3 ms·

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

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.
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      There are temples in Thailand that care for stray cats, just the same as there are temples that care for stray dogs. But stray cats are far from ubiquitous in Bangkok, especially compared to the Muslim majority cities in the region. Jakarta has so many stray cats that it's legitimately concerned they're going to bring rabies back to the city. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-19/inside-jakartas-battle-to-control-feral-cats/9541636?nw=0 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-19/inside-jakartas-battl... During the Covid lockdowns, I saw numerous articles about how stray cats weren't getting fed properly in KL https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/579036/abang-polis-goes-extra-mile-feed-stray-cats https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/579036/abang-poli... Every city has stray cats, it's just Muslim majority ones tend to have way more than you'd otherwise expect. Especially in developing countries that don't have sufficient animal control resourcing. Those cities also tend to focus their animal control efforts on getting dogs off the street, as Muslims are typically incredibly adverse to them (I saw 0 stray dogs in Jakarta the whole time I lived there, compared to Bangkok for instance where I couldn't walk to the end of my street without seeing at least 5 of them). If everybody all of a sudden decided they adored squirrels, and started carrying squirrel food around incase they ran into one, and started feeding all the squirrels that hung out around their home/place of work every day, you'd expect the squirrel population to explode too.

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.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    There are temples in Thailand that care for stray cats, just the same as there are temples that care for stray dogs. But stray cats are far from ubiquitous in Bangkok, especially compared to the Muslim majority cities in the region. Jakarta has so many stray cats that it's legitimately concerned they're going to bring rabies back to the city. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-19/inside-jakartas-battle-to-control-feral-cats/9541636?nw=0 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-19/inside-jakartas-battl... During the Covid lockdowns, I saw numerous articles about how stray cats weren't getting fed properly in KL https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/579036/abang-polis-goes-extra-mile-feed-stray-cats https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/579036/abang-poli... Every city has stray cats, it's just Muslim majority ones tend to have way more than you'd otherwise expect. Especially in developing countries that don't have sufficient animal control resourcing. Those cities also tend to focus their animal control efforts on getting dogs off the street, as Muslims are typically incredibly adverse to them (I saw 0 stray dogs in Jakarta the whole time I lived there, compared to Bangkok for instance where I couldn't walk to the end of my street without seeing at least 5 of them). If everybody all of a sudden decided they adored squirrels, and started carrying squirrel food around incase they ran into one, and started feeding all the squirrels that hung out around their home/place of work every day, you'd expect the squirrel population to explode too.