not sure if it’s a cat, but definitely feral.
All domestic cats should be fully indoor cats. Any domestic cats found outdoors should be killed. Nasty little disease spreading song bird killers.
Not sure why this is such a controversial take. House cats should indeed not be outside, unless they are on a leash.
Because people have an extreme case of the feels for cats and judge their morals purely based on what’s cute, and are fine with the deaths of cows and other animals but not pets. A disturbing amount of people care about the fully arbitrary distinction between pet and animal
Best summary of thread
It’s unfortunately far more than just birds. They kill billions of reptiles, fish, amphibians, and mammals each year. Not to mention their toxoplasmosis has been found in ocean otters (just an example of something far removed from the daily goings of a cat) and in the soil and ground water, as well as our foods. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7033973/
Very true.
Why just not eat them?
Honestly, cat is just pretty gross. Did not like at all, even before I knew what it was. Incredibly greasy, very unpleasantly gamey, weirdly stringy, do not recommend.
My grandma use to sell cat meat saying it was rabbit and people liked it back then
I’ve never had cat, but have heard that mountain lion is really good. Supposedly, during WWII, lots of house cat was eaten in the UK and was called roof rabbit.
What kind of cat did you have and what were the circumstances?
What kind of cat did you have and what were the circumstances?
“Cat” (it was cooked, I assume it was a shorthair since there were ample feral shorthairs around), and it was part of a banquet-thing I was at while visiting friends - except sea cucumber (which is revolting it has the exact taste and texture of a loogie) the rest of the food was very good!
(edit: I am not sure british wartime cooking is a great metric to base “Tastes-Goodness” off of)
I’ve had raccoon, which was terrible. Never had the chance to try cat.
Sea cucumber is supposed to be a delicacy, but never had it. Sea urchin is amazing in my experience, but someone here on Lemmy said it was awful. It may be a preparation or freshness issue. I’d like to try sea cucumber.
Never had raccoon, have had opossum and it was… passable. Not something I’d seek out but not bad in a stew.
I can see not liking sea urchin, personally I’m not big on it but it’s not, like, bad bad. Just not my thing.
I’ve had sea cucumber several times and no, man, I encourage you to try it just so that you can share my pain. Cat was deeply eeh, don’t recommend, but sea cucumber is “I have dreams about how bad it is” levels of bad - and whats worse, people really do claim it’s a delicacy! So you can’t just duck under the table and hoark it all out onto your shoes without being rude.
I’d rather snort lines of raw durian than eat sea cucumber again. Seriously if you ever get a chance go for it, it’s spectacularly horrible. You gotta try it.
That sounds terrible. I’ll definitely give it a try.
Darkness
Humanity hungers
Humanity is overrated
We are the extinction event
Save the kiwis!
With everything deadlined to 2050, I think that is the new end of the world
The dairy industry is significantly more damaging to NZ’s ecology than some feral cats. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be addressed, but there are measures already in place. It’s important to keep perspective and not be distracted by media.
Too bad they ain’t much good eatin.
Brings back the horrific scene I came across at 14 of a cat arm in a pot.
Never had cat, but it can’t be that bad, can it? Guessing it’s tougher meat than we’re accustomed to, but I’d guess it’d still make passable stew meat. Or play up the toughness and make it into jerky.
Might as well get some usage out of them.
General rule of thumb is “don’t eat things that eat things”. Obviously, there are exceptions for survival cases, but the range of pathogens, parasites, and prions one can contract from eating a predator is much, much wider than that from eating vegetarian animals.
Huh. TIL. I always just assumed it was a taste/texture/difficult-livestock-to-manage kind of situation. I wonder if we could offset its potential to carry pathogens by like letting it cure up in a brine or something before cooking it.
