7 ms·
I'm sorry but you're dreaming of you think that feral cats aren't destroying local bird populations.
by rcpt 3y ago
I'm sorry but you're dreaming of you think that feral cats aren't destroying local bird populations.
- romwell 3y agoI'm sorry, but you seem to be ignorant of the facts. I have provided extensive references for everything I said. Please read them before typing out your gut response. While cats, in general, are a threat to birds, these particular cats were not a threat to these particular birds.
- rcpt 3y ago[flagged]
- romwell 3y agoI repeat my request to actually read the words that I wrote, along with the references, and respond to that instead of the emotions you're feeling. Please read these points carefully: 1. While cats, in general, are a threat to birds, the cats managed by the TNR program on Google Campus were not a threat to burrowing owls in the Shoreline park; 2. Shutdown of the TNR program resulted in the increase of the feral cat population, and had no positive impact on the owls; 3. The primary threat to the burrowing owls is human interference and destruction of habitat. These birds are not particularly threatened by stray cats in the first place. 4. Saying that the general statement applies to a particular case without looking at the facts is a fallacy. TL;DR: "cats are a threat to birds" doesn't imply that my house cat in the US is a threat to kiwis in New Zealand.
- rcpt 3y agoThis is a discussion about NYC. I don't know why you're focused on Mountain View. Do you think that you can somehow generalize from that to NYC?
- stefan_ 3y agoWhy do I care about the bird population over the cat population? Who's playing god?
- technothrasher 3y agoBecause there's a real danger of losing some of these bird species, and absolutely zero danger of losing domestic cats as a species?
- slily 3y agoLet's do this. And when we're done killing all the cats and the rat problem becomes worse and somehow the birds don't seem to return to the filthy and noisy concrete jungle with no trees we can just pretend it never happened.
- teh_klev 3y ago> and the rat problem becomes worse Cats usually won't tackle rats, this is even mentioned in the article.
- Euphorbium 3y agoThe rats dont just pop out fully grown, the young rats are an easy prey.
- teh_klev 3y agoHaven't you read any James Herbert? Joking aside, cats aren't going to be very inclined to head into a lair to pick off their young.
- stefan_ 3y agoSpecies are lost all the time, it's just an arbitrary cut from an infinitely expanding evolutionary tree. So it's about as many different of them as possible? Does that strike you as an odd metric?
- yabatopia 3y agoHumans kill far more birds than feral cats. Agriculture, pesticides, deforestation, destruction of fields and grasslands, the use of mice and rat poison, car traffic, wind turbines, ... it all adds up. It makes feral cats look like amateurs showing up on a gun fight with a pencil. In the EU, a 2021 study of 378 bird species estimated that bird numbers fell by as much as 19 percent from 1980 to 2017. And that's not because of cats, feral or not.
- rcpt 3y agoAs long as we're being ridiculous and unserious I suppose you support TNR for humans to?
- smcl 3y ago> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. I think we both know this person isn't supporting TNR for humans, don't be silly
- oefrha 3y agoThe good ol’ “there are many contributing factors, so how dare you try to solve one of them” argument.
- cgio 3y ago“Animals are dying. Let’s kill the animals that kill them” argument I would call it.
- oefrha 3y ago<s>kill the animals</s> breed fewer of those animals FTFY.
- red-iron-pine 3y agothe non-native animals (cats) that are disrupting the ecosystem argument
- bradleyjg 3y agoCan we get them to go after the pigeons and rats (aka flightless pigeons)? I’d rather have feral cats, like Rome, than large populations of those two pests.