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UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

They’re killing machines that have a big impact on local wildlife.

Saying this to my friends as I drive in my 2 ton steel box full of liquid dinosaurs through the cemented remains of an old growth forest on the way to my job at the bitcoin mill.

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dodgy_bagel@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380

! We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals. !<

Unless, of course, you’re saying that we shouldn’t stop one bad thing because we do other bad things.

We should rethink our attachments to miniature tigers.

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- Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Or just keep them indoors
  
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- UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality
  
  I’m not sure what the solution is here.
  
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  - dodgy_bagel@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Please be serious. I read the source that I posted; you’re not being clever. Cats don’t magically show up from nowhere. Our culture around cats enables and feeds the feral population. If we didn’t keep cats as pets, and animal control treated them the same way they treat raccoons, then this problem would be dramatically reduced. Probably eliminated, but they might turn into an intractable urban pest.
    
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explodicle@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
But you need a job, you don’t need a pet. (Not counting service animals)

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- UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You can have both. In fact, you can hire a pet-sitter, which creates two jobs for the price of one.
  
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