Comment on Meow

• Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

  My cat figured out the dog door by watching the dogs. She’s inside 80% of the time but prefers to do her business outside if the weather’s clear and goes out for an hour or so about twice a day besides that.

  Of all things, my part basset hound mix is a bird killing machine despite the stubby legs, broken hip and arthritis. I don’t know how she manages to do it, but lots of half eaten bird corpses started showing up in our yard right after we got her, but only in the back yard which she could reach via the dog door. Starting before the cat started using the dog door.

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• LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I can see the logic but it does feel like the cat’s already out of the bag on this one. There are so many free-ranging and feral cats that I wonder if it makes any difference at this point.

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  • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It does. Travel to a 3rd world country and look at the difference. Dogs and cats everywhere due to no cultural expectation to keep them indoors or neuter them.

    Here is an article better clarifying the effect of our cute little killing machines:

    scientificamerican.com/…/cats-kill-a-staggering-n…

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    • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      That article seems very new-world-centric

      Europe, Mainland Asia & Africa all have native small cats and so the birds and small mammals have evolved to deal with them, the issue is that in Australia & the Americas they haven’t and so that’s where all the risk of species actually being wiped out is - in the old world the cats largely just replace the larger predators that humans have killed off in the ecosystem

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      • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Even in the Americas we have cats though. Bobcats are slightly larger but not completely dissimilar. We even used to have ocelots across much of the US. So I find the claim that mainland birds are not able to handle cat predation to be a bit questionable. However I am not fully educated on this topic.

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    • Maiq@lemy.lol ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Maiq has heard its dangerous to be your friend.

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      • Klear@sh.itjust.works ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        No lies detected.

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    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I’ve seen a lot of stats about cats and it seems very likely they have important conservation implications in island ecosystems where birds did not evolve with similar predators.

      But I’ve not seen evidence of conservation impacts on the mainland where we do and did have similar predators in the past. Just stating that cats eat a lot of birds doesn’t mean they’re a threat to overall populations.

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      • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        True, but that article says that over 350 of their prey species are at risk species, and that several of those are suspected to already be extinct.

        I love cats—I think most people should have them—just be responsible with your furry murderers.

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  • TheSlad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    People buy cats from shelters, then let them be outdoor cats. It does matter.

    On the flip side, I’ve homed three outdoor/feral cats in my house. They adjust to being indoor cats fine.

    Cats are an invasive species in most places and are super damaging to the local fauna.

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    • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Most places is a stretch… They’re invasive in around ⅓ of Earth’s land area and where less than ¼ of people live

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      • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        I don’t think it’s true that they’re native to 2/3rds of the earth, is it?

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• pumpkinseedoil@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Where I live there is practically no risk of them getting ran over. But yes they do catch 2-3 birds per yer.

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  • Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Cats that have had to live on their own for any period of time catch a few more than 2-3 birds per year. Our guy caught enough prey that he was actually getting on the chubby side.

    (Where we lived the windows were the air conditioning, so no way to keep him inside, and he was already a stray. So he wasn’t conditioned to it. In fact he’d destroy a screen to get out if he had to.)

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    • pumpkinseedoil@mander.xyz ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Well, we were talking about pet cats, not cats that had to live on their own

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