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I do not think religion plays a role at all. Greece is full of kitties too. The climate is nice. They can survive the winter without having to crawl into a ste

I do not think religion plays a role at all. Greece is full of kitties too. The climate is nice. They can survive the winter without having to crawl into a steamy sewer like rats. Though many cats sleep under cars (especially if the engine is still warm). Most cities in these areas are not heavy on traffic, the city roads are narrow and designated for slow-driving - giving the animals an opportunity to move around with not much noise and danger. Old people in the neighborhood feed them and play with them. I would say it's as nice for them as it is for the cats (they get to have a hobby, go out etc). People at cafes and restaurants (especially the ones with outdoor seating) might put some food aside. People growing up in such an environment learn to like the cats, and give them some attention or feed them themselves. (I grew up loving stray cats, and animals in general due this culture). Was surprised to see how much having a pet is a "business" in the states (higher rents if you have a pet, mandatory chips, pet salons everywhere, eugenic like focus on perfect looking breeds etc). And the elephant in the room. Careless people adopt them, decide it's too much work and then let them roam free. Or decide that neutering them is immoral or too expensive or something... If you wanna see some more of Instanbul's cats -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0dJ4zrTopU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0dJ4zrTopU (no affiliation)

SeanLuke 6y ago
> I do not think religion plays a role at all. Greece is full of kitties too. I came here just to say that: Athens is absolutely loaded with cats, especially strays. I think this is regional cultural, not religious.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Dogs too, though I think dogs have a harder time in cities.
  - selectodude 6y ago
    The dogs do ok in Istanbul. Less so in a lot of other places though. edit: the city of Istanbul has a program where they drive around and neuter and tag stray dogs. it seems to work pretty well. I used to be in istanbul every year and had the same dog friend that lived by my hotel. he was the best. miss him dearly.
  - herodoturtle 6y ago
    With the exception of Loukanikos. The legendary hero dog. Everyone worshipped him haha.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Same thing with (at least) Dubrovnik in Croatia
- tim333 6y ago
  Currently in Athens (well Pireaus). Can confirm. Italy used to be similar like 20 or 30 years ago but they got round to spaying / controlling things and now most cats are have owners and homes.
ajarmst 6y ago
I noticed a lot of cats in the port of Jubail in Saudi Arabia. I was told they were scavengers and Arabs didn't usually keep them as pets, or think about them much at all.
- DavidAdams 6y ago
  My sons attends NYU's Abu Dhabi campus, and they have a population of feral resident cats on the campus.
  - ajarmst 6y ago
    I wonder if they end up taking part of the niche taken by strays and feral dogs, which are much less tolerated by Arabs. I'm in Canada, on the outskirts of a city, and we won't ever have much of a feral cat problem because we have a pretty stable coyote population. (I often feel sad when I see the missing pet posters for smallish mammals, especially in Winter.)
AmericanChopper 6y ago
I’ve lived in a couple of Muslim countries, and religion is such an obvious explaining factor to me. Jakarta and KL have tons of stray cats. Bangkok and Manila don’t. Disturbing the business of a cat is strictly forbidden by Islam, and due to their religious significance, a lot of people will feed stray cats. Greece having stray cats too doesn’t make any of these factors less relevant.
- saargrin 6y ago
  israel has both muslims and non-muslims and amounts of street cats are around the same for both areas the big difference comes from socioeconomic state of the neighborhood i think
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    As I said above, just because something happens for one reason in one place doesn’t mean that same thing can’t happen for a different reason in a different place. The reason Isreal has so many cats is because the British imported a lot of cats in the 30s, and just let them loose to control rat populations. The reason they’re still there is because animal sterilization is a very controversial topic in Judaism.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  I saw parts of Bangkok where people were feeding stray cats and had set up little donation boxes to that effect.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    I haven’t seen a part of Jakarta that didn’t have stray cats, and I lived there for about 10 years.
    - selimthegrim 6y ago
      Interestingly enough, it was not a Muslim dominated part of Bangkok (as opposed to where I was staying) but rather a Buddhist request for cat alms as I recall, I could be wrong.
QuesnayJr 6y ago
So is Rome.
- pantelisk 6y ago
  One of my fondest memories of Rome, is visiting the Acattolico cemetery only to discover it's basically overrun by friendly cats. gothic monuments + cat sanctuary what a combo
  - ratww 6y ago
    It's the same at the Paris Montmartre cemetery.
- dwd 6y ago
  There was a documentary years ago about the cats living in the Roman Forum. The alpha male they named Ceasar, and the younger upstart Brutus. The interactions and roles they observed between the female cats was quite interesting. Edit: Found it - City of the Wildcats (narrated by David Attenborough)
bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago
Cats were brought to Europe from Egypt by Romans. They were domesticated in the regions around Istanbul for thousands of years before they were brought to the attention of the Greeks and Romans. Presumably, the Romans that brought the cats back to Europe saw their benefit to the populations on the other side of the Mediterranean and also adopted the culture of revering cats. The culture of revering cats predates the religion of Islam and is part of the culture that that religion was born out of, and is understandably celebrated. What benefit does letting cats run feral have for settled humans? Rodent control. Even before they knew the public health benefits of that, they knew the benefits towards granary stores. Now that cats aren't the only method available to control rodents, cities that don't have a cultural or cultural/religious reason to revere stray cats understandably don't and those that do, do. Religion plays a role, culture plays a role, biology plays a role, history plays a role: everything plays a role (yes probably even the cuteness of cats).
- ginko 6y ago
  Cats were domesticated in Egypt, not Turkey. And in Ancient times the areas around Istanbul were Greek.
  - inawarminister 6y ago
    Greeks that called themselves Romans for 2 millennia (200BC - 1800 A.D until the Hellenes name is back I think). Fascinating history. The Roman (Rhomaion) identity was decoupled from the Latin language by the Early Byzantines.
    - colechristensen 6y ago
      The Byzantines never called themselves Byzantines, they called themselves Roman. Lots of places adopted Roman names with varying levels of legitimacy.
    - mr_toad 6y ago
      There were Greek speaking colonies around the Bosporus and in Egypt before the Romans got there.
deleted 6y ago
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aranelsurion 6y ago
I believe this phenomenon is similar in other Turkish cities as well. After moving abroad from Ankara, I can say lack of stray cats/dogs on streets was very noticeable. I agree it doesn't have much to do with religion, IMO main two reasons are: 1) there doesn't seem to be any on-going effort to keep number of strays under control by the city. 2) many people feed strays as it's considered animal friendliness, often there will be at least one person in your neighbourhood who leaves food & water for animals. You might think it's nice to see a cat or two in the streets, though it can get a bit crazy when you see 5-6 big and aggressive dogs appear in your street every day because someone feeds them, yet complaining about this would be considered heartless, and it's very likely the local government won't do anything about it either. So, getting well fed and without any predators in a generally forgiving climate, strays easily get to survive and breed, and since neutering them all would be expensive and requires some level of organization from the state (which doesn't seem to happen) their numbers get to ever increase.
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago
  It's probably a cultural thing. Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea, is culturally similar in some ways (religion obviously, but also beyond that; e.g. the language is similar) - and yes, there are tons of cats in that city. Or at least were, years ago when I visited. There was this inner courtyard somewhere, baking in the sun, with a huge pile of what we thought were dead cats. Like a rugby melee type of thing, but just laying down motionless. I mean, it was so hot we could not imagine how those critters could just lay there not moving. Then we noticed some of them were lazily moving their tails. They were not dead, they were sunbathing.
- koboll 6y ago
  >though it can get a bit crazy when you see 5-6 big and aggressive dogs appear in your street every day because someone feeds them Yeah, I got surrounded by a pack of 7 or 8 big dogs around dawn on the Golden Horn once. Was frantically swinging my backpack and screaming at them as they approached. After 30 seconds or so, a man noticed and threw some food to distract them so I could get away. They probably were just hoping I would feed them but it was still fucking terrifying. Felt like it activated some sort of primal fight-or-flight instinct passed down through millennia of humans being cornered by wolves.
golemiprague 6y ago
True, same situation in Tel Aviv, I guess it is just an east Mediterranean thing, there are no stray dogs though like I have seen in Greece but that was many years ago. Cats as street animal is just perfect, they are clean, they keep the rats at bay, you almost don't see any rats or mice in Tel Aviv comparing to places like NY. Also if you want a cat at home you can just pick one from the street.
- golergka 6y ago
  Cat situation is the same, but the dog-loving culture of Tel Aviv is completely absent from nearly absent in all nearby cities – which seems to be exactly the religious or cultural difference. Religious not as jewish vs muslim, but as in secular modern vs religious: there seem to be no dogs in jewish cities outside the bubble as well.
  - golemiprague 6y ago
    Most of the cities outside Tel Aviv are not necessarily religious and have dogs, not as crazy as Tel Aviv but just normal. I think the reason the seculars in Tel Aviv have more dogs than the seculars in other cities is because there are less families and people feel more lonely.
hodgesrm 6y ago
OK, just to set the record straight we have community cats in the US too. Disneyland has a couple hundred of them: https://disneylandcats.com/about/ https://disneylandcats.com/about/ (We are doing our part and have 2 at home.)

SeanLuke 6y ago

> I do not think religion plays a role at all. Greece is full of kitties too. I came here just to say that: Athens is absolutely loaded with cats, especially strays. I think this is regional cultural, not religious.

StavrosK 6y ago
Dogs too, though I think dogs have a harder time in cities.
- selectodude 6y ago
  The dogs do ok in Istanbul. Less so in a lot of other places though. edit: the city of Istanbul has a program where they drive around and neuter and tag stray dogs. it seems to work pretty well. I used to be in istanbul every year and had the same dog friend that lived by my hotel. he was the best. miss him dearly.
- herodoturtle 6y ago
  With the exception of Loukanikos. The legendary hero dog. Everyone worshipped him haha.
oh_sigh 6y ago
Same thing with (at least) Dubrovnik in Croatia
tim333 6y ago
Currently in Athens (well Pireaus). Can confirm. Italy used to be similar like 20 or 30 years ago but they got round to spaying / controlling things and now most cats are have owners and homes.

ajarmst 6y ago

I noticed a lot of cats in the port of Jubail in Saudi Arabia. I was told they were scavengers and Arabs didn't usually keep them as pets, or think about them much at all.

DavidAdams 6y ago
My sons attends NYU's Abu Dhabi campus, and they have a population of feral resident cats on the campus.
- ajarmst 6y ago
  I wonder if they end up taking part of the niche taken by strays and feral dogs, which are much less tolerated by Arabs. I'm in Canada, on the outskirts of a city, and we won't ever have much of a feral cat problem because we have a pretty stable coyote population. (I often feel sad when I see the missing pet posters for smallish mammals, especially in Winter.)

AmericanChopper 6y ago

I’ve lived in a couple of Muslim countries, and religion is such an obvious explaining factor to me. Jakarta and KL have tons of stray cats. Bangkok and Manila don’t. Disturbing the business of a cat is strictly forbidden by Islam, and due to their religious significance, a lot of people will feed stray cats. Greece having stray cats too doesn’t make any of these factors less relevant.

saargrin 6y ago
israel has both muslims and non-muslims and amounts of street cats are around the same for both areas the big difference comes from socioeconomic state of the neighborhood i think
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  As I said above, just because something happens for one reason in one place doesn’t mean that same thing can’t happen for a different reason in a different place. The reason Isreal has so many cats is because the British imported a lot of cats in the 30s, and just let them loose to control rat populations. The reason they’re still there is because animal sterilization is a very controversial topic in Judaism.
selimthegrim 6y ago
I saw parts of Bangkok where people were feeding stray cats and had set up little donation boxes to that effect.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  I haven’t seen a part of Jakarta that didn’t have stray cats, and I lived there for about 10 years.
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    Interestingly enough, it was not a Muslim dominated part of Bangkok (as opposed to where I was staying) but rather a Buddhist request for cat alms as I recall, I could be wrong.

QuesnayJr 6y ago

So is Rome.

pantelisk 6y ago
One of my fondest memories of Rome, is visiting the Acattolico cemetery only to discover it's basically overrun by friendly cats. gothic monuments + cat sanctuary what a combo
- ratww 6y ago
  It's the same at the Paris Montmartre cemetery.
dwd 6y ago
There was a documentary years ago about the cats living in the Roman Forum. The alpha male they named Ceasar, and the younger upstart Brutus. The interactions and roles they observed between the female cats was quite interesting. Edit: Found it - City of the Wildcats (narrated by David Attenborough)

bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago

Cats were brought to Europe from Egypt by Romans. They were domesticated in the regions around Istanbul for thousands of years before they were brought to the attention of the Greeks and Romans. Presumably, the Romans that brought the cats back to Europe saw their benefit to the populations on the other side of the Mediterranean and also adopted the culture of revering cats. The culture of revering cats predates the religion of Islam and is part of the culture that that religion was born out of, and is understandably celebrated. What benefit does letting cats run feral have for settled humans? Rodent control. Even before they knew the public health benefits of that, they knew the benefits towards granary stores. Now that cats aren't the only method available to control rodents, cities that don't have a cultural or cultural/religious reason to revere stray cats understandably don't and those that do, do. Religion plays a role, culture plays a role, biology plays a role, history plays a role: everything plays a role (yes probably even the cuteness of cats).

ginko 6y ago
Cats were domesticated in Egypt, not Turkey. And in Ancient times the areas around Istanbul were Greek.
- inawarminister 6y ago
  Greeks that called themselves Romans for 2 millennia (200BC - 1800 A.D until the Hellenes name is back I think). Fascinating history. The Roman (Rhomaion) identity was decoupled from the Latin language by the Early Byzantines.
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    The Byzantines never called themselves Byzantines, they called themselves Roman. Lots of places adopted Roman names with varying levels of legitimacy.
  - mr_toad 6y ago
    There were Greek speaking colonies around the Bosporus and in Egypt before the Romans got there.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

aranelsurion 6y ago

I believe this phenomenon is similar in other Turkish cities as well. After moving abroad from Ankara, I can say lack of stray cats/dogs on streets was very noticeable. I agree it doesn't have much to do with religion, IMO main two reasons are: 1) there doesn't seem to be any on-going effort to keep number of strays under control by the city. 2) many people feed strays as it's considered animal friendliness, often there will be at least one person in your neighbourhood who leaves food & water for animals. You might think it's nice to see a cat or two in the streets, though it can get a bit crazy when you see 5-6 big and aggressive dogs appear in your street every day because someone feeds them, yet complaining about this would be considered heartless, and it's very likely the local government won't do anything about it either. So, getting well fed and without any predators in a generally forgiving climate, strays easily get to survive and breed, and since neutering them all would be expensive and requires some level of organization from the state (which doesn't seem to happen) their numbers get to ever increase.

Florin_Andrei 6y ago
It's probably a cultural thing. Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea, is culturally similar in some ways (religion obviously, but also beyond that; e.g. the language is similar) - and yes, there are tons of cats in that city. Or at least were, years ago when I visited. There was this inner courtyard somewhere, baking in the sun, with a huge pile of what we thought were dead cats. Like a rugby melee type of thing, but just laying down motionless. I mean, it was so hot we could not imagine how those critters could just lay there not moving. Then we noticed some of them were lazily moving their tails. They were not dead, they were sunbathing.
koboll 6y ago
>though it can get a bit crazy when you see 5-6 big and aggressive dogs appear in your street every day because someone feeds them Yeah, I got surrounded by a pack of 7 or 8 big dogs around dawn on the Golden Horn once. Was frantically swinging my backpack and screaming at them as they approached. After 30 seconds or so, a man noticed and threw some food to distract them so I could get away. They probably were just hoping I would feed them but it was still fucking terrifying. Felt like it activated some sort of primal fight-or-flight instinct passed down through millennia of humans being cornered by wolves.

golemiprague 6y ago

True, same situation in Tel Aviv, I guess it is just an east Mediterranean thing, there are no stray dogs though like I have seen in Greece but that was many years ago. Cats as street animal is just perfect, they are clean, they keep the rats at bay, you almost don't see any rats or mice in Tel Aviv comparing to places like NY. Also if you want a cat at home you can just pick one from the street.

golergka 6y ago
Cat situation is the same, but the dog-loving culture of Tel Aviv is completely absent from nearly absent in all nearby cities – which seems to be exactly the religious or cultural difference. Religious not as jewish vs muslim, but as in secular modern vs religious: there seem to be no dogs in jewish cities outside the bubble as well.
- golemiprague 6y ago
  Most of the cities outside Tel Aviv are not necessarily religious and have dogs, not as crazy as Tel Aviv but just normal. I think the reason the seculars in Tel Aviv have more dogs than the seculars in other cities is because there are less families and people feel more lonely.

hodgesrm 6y ago

OK, just to set the record straight we have community cats in the US too. Disneyland has a couple hundred of them: https://disneylandcats.com/about/ https://disneylandcats.com/about/ (We are doing our part and have 2 at home.)