8 ms·

Australia to give cats a curfew because they are murdering so many other animals

61 points by koqoo 3y ago

ratsmack 3y ago
This is not an issue just for Australia. There seems to be an epidemic of stray cats here in the US also. Many come from people that leave their animals behind when they have to move, and the issue seems to escalate every time there is a downturn in the economy.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  The stray situation is even worse in europe. US you might see a couple random strays in your neighborhood. Certain cities in europe you can walk 10 minutes and probably come by 100 cats along the way.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    Stray animal control in the USA varies by region. In the northeast, catch-neuter-release programs have been so effective, it's difficult to find strays and if you want a pet from an animal rescue, it'll cost several hundred dollars to get an animal from elsewhere. Usually "elsewhere" is the south, where CNR programs have been less effective, strays still abound, and rescue prices are much lower (plus you can easily obtain a pet for $0 if one just follows you home).
  - slim 3y ago
    it's just a cultural misunderstanding, in europe cats are not considered a problem, they are just one of tge species of animals that live in symbiosis with humans in the cities. just like birds. in Rome the local authorities actually pay people to feed the cats
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      Well if the risk of an outdoor cat is that bird populations decline, I don’t see how having probably ten cats to a person in a European city doesn’t harm that. Whether it was tradition or not doesn’t mean its a good idea. It was once tradition to dump the chamber pot out the window.
      - utucuro 3y ago
        Somehow, considering the bad job humans do with maintaining a population of humans healthy and happy, I find the idea of entrusting control of animal populations to humans bewildering, but then, I was born in Istanbul, and I think our attitude towards street cats is probably well known by this point. After all, Turkish does not have a word to reflect the concept of a stray cat, they're street cats to us. Currently living in Germany, I miss seeing cats in the streets, though the occasional duck and goose sort of make up for it in a weird way, though the Geese can get far more aggressive than any street cat.
pipes 3y ago
So are any of this cats going to be put in trial for "murder".
- labster 3y ago
  They’d just plead nyan compos mentis
  - nroets 3y ago
    The cats I met will just take the 5 th.
- posnet 3y ago
  No, it's more of a Judge Dredd type situation.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > are any of this cats going to be put in trial for "murder" “For centuries, the courts of France, Italy, Switzerland, and other nearby countries tried pigs, dogs, rats, grasshoppers, and snails for crimes against people, property, and God. These animal trials were of two kinds: (1) secular suits against individual creatures who had maimed or killed humans; and (2) ecclesiastic cases against vermin like mice and locusts, who were excommunicated for their grain-related crimes.” https://daily.jstor.org/when-societies-put-animals-on-trial/ https://daily.jstor.org/when-societies-put-animals-on-trial/
- dylan604 3y ago
  isn't that pretty much any shelter that isn't a no kill shelter?
PlunderBunny 3y ago
In Western Australia (I think), cats are already restricted to the house plus exterior deck/veranda/patio, which must be caged to prevent them from going further. This is referred to as a ‘catio’. I suspect that, given the bugs, putting an insect screen around your patio has other benefits too.
jacquesm 3y ago
I've barred cats from the garden here after cleaning up a pile of trash for the nth time. It took some doing but it's mostly solved and it is incredible how quickly the birds seem to have found out that our garden is a safe haven. I've seen bird species that I didn't even know were in this region.
- patrickdavey 3y ago
  I'm curious how you did this?
  - tyingq 3y ago
    A fair while ago, I had luck with motion activated sprinklers for raccoons. I would think they would be effective for cats also.
  - rsync 3y ago
    You can keep cats out of an area with electric wires. If you want perfect, 100% exclusion you will need three hot wires: - one about 4" below top of fence, but only 2" out from the face of the fence - one at roughly top of fence, but 4" out from the face of the fence - one 2" above the top of the fence, in line with the face. ... which gives you a negative (?) overhang for a climber and the top wire is insurance that they can't somehow reach/slink over the first two. 100% success over 36 months against families of raccoons who were irresistibly attracted to (otherwise) defenseless chickens. Yes, raccoons > cats both physically and mentally.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Raccoons are incredible. Both the smarts and the agility are off the scale and they are so good in planning ahead that they tend to succeed just because they are able to pull off feats that you only realize in retrospect were within their abilities. They have the cuteness factor but underneath that is a ferocious and cunning little predator that makes a cat look like a bumbling fool. Fortunately we do not have raccoons here so the opposition is manageable.
    - 3y ago
version_five 3y ago
Where I live we're completely overrun with squirrels. I'd have no problem with more roaming cats killing them, ditto for pigeons. Are they actually threatening species or just eating animals? If it's the latter it doesn't seem like a problem. Fewer cats is going to mean more vermin, we'll see how people like it then.
- derstander 3y ago
  Beware the law of unintended consequences. For example, see the “Four Pests Campaign”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign
  - waingake 3y ago
    Exactly, my free roaming cat brings home a large rat present for me at least once a month.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  If you can breed a cat so that it only eats the "bad" small animals, go ahead. But you do need to remember cats tend to love to hunt _everything_. Just a few freely roaming cats are enough to make sure you won't be hearing any small birds chirping in the trees in your area. Because they're all dead.
- taberiand 3y ago
  In Australia, cats absolutely shred through native animal populations. They threaten, and have caused, the extinction of many species. https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/invasive-species/feral-animals-australia/feral-cats https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/invasive-species/feral... https://invasives.org.au/our-work/feral-animals/cats-in-australia/ https://invasives.org.au/our-work/feral-animals/cats-in-aust...
lol768 3y ago
Cats have been domestic pets in the UK since at least the times of Roman civilisation, and have been allowed to roam free for much of that time. It's odd to me that there's such a contrast between attitudes towards cats roaming in Europe (which I would say is completely the norm, particularly in e.g. the UK) and the United States (and now Australia), though perhaps this is just down to different native fauna. > The EU’s executive said Thursday that it is “a strong defender of free movement rights — including of cats” and “categorically” denied it would ever force cats to be kept indoors or on a leash, as one scientific study suggests. The RSPB themselves have said: “While we know that cats do kill large numbers of birds in UK gardens, there’s no evidence this is affecting decline in the same way that these other issues are” (habitat/food loss from climate change) Research in the UK has suggested cats are mostly preying on the "doomed surplus": https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2008.00836.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1474-919X.... > we (4) compared the condition of those birds killed by cats versus those killed in collisions, e.g. window strikes. Mean (± sd) cat density was 348 ± 86 cats/km2 (n = 10 sites); considering the eight species most commonly taken by cats, the mean ratios of adult birds/cats and juvenile birds/cats across the five sites were 1.17 ± 0.23 and 3.07 ± 0.74, respectively > > Across species, cat-killed birds were in significantly poorer condition than those killed following collisions; this is consistent with the notion that cat predation represents a compensatory rather than additive form of mortality.
- cultofmetatron 3y ago
  I'm guessing all the really vulnerable (to cats) bird species in europe went extinct long ago already.
  - guerrilla 3y ago
    This is it. Europe itself is domesticated and there's very little wild left here. Other places, less so.
- eliaspro 3y ago
  There was a _slight_ increase in population (and thereby cats) since Roman times...
vondur 3y ago
It seems like lawmakers in Australia have too much time on their hands. It must be one of the smoothest functioning countries in the world.
- dylan604 3y ago
  Like the lawmakers in the US or really any other country fair any better at nonsensical things that make their way to law.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Australia has been fighting with invasive species for a long time. Just look at the problems they had with rabbits. Dingos are pretty much already diluted with domesticated dog genes, so there goes that species in a few generations. It would seem like trying to protect native species should be a priority for the government.
  - robbiep 3y ago
    New evidence suggests Dingos are actually ‘mostly’ (for the meaning of the word where most is more than 50%) just dingo: https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/29/research-suggests-that-more-than-half-of-australias-dingoes-are-genetically-pure-not-hybrids https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/29/resea...
- EatingWithForks 3y ago
  I'm not in Australian and I know Australia has a fairly unique ecosystem and this necessitates different laws than other countries. Similarly weird laws exist in every country. For example in my area it's specifically illegal not to provide heating of a specific quality to tenants, because we have a season called "winter" where temperatures drop enough to be deadly.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  Hopefully we can develop society to the point where ecological concerns are no longer seen as superfluous
- 3y ago
beardyw 3y ago
In London in the evenings we see more foxes than cats, and they do kill birds. Maybe we should dress in pink jackets and persecute them?
- kaba0 3y ago
  I am fairly sure foxes are far worse at bird murdering — e.g. they can’t really climb trees just for a starter.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
readyplayernull 3y ago
Chinese people cook cats and dogs, Australia should allow more immigrants. Chinese mafia also lends them money to start business in other countries like restaurants. And China's covert overseas police that operates in each city controls them. It's a win-win situation. /s
- vore 3y ago
  Really going for the mask off racism on Hacker News today, are we?
  - taberiand 3y ago
    My guess is HN will see more of this, with the decline of Reddit and the subsequent dispersion of certain... opinions... looking for a new forum to infect
    - readyplayernull 3y ago
      Some government's zealots will go high and beyond to bury any criticism, but HN is smarter than that, keep being informed: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/20/explainer-chinas-covert-overseas-police-stations https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/20/explainer-chin...
      - taberiand 3y ago
        It's not that China doesn't operate in such ways, it's that it's got nothing to do with the topic at hand and it's also a shallow and racist take on the topic
        vore 3y ago
        When I posted the comment they only said the cooking cats and dogs part, so even worse!
        3y ago
nickmain 3y ago
Where I live in Southern California outdoor cats are socially discouraged because they often end up as coyote food.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  every time I see a missing pet poster in California that's what I think of occasionally you'll hear a harrowing mad scramble in the street, and I'm thinking "it's happening"
Mizoguchi 3y ago
"Do We Really Know That Cats Kill By The Billions? Not So Fast" https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we...
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  That article is US-centric and doesn't apply to Australia, where the problem is much greater than birds.
golemiprague 3y ago
[dead]
throwaway313313 3y ago
I live in the suburbs in SF Bay Area, and at night when I walk my dog, I never see cats roaming around. I see coyotes, foxes, skunks, and raccoons. My guess is if you don't kill the coyotes and foxes they control the cat population.
hungryforcodes 3y ago
I find the title and article really strange. Murder is specifically defined as the UNLAWFUL killing of a HUMAN BEING. Murder basically is a legal definiton. Anything else is just killing. And I don't think this definition applies to cats at all. "Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethough" (1) 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder
tzs 3y ago
Googling for other articles in this with more details, it looks the places that have implemented cat curfews are requiring cats to be indoors at night. That's interesting, because in the US most concern over cats killing other animals is for birds and those birds are almost all diurnal. The non-birds cats kill a lot of are also mostly diurnal or crepuscular (active around sunrise and sunset). The nocturnal animals cats kill seem to be mostly things that most people are happy to have them kill (rats and mice). So in the US if there was a cat curfew I'd expect it to be that cats have to be indoors by dawn, and can't be let out until the end of twilight. A cat curfew at night in Australia suggests that it is nocturnal animals Australians are worried about. Which animals are those? Are cats not as big a problem for diurnal animals there because those animals are scary Australian animals that cats are afraid to fuck with, or scary Australian animals that people are happy to have cats get rid of?
- pandaman 3y ago
  I would not be drawing connections to reality from government actions. California imposed COVID curfew [1] just because they could, not because the viruses are nocturnal. At best, if there was actually any thought put into it at all, it's to trap feral cats at night, when they are most active, and if any house cat gets trapped too the owner can be told to get stuffed and ticketed for violating the curfew. 1. https://www.kcra.com/article/california-limited-curfew-covid-surge/34731541 https://www.kcra.com/article/california-limited-curfew-covid...

61 points by koqoo 3y ago

This is not an issue just for Australia. There seems to be an epidemic of stray cats here in the US also. Many come from people that leave their animals behind when they have to move, and the issue seems to escalate every time there is a downturn in the economy.

kjkjadksj 3y ago
The stray situation is even worse in europe. US you might see a couple random strays in your neighborhood. Certain cities in europe you can walk 10 minutes and probably come by 100 cats along the way.
- bitwize 3y ago
  Stray animal control in the USA varies by region. In the northeast, catch-neuter-release programs have been so effective, it's difficult to find strays and if you want a pet from an animal rescue, it'll cost several hundred dollars to get an animal from elsewhere. Usually "elsewhere" is the south, where CNR programs have been less effective, strays still abound, and rescue prices are much lower (plus you can easily obtain a pet for $0 if one just follows you home).
- slim 3y ago
  it's just a cultural misunderstanding, in europe cats are not considered a problem, they are just one of tge species of animals that live in symbiosis with humans in the cities. just like birds. in Rome the local authorities actually pay people to feed the cats
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Well if the risk of an outdoor cat is that bird populations decline, I don’t see how having probably ten cats to a person in a European city doesn’t harm that. Whether it was tradition or not doesn’t mean its a good idea. It was once tradition to dump the chamber pot out the window.
    - utucuro 3y ago
      Somehow, considering the bad job humans do with maintaining a population of humans healthy and happy, I find the idea of entrusting control of animal populations to humans bewildering, but then, I was born in Istanbul, and I think our attitude towards street cats is probably well known by this point. After all, Turkish does not have a word to reflect the concept of a stray cat, they're street cats to us. Currently living in Germany, I miss seeing cats in the streets, though the occasional duck and goose sort of make up for it in a weird way, though the Geese can get far more aggressive than any street cat.

pipes 3y ago

So are any of this cats going to be put in trial for "murder".

labster 3y ago
They’d just plead nyan compos mentis
- nroets 3y ago
  The cats I met will just take the 5 th.
posnet 3y ago
No, it's more of a Judge Dredd type situation.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> are any of this cats going to be put in trial for "murder" “For centuries, the courts of France, Italy, Switzerland, and other nearby countries tried pigs, dogs, rats, grasshoppers, and snails for crimes against people, property, and God. These animal trials were of two kinds: (1) secular suits against individual creatures who had maimed or killed humans; and (2) ecclesiastic cases against vermin like mice and locusts, who were excommunicated for their grain-related crimes.” https://daily.jstor.org/when-societies-put-animals-on-trial/ https://daily.jstor.org/when-societies-put-animals-on-trial/
dylan604 3y ago
isn't that pretty much any shelter that isn't a no kill shelter?

PlunderBunny 3y ago

In Western Australia (I think), cats are already restricted to the house plus exterior deck/veranda/patio, which must be caged to prevent them from going further. This is referred to as a ‘catio’. I suspect that, given the bugs, putting an insect screen around your patio has other benefits too.

jacquesm 3y ago

I've barred cats from the garden here after cleaning up a pile of trash for the nth time. It took some doing but it's mostly solved and it is incredible how quickly the birds seem to have found out that our garden is a safe haven. I've seen bird species that I didn't even know were in this region.

patrickdavey 3y ago
I'm curious how you did this?
- tyingq 3y ago
  A fair while ago, I had luck with motion activated sprinklers for raccoons. I would think they would be effective for cats also.
- rsync 3y ago
  You can keep cats out of an area with electric wires. If you want perfect, 100% exclusion you will need three hot wires: - one about 4" below top of fence, but only 2" out from the face of the fence - one at roughly top of fence, but 4" out from the face of the fence - one 2" above the top of the fence, in line with the face. ... which gives you a negative (?) overhang for a climber and the top wire is insurance that they can't somehow reach/slink over the first two. 100% success over 36 months against families of raccoons who were irresistibly attracted to (otherwise) defenseless chickens. Yes, raccoons > cats both physically and mentally.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Raccoons are incredible. Both the smarts and the agility are off the scale and they are so good in planning ahead that they tend to succeed just because they are able to pull off feats that you only realize in retrospect were within their abilities. They have the cuteness factor but underneath that is a ferocious and cunning little predator that makes a cat look like a bumbling fool. Fortunately we do not have raccoons here so the opposition is manageable.
  - 3y ago

version_five 3y ago

Where I live we're completely overrun with squirrels. I'd have no problem with more roaming cats killing them, ditto for pigeons. Are they actually threatening species or just eating animals? If it's the latter it doesn't seem like a problem. Fewer cats is going to mean more vermin, we'll see how people like it then.

derstander 3y ago
Beware the law of unintended consequences. For example, see the “Four Pests Campaign”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign
- waingake 3y ago
  Exactly, my free roaming cat brings home a large rat present for me at least once a month.
theshrike79 3y ago
If you can breed a cat so that it only eats the "bad" small animals, go ahead. But you do need to remember cats tend to love to hunt _everything_. Just a few freely roaming cats are enough to make sure you won't be hearing any small birds chirping in the trees in your area. Because they're all dead.
taberiand 3y ago
In Australia, cats absolutely shred through native animal populations. They threaten, and have caused, the extinction of many species. https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/invasive-species/feral-animals-australia/feral-cats https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/invasive-species/feral... https://invasives.org.au/our-work/feral-animals/cats-in-australia/ https://invasives.org.au/our-work/feral-animals/cats-in-aust...

lol768 3y ago

Cats have been domestic pets in the UK since at least the times of Roman civilisation, and have been allowed to roam free for much of that time. It's odd to me that there's such a contrast between attitudes towards cats roaming in Europe (which I would say is completely the norm, particularly in e.g. the UK) and the United States (and now Australia), though perhaps this is just down to different native fauna. > The EU’s executive said Thursday that it is “a strong defender of free movement rights — including of cats” and “categorically” denied it would ever force cats to be kept indoors or on a leash, as one scientific study suggests. The RSPB themselves have said: “While we know that cats do kill large numbers of birds in UK gardens, there’s no evidence this is affecting decline in the same way that these other issues are” (habitat/food loss from climate change) Research in the UK has suggested cats are mostly preying on the "doomed surplus": https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2008.00836.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1474-919X.... > we (4) compared the condition of those birds killed by cats versus those killed in collisions, e.g. window strikes. Mean (± sd) cat density was 348 ± 86 cats/km2 (n = 10 sites); considering the eight species most commonly taken by cats, the mean ratios of adult birds/cats and juvenile birds/cats across the five sites were 1.17 ± 0.23 and 3.07 ± 0.74, respectively > > Across species, cat-killed birds were in significantly poorer condition than those killed following collisions; this is consistent with the notion that cat predation represents a compensatory rather than additive form of mortality.

cultofmetatron 3y ago
I'm guessing all the really vulnerable (to cats) bird species in europe went extinct long ago already.
- guerrilla 3y ago
  This is it. Europe itself is domesticated and there's very little wild left here. Other places, less so.
eliaspro 3y ago
There was a _slight_ increase in population (and thereby cats) since Roman times...

vondur 3y ago

It seems like lawmakers in Australia have too much time on their hands. It must be one of the smoothest functioning countries in the world.

dylan604 3y ago
Like the lawmakers in the US or really any other country fair any better at nonsensical things that make their way to law.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Australia has been fighting with invasive species for a long time. Just look at the problems they had with rabbits. Dingos are pretty much already diluted with domesticated dog genes, so there goes that species in a few generations. It would seem like trying to protect native species should be a priority for the government.
- robbiep 3y ago
  New evidence suggests Dingos are actually ‘mostly’ (for the meaning of the word where most is more than 50%) just dingo: https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/29/research-suggests-that-more-than-half-of-australias-dingoes-are-genetically-pure-not-hybrids https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/29/resea...
EatingWithForks 3y ago
I'm not in Australian and I know Australia has a fairly unique ecosystem and this necessitates different laws than other countries. Similarly weird laws exist in every country. For example in my area it's specifically illegal not to provide heating of a specific quality to tenants, because we have a season called "winter" where temperatures drop enough to be deadly.
bowsamic 3y ago
Hopefully we can develop society to the point where ecological concerns are no longer seen as superfluous
3y ago

beardyw 3y ago

In London in the evenings we see more foxes than cats, and they do kill birds. Maybe we should dress in pink jackets and persecute them?

kaba0 3y ago
I am fairly sure foxes are far worse at bird murdering — e.g. they can’t really climb trees just for a starter.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

readyplayernull 3y ago

Chinese people cook cats and dogs, Australia should allow more immigrants. Chinese mafia also lends them money to start business in other countries like restaurants. And China's covert overseas police that operates in each city controls them. It's a win-win situation. /s

vore 3y ago
Really going for the mask off racism on Hacker News today, are we?
- taberiand 3y ago
  My guess is HN will see more of this, with the decline of Reddit and the subsequent dispersion of certain... opinions... looking for a new forum to infect
  - readyplayernull 3y ago
    Some government's zealots will go high and beyond to bury any criticism, but HN is smarter than that, keep being informed: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/20/explainer-chinas-covert-overseas-police-stations https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/20/explainer-chin...
    - taberiand 3y ago
      It's not that China doesn't operate in such ways, it's that it's got nothing to do with the topic at hand and it's also a shallow and racist take on the topic
      - vore 3y ago
        When I posted the comment they only said the cooking cats and dogs part, so even worse!
        3y ago

nickmain 3y ago

Where I live in Southern California outdoor cats are socially discouraged because they often end up as coyote food.

yieldcrv 3y ago
every time I see a missing pet poster in California that's what I think of occasionally you'll hear a harrowing mad scramble in the street, and I'm thinking "it's happening"

Mizoguchi 3y ago

"Do We Really Know That Cats Kill By The Billions? Not So Fast" https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we...

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
That article is US-centric and doesn't apply to Australia, where the problem is much greater than birds.

golemiprague 3y ago

[dead]

throwaway313313 3y ago

I live in the suburbs in SF Bay Area, and at night when I walk my dog, I never see cats roaming around. I see coyotes, foxes, skunks, and raccoons. My guess is if you don't kill the coyotes and foxes they control the cat population.

hungryforcodes 3y ago

I find the title and article really strange. Murder is specifically defined as the UNLAWFUL killing of a HUMAN BEING. Murder basically is a legal definiton. Anything else is just killing. And I don't think this definition applies to cats at all. "Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethough" (1) 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder

tzs 3y ago

Googling for other articles in this with more details, it looks the places that have implemented cat curfews are requiring cats to be indoors at night. That's interesting, because in the US most concern over cats killing other animals is for birds and those birds are almost all diurnal. The non-birds cats kill a lot of are also mostly diurnal or crepuscular (active around sunrise and sunset). The nocturnal animals cats kill seem to be mostly things that most people are happy to have them kill (rats and mice). So in the US if there was a cat curfew I'd expect it to be that cats have to be indoors by dawn, and can't be let out until the end of twilight. A cat curfew at night in Australia suggests that it is nocturnal animals Australians are worried about. Which animals are those? Are cats not as big a problem for diurnal animals there because those animals are scary Australian animals that cats are afraid to fuck with, or scary Australian animals that people are happy to have cats get rid of?

pandaman 3y ago
I would not be drawing connections to reality from government actions. California imposed COVID curfew [1] just because they could, not because the viruses are nocturnal. At best, if there was actually any thought put into it at all, it's to trap feral cats at night, when they are most active, and if any house cat gets trapped too the owner can be told to get stuffed and ticketed for violating the curfew. 1. https://www.kcra.com/article/california-limited-curfew-covid-surge/34731541 https://www.kcra.com/article/california-limited-curfew-covid...