Was talking to a neighbour yesterday as we collected our bins, when we saw a cat running from the reserve across the street, into a nearby yard (where it lives, presumably) through a gap in a fence. I said - 'damn, those killers are destroying a lot of our native animals - seen one emerge from a neighbour's woodshed with two skinks in its mouth. They shouldn't be allowed outside uncontrolled. Such a double standard vs. dogs.' She was horrified at my 'cruelty' saying it's just not right. 1/2
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@lightweight Is cat ownership allowed in NZ!? That's...wild. Or maybe the opposite of wild?
@RachelThornSub It is, sadly, wild in all senses, and rampant. And 'cat lovers' are seen as a 'sacred cow' block politically. Don't get wrong - cats are stunning animals and I admire them and their evolution hugely. I just think humans made a grave error (one of countless) including them in the colonisation process. And yeah, as in AU, they should be required to be constrained to their owner's property & inside at night. That's everyone's expectations of dog owners.
@RachelThornSub cat owners would screem bloody murder if an unsupervised dog caught and killed their roaming/unsupervised cat. Yeah, it's be sad for all involved, but - to quote unapologetic cat lovers I know - 'that's just the natural order'.
Dogs are only constrained & require supervision because they might (well, a few) hurt humans, or kill livestock, i.e. affect the livestock owners in the pocket.
Both cat & dog poop is very undesirable. Toxoplasmosis in the veggies anyone?
@lightweight Here I had been thinking that cats were illegal in Australia, but I just checked and apparently there are rules but they aren't forbidden per se. It sounds like the laws were made to please a certain kind of person and ecosystem considerations were secondary.
It occurred to me then that *most* people seem to think that animals only have value - and deserve protection - if they're 'owned'. Indigenous, ambient wildlife has - in most people's minds ~zero (or even negative) value. The crucial, unique value of our biodiversity has *not* been well explained to the mainstream. What do you think? @joncounts
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@lightweight @joncounts With one of the higgest rates of cat ownership inthe world we have some way to go before we get a Cat Act that complements our Dog Act.
But we will get there!
@lightweight My local council has just banned cats being outside between 7PM and 7AM and for future cats that are registered they are to be inside cats only.