Cats, declares a writer on Slate.com, are evil. Reporting on New Zealander zoologist Gareth Morgan’s plea to eliminate cats from his country because they’re killing off all sorts of birds and other animals we’d much rather have instead, Laura Helmuth notes that “Cats are a globally invasive species” and “are particularly damaging in island ecosystems that are home to species found nowhere else on earth,” like New Zealand.
Morgan runs the Cats to Go project. “Your cat is not innocent,” he points out, with a little more reserve than did Helmuth (or the editor who titled the piece), on one page of its website. For example:
- The average cat brings home 13 pieces of prey each year. But this is only one in five of their kills. Cats eat a third of what they kill, and leave half of them to rot.
- If they are not bringing home native birds it’s because there are none around left to kill.
- Domestic cats living on the edge of wilderness areas seem to do the most damage and can wander huge distances; covering up to 69 hectares.
- Before you say it, even well-fed cats kill. The fact is that cats kill on instinct, not because they need to eat, it is one of their most pleasurable activities. In one study, six cats were presented with a live small rat while eating their preferred food. All six cats stopped eating the food, killed the rat, and then resumed eating the food.
January 25th, 2013 | 5:22 pm
My sainted schnauzer Deutero, had a theory that cats and snakes were different manifestations of the same critter, able to metamorphise from one to the other at will. When a snake would wander into our yard, Deutero would growl, “Be careful dad. It might be a cat.” She would say this even if the snake in question were a rattler (we live in New Mexico). Since Deutero knew both cats and snakes better than I, I never questioned her wisdom. And to this day I keep a shovel handy.
January 25th, 2013 | 6:54 pm
Keep your cats inside and feed them….I had three cats and they only killed spiders and nasties which came into the house..
January 26th, 2013 | 2:33 am
First we hear from some that humans are a “threat” to the earth, now cats. As a supporter of animal rights, I’m concerned what possible negative consequences this type of thinking could have on cat welfare (as a supporter of human rights, I have concerns that talk of humans being “plaques” and “threats” to the earth could adversely affect human rights). Cats are great additions to human families, are lovable, and, although I love dogs, cats are my favorite.
January 26th, 2013 | 5:14 am
My stable cats seem to have come to an accommodation with the mice and confine their attentions to voles, shrews, field-mice and birds.
In Summer, the nesting swallows drive them out of the stables entirely, mobbing any cat that shows its head.
January 26th, 2013 | 9:14 am
The reason cats became domesticated, to a degree, was they were valuable. Just like snakes.
Cats were used to protect the grain from vermin, which allowed civilization to grow. Why do you think that cats were raised to a god like status in Egypt?
January 26th, 2013 | 11:00 am
Getting rid of cats sure worked out for the Medievals when plague-infested rats got into the food.
January 26th, 2013 | 12:20 pm
J. Bob wrote, “Why do you think that cats were raised to a god like status in Egypt?”
And cats have never forgotten it
January 26th, 2013 | 12:48 pm
Cats are innocent, because they are not capable of moral judgment. They may nonetheless be dangerous in various ways.
I agree with Bret — it’s one thing to point out the possible dangers posed by cats to other creatures. To treat cats like they are some alien species that threatens everything else is quite another.
January 26th, 2013 | 4:41 pm
Cats, like good books and good bourbon, are among those things which make life worth living. They hunt bats when those wretched vermin get in your abode. They exemplify beauty, and, on their own schedule, love.
January 26th, 2013 | 11:13 pm
Hi Pentemom, you make a great point that cats are innocent, since they cannot be moral. I think that sometimes some people make the mistake of assuming that cats (and other animals) are somehow intentionally being immoral when they don’t possess the capacity for this.
January 27th, 2013 | 8:43 am
I find it amusing how people come up with all these positions on animals. We have to save the spotted owl and the tiger, but we have to get rid of house cats. And we have to reintroduce wolves to their former habitat — despite the danger to livestock and so on.
Can someone please tell us precisely how many of each animal is supposed to be where, so we can come up with a sensible plan?
January 27th, 2013 | 4:36 pm
Crowhill, I think there’s a working assumption that however it was when humans had a minimal effect on most of the world, is roughly how it should be. That sort of neglects the fact that humans are ourselves a natural phenomenon, as is our ability to consciously influence the environment, move around, and change things.
January 28th, 2013 | 3:59 am
Pentamon
You are right that humans and their capacities are a natural phenomenon. But so is human foresight and the ability to assess the likely impact of their activities on their environment and to give due weight to the value of bio-diversity. This may involve restraining the activities of some, in the interests of the common good.
January 28th, 2013 | 12:25 pm
Michael, I don’t disagree with that. But benchmarking everything to “if humans were never here and/or did nothing to promote their own welfare, that’s how it should be” is fallacious as well. Balance human needs to control rodents and so forth with the needs of other creatures, don’t simply say that cats should be eliminated because they’re only here at the behest of humans, as though that’s a sound principle.
January 28th, 2013 | 10:01 pm
This is ecology 101. Cats are not part of the food chain. They are disruptive. This is a major problem with conservation today. There are those who do not know much about basic food chains, as evidenced above, arguing for the same thing as animal rights/Gaia followers. They tried several years ago just to open up a season on feral cats in Wisconsin, and the protest was so bad that thay had to cancel any planned culling of the cat population. At the next March for Life, I will be holding a sign that says, “Kill your Cat. Save an Unborn Child From Toxoplasmosis!”
February 6th, 2013 | 6:04 pm
People who measure land in ‘hectares’ are probably Reds anyway. No wonder they oppose cats, the most loveable and beautiful species that we humans can ever befriend.
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