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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I mean. If we just let all the dogs loose, that would at least be filling an ecological niche that we've deprived the local ecology of (by killing off all the wolves).
There are already native cats that do not need your domestic cats competing with them.
@lordbowlich Yup. The Australians have it even worse. Their fairly robust dingos (like a coyote, descended from 'New Guinea Singing Dogs', apparently) used to be able to handle the throngs of feral cats they have... but the cats have evolved into panther-sized felines, bigger than the dingos can manage. Doesn't bode well for AU biodiversity. There've been rumours of massive feral felines spotted in NZ, too, probably thought a similar process.
@lordbowlich yeah, hadn't considered the situation in my own home country (I'm an emigre from the USA), but I guess the colonial entitlement exists there at least as egregiously as it does here in NZ (and our neighbour AU)...
@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.
@etbe I note for those who might not know, you're in Australia, right?
@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 & I admire them as the ruthlessly efficient biodiversity destroyers they are. 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.
@lightweight I didn't mean to conflate NZ and AU, but the ecosystem concerns are the same.
@RachelThornSub Yeah - I think part of the issue is that in AU, there're native fauna that can 'off' most cats no problem... but here in NZ, the natives are way too benign. That said, I saw recently that even dingoes are struggling to control some of the wild cats roaming the outback - they've evolved into 'panthers' with alarming speed (just a few generations!).
@RachelThornSub and here it's a total cliche that 'every house/flat has a cat. Some have many'. The ownership model is 100% benign neglect. Not my preference in this case.
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!
@artnacrea @joncounts let us quietly marshal our forces. Softly softly or something like that 😜
@lightweight
I've had the same expressed to me in N. America. I simply don't understand it. They decimate the local song bird population until some coyote comes along and eats them.
Not sure why feeding them to coyotes is the less cruel of the options to just keeping them inside...