“Outdoor cats” are an invasive species that kill billions of animals every year, are a significant contributor to dozens of species’ extinction, and live shorter lives than cats properly cared for (i.e. kept indoors) including nearly 3x the risk for infections.
It’s a plague. We can’t keep normalizing this.
and there’s this great news: https://scitechdaily.com/bird-flu-is-now-killing-cats-at-a-90-fatality-rate-experts-warn-it-could-jump-to-humans/
This is the opposite of great
Thanks tech, did not appreciate the original post b/c of how lightly it treats the killing of wonderful beautiful birbs
just stfu, you’ll live, ik your chronically online but you don’t have to be scared of everything
Yeah but birds aren’t real.
You should be aware this is an extremely American sentiment bordering on ignorant. Nowhere else in the world do you find people berating people for letting cats go outside.
Even in America, you won’t find it. It’s only coming from chronically-online people who are afraid of everything.
I’m sure if you could communicate the dangers to your cats, most of them would still choose to go outside. Locking cats indoors their entire lives is cruel.
Did Australia recently sink into the ocean and I just missed it?
Yeah, no.
I’ve heard it my whole life from my vets. I don’t know what you mean by “even in America you won’t find it”
I’ve got bad news: your vet is a chronically online loser who is afraid of everything!
Locking cats indoors their entire lives is cruel.
Um… I guess the rescue I got my cat from is cruel for adding a “keep the cat indoor only” clause? 🤔
Edit: I’m not taking a position on the indoor vs outdoor argument, just saying that its not exactly “cruel” to keep a cat indoors.
I think that’s a YMMV depending on the cat. One of my cats constantly begs to go outside (he gets walks), the other refuses to leave the house.
While I agree that cats are fine outside (while supervised and/or staying within their own yard - a small harness and leash can do the job), cats are just as healthy and happy staying indoors. My own cat actually refuses to go outside despite enjoying looking out the window all the time. I tried taking him outside a couple times to get him some exercise and he absolutely hated it. Different cats enjoy different environments.
You’re absolutely wrong. They’re native to the region around Turkey, so it’s not really an issue there. Everywhere else, it is. Yeah, a lot of third world countries don’t give a shit because they have other problems to worry about. It doesn’t make it not an issue though, and many countries have issues caused by them.
The cat that became the house cat is obviously what I’m talking about, not random distantly related species. I assume you know those aren’t the same species, right?
I thought the point was bird killing?
Yeah, house cats killing birds in regions they aren’t native to. Your comment still has notthing to do with that.
Those regions had wild cats killing birds already. China had domestic cats 5000 years ago.
Humans along with their cats and pigs have done a lot of damage to biodiversity around the world. It’s just one element of the 6th mass extinction we are causing.
Years ago my indoor housecat would always try to rush out the back door whenever it was opened. One day she finally managed it and then wouldn’t come back in. Okay, shut the door. She proceeded to freak out and start yowling when we shut the door and left her out there for a few hours. Whatever, weather was nice and yard was enclosed.
Let her in after a few hours when it got dark, and she stopped trying to bolt outside. Nobody suffered, cat finally appreciated her cushy indoor life, and that was a win.
None of the shelters or adoption agencies near me will even let you get a cat if you don’t say it will be kept indoors on the papers. Cats can easily be given the same level of enrichment indoors by playing with them.
Keeping your cat indoors is only cruel when you don’t care enough about them to play and provide enrichment to make them happy, in which case you shouldn’t have a cat.
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Those numbers are suspect. https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast and probably are a majority unowned cats. It’s not important to make sure your cat is spayed or neutered than making sure it stays indoors.
What you’ve presented is a deeply biased opinion piece, and it wears this immense bias on its sleeve. It fearmongers that thinking about cats as killing wildlife could cause “extremism” (it then cites as its lone example a man who suggested banning cats in New Zealand; soooo scary). It cites some organization called “Alley Cat Allies” who call it extremely biased with ostensibly zero credentials. They cite lobbyist and serial sexual harasser Wayne Pacelle formerly of the Humane Society who questions the methodology but even concedes: “We don’t quarrel with the conclusion that the impact is big.” And lastly, King herself does her own analysis on this meta-analysis’ methodology despite being – I emphasize – a professor of anthropology with no background in this field.
So your article has no one familiar with this field who could challenge if these statistical assumptions are actually reasonable. And here, given the authors are experts (and absent some published literature rebutting this in the 12 years since), I have no reason to believe their methodology would be so off as to meaningfully change the idea that “outdoor cats” are severely problematic.
I want you to know that I read through and appreciate this in depth write up and critique of the previous person’s source/citation.
Mine was a deeply biased opinion piece, and yours weren’t full of emotionally charged imagery and language? OK
Here’s the key:
- The first source I use is just a scientific article. That’s it.
- The third source is just a scientific article. That’s it.
- The second source that I use to cite “dozens of extinctions” is quite emotionally charged, but here’s where that’s different: I could find a billion sources more credible than that NYT article about the dozens upon dozens of species who’ve met their end thanks to the domestic cat. These sources would give it an unemotional, academic treatment, yet I like how the NYT piece is narratively engaging rather than dry-ass “X et al. reported…”
I used scientific sources for (1) and (3) because those are claims people might actually think to contest. Moreover, the NYT doesn’t let itself slip into using garbage sources for the sake of its narrative. I could replace this source in two minutes, and then your argument about emotionally charged imagery would dissolve.
The reason I care so much about King’s massive bias in that article is because that bias is reflected in how absolutely egregious her sources are. She seems to genuinely not care how factual what she’s saying is as long as it conforms to her personal feelings, and so she turns it into assembling literally every source she can possibly find no matter how obscenely flimsy. She’s grasping at straws the entire article.
While I understand the sentiment, its a hard line. I waffle with it being sometimes impossible to avoid.
With that said, my parents have an outdoor cat still going from my middle school days; he’s currently 23 y/o, and still able to hold his own. I’m always impressed visiting because I expect to hear he passed when in fact he’s yelling about wet food not being available when he’s makes his appearance. Most of his days are spent laying on their back porch, and I’m insanely jealous of how full and long of a life he’s experienced.
I waffle with it being sometimes impossible to avoid.
Just close the door lol
- It is categorically not ever “impossible to avoid”. Not only is your cat statistically healthier indoors, but any excuse for why it’s not possible is complete bullshit unless you can offer one up that isn’t. Owning a pet is a responsibility, not a right; just because it’s “harder” to take proper care of your pet doesn’t absolve you of that responsibility.
- Anecdotes are not data. This is “I have a grandma who’s 106 and she smokes 26 packs a day and drinks a pint of leaded gasoline before bed.”
It is categorically not ever “impossible to avoid”.
Exactly. It might be hard to keep a cat inside literally 100% of the time, but that’s not an excuse. My cat has run out the door or knocked out the window screen a couple of times and been outside for a few hours before we noticed and caught her, but that certainly doesn’t make her an “outdoor cat!”
Agreed that it’s not empirical data
There is nothing hard to avoid about your cat staying indoors. Stop it.
I mean, not everyone who smokes is gonna get cancer, but no one is gonnna say that smoking doesn’t have risks. Same with outside cats
It is far from impossible to avoid. If you can’t control a cat and keep them indoors then you shouldn’t have a cat. It’s as easy as that.
If you have a kid and let them run in the road, no one will accept your excuse that it’s just too hard. You either shouldn’t have had a kid or you need to take responsibility for them, or have them taken from you. The same applies to a cat.
Well in that analogy tge drives also need to take responsibility
I’m a waffler from way back, and the wording in that sentence I waffled on the “right” description for where I fell into.
Since being in my own and having multiple days, I don’t think it’s completely impossible for me. I let our cats out with our supervision so they can roll in the grass and enjoy the outdoors; then, we bring them right back in.
My parents never want to get rid of cats, so if any of them were not able to “properly behave” indoors they would be put out as a barn cat. Was it wrong to do that? To them, they’re still caringv and care for the cat, they just didn’t like its behavior. This also was in a small town where going to the pound likely meant kill shelter.
To date, they’ve rescued around 15 cats from off the street, and about 3/4 stayed in the house.
Nuance and all that jazz.
My parents never want to get rid of cats, so if any of them were not able to “properly behave” indoors they would be put out as a barn cat. Was it wrong to do that? To them, they’re still caringv and care for the cat, they just didn’t like its behavior. This also was in a small town where going to the pound likely meant kill shelter.
They aren’t bad people for it. They’re just ignorant (not an insult, it just means they don’t know something) of the harm cats do. Their intent is good, but you can still do bad things with good intentions.
It would be better that they go to a kill shelter. I know that sounds callous, but why is it worse that the cats are put down rather than letting them kill a bunch of other animals? There’s death both ways. They just ignore all the death the cats cause.
Devil’s advocate: humans cause an excess of death beyond that of cats: is it better to put humans down to prevent them from causing mass death?
I’m not disagreeing that they cause harm, but its a philosophical argument of utilitarianism that deaths of a subset would be better no matter what, right? It’s a nuance that can’t necessarily be put to black and white contexts. That’s all I wanted to put forward, but I may have messed up my argument trying to distill to a sentence or two.
Devil’s advocate: humans cause an excess of death beyond that of cats: is it better to put humans down to prevent them from causing mass death?
Maybe, though at least humans can make an effort to minimize their harm, and some can actually do good. Cats can’t really do this.
I’m not disagreeing that they cause harm, but its a philosophical argument of utilitarianism that deaths of a subset would be better no matter what, right? It’s a nuance that can’t necessarily be put to black and white contexts. That’s all I wanted to put forward, but I may have messed up my argument trying to distill to a sentence or two.
Sure, but again things are dying either way. More things are dying with the cats living outdoors. What makes a cat more valuable than a bird, or tens of bird, or hundreds of birds (or mice, or whatever else)?
The only moral framework that I could think would justify this is hedonism, if the cats bring them happiness and that’s all that matters.
There is no situation where it is impossible to avoid. I’m glad your cat has had a good life, but in general, outdoor cats are still far more likely to die young to diseases, accidents, and wildlife.
A vegetarian!
Fuck me that is adorable! Well done, Larry, you are indeed a mighty hunter!
Good job Larry
Leaf pursuit Larry
Larry Leaffer
😂😂
I’m so proud of my little hunters when we play with toys that simulate prey. They’re so fierce. Larry will become fierce. Good job, hunter! Good job, good job!
Maybe he’s a vegan
So cute. I miss my cats so much. ❤️
