- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
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I witnessed basically this exact conversation once. We were in the exam room, and our vet stepped out to the computer in the hallway to show a woman her cat’s X-rays. Apparently it had been attacked by a dog and wouldn’t make it.
The vet literally said, “So what did we learn today? Don’t let your cat outside if you want it to live.”
Funny.
In Europe we’ve the same discussion for the opposite reasons.
Do not let the cat outside, it will kills other animals.
It’s really both. Eventually cat will get into an accident, but on the way there it will take a whole bunch of smaller animals and birds with it.
Never had a cat that got into an accident, though one of my current cats is an idiot when it comes to walking across the drive
This reads a bit like “that hasn’t happened to me so that doesn’t happen”.
“I don’t wear my seatbelt, but nothings happened so it’s probably fine”
This works for people with empathy who care. The former works for people who are selfish. Both are good to tell people. One may work where the other doesn’t.
birds are annoying and eat herbs in my garden, my cat eats slightly less of the garden and provides me with entertainment and bird removal.
The birds do a lot more for you than just eating herbs in your garden. You just aren’t aware of it, until they’re gone at least. Stop thinking you’re more important than the ecosystem.
there are so many birds and so much environment I don’t think a cat occasionally escaping from my house will do much harm.
Domestic cats are responsible for the extinction of several species.
Well guess what, most ecological destruction is caused by people with that exact mindset.
They think that cats kill every single bird and don’t think about what massive harm humans have done.
They are delusional and don’t understand nature and reality.
These people probably think meat comes from the grocery store.
I can’t fathom how out of touch you have to be to blame cats for everything humans have done. Sure, cats hunt, but to say they are destroyers of entire species is beyond delusion and into severe mental health territory.
Showing a graphic about how buildings kill fewer birds than cats is asinine and disingenuous, to say the least.
Maybe compare cats to urban sprawl to see what that says about who kills and displaced wild animals. Hypocrites the lot of them.
My brother in Christ, cats have made species go extinct because humans bring them everywhere. It’s our responsibility.
What are you smoking?
So I live in an apartment which by virtue of going up uses far less space, I keep my cats indoors and take them on walks outside, and I didn’t create a bunch of kids and instead chose to raise one that already existed. You can always do more.
Let me get this clear. You think humans are responsible for the damage they cause to the environment and we should be aware and take responsibility for it, correct?
I don’t think anyone disagrees with that evaluation. However, our impact is not only limited to what we build. It also includes our actions. We have hunted species into extinction, which is bad, right?
If that’s bad, things we choose to bring with us we’re also responsible for, and hunting things out of extinction that don’t just go extinct from normal environmental changes is bad, then bringing cats with us that hunt things to extinction is bad, correct?
This isn’t saying they’re the only bad things were responsible for. That would be a ridiculous thing to believe. It’s just saying we are responsible for them, and they do cause damage to the ecosystem, including full on extinction events on occasion. (See: the other comment here that includes a list of species that no longer exist because of cats.) You agree, right?
You can use netting to keep them off or your garden or just grow enough to have enough after they need or both
Fr, all these sparrows do is eat our crops. What could possibly go wrong if we kill all of them?
But that’s the point. I don’t want mice around the house.
Wow, that’s ruff
Get a catio.
Don’t let cats kill more birds and amphibians. Cats being let outside has contributed to the extinction of countless species.
Also, lead walking! Most cats can be trained to be very receptive to lead walking especially if you start them young. Your cat still gets the enrichment from walking around outside and all the lovely smells and sights that entails but without the danger of cars or the cat killing everything is feels like.
Walking your cat is a great way to get them outside, but (depending on the individual) it’s quite different from walking a dog. Most cats aren’t very interested in the actual walking part of walks, and may be much happier finding a nice bush to sit under for half an hour. However a leash is a great way to keep your cat supervised and under control for outside visits, either in the back yard, around the block, or to a nearby park.
Other warnings: starting them young is ideal, but older cats can get used to the leash with a lot of patience (on both of your parts). Cats that were previously outdoor cats will have the most trouble adjusting to their loss of freedom, but indoor-only cats may be excited for the opportunity (or terrified: pushing your cat a little out of their comfort zone is okay but don’t overdo it!). A well-fitting harness/vest is crucial, and even then a very determined (or scared) cat can probably wriggle out so be prepared. Keep a very close eye on your cat’s emotional state and be ready to go home at signs of anxiety. Low-stress outdoor places (with few cars, dogs, screaming kids, etc, and with some form of cover like trees and bushes) are best especially to start. Treats and verbal encouragement, paired with small steps and lots of patience, are key! Above all stay consistent: once you’ve made the decision to make your cat leash-only, don’t let them go outside without it: your cat needs to make the connection that they have to be on a leash if they want to enjoy the outside.
My neighborhood has had at least two flier campaigns in the past year for cats who slipped their leads and disappeared. Best of luck for those who find it novel but I’m gonna keep it simple and just keep the cat inside.
I know they do a lot of killing and they fuck up the local ecosystem, but I never knew they actually made extinctions happen. What species?
https://gizmodo.com/8-species-driven-toward-extinction-by-cats-1848059691
Over half of pet cats in the U.S. spend time outside, and worldwide the animals have contributed to the extinction of at least 33 species, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Sadly, it’s already too late for dozens of species, including the Stephens Island wren (a flightless songbird), the crescent nailtail wallaby, and the adorable desert bandicoot.
[Suprise the Trump admin seems to have taken that page down — sure there is an archive tho]
That is absolutely crazy. Thanks for sharing!
I used to see Cardinals everywhere in my back yard wonder if my neighbors shit head orange keeps killing them
Holy crap…yes. leash your cats for the love of all that is fuzzy.
The anger people have when you tell them it’s neglect when you just let a cat roam free. It’s insanity. Your cat can easily just never come home or be found dead to many things, and they also destroy lots of wildlife and crap on people’s property with no respecting owner to clean up.
No one would take this from dogs…so why cats? It’s literally for their safety and the safety of other animals…its mind boggling and the downvotrs prove it
The anger people have when you tell them it’s neglect when you just let a cat roam free. It’s insanity.
If you want to see people loose their mind, suggest that the way we dominate these animals to please us is the root cause of all that suffering and neglect.
*I live with a cat and am having beef for dinner. I’m a hypocrite, not PETA.
Peta is also Extremely hypocritical but I agree.
deleted by creator
Here is a perspective from someone who has owned an inside/outside cat for the last 12 years. My cat is independent and resourceful and yes, contributes to ecodestruction by killing birds and mice occasionally. To me this is negligible compared to the ecodestruction of simply existing in a city. If I lived in nature I would not have a cat. I don’t think you can conflate my cat killing a pigeon twice a year in an urban environment with destroying the ecosystem.
It’s also disengenuous to ignore the quality of life improvements of having a cat who is free to explore vs. one locked in an apartment all day. I recently moved and am now experiencing this and it sucks. I feel terrible for restricting her freedom and she is visibly less happy. If you think animals are sentient and have emotions, and you care about the environment, then none of what we are currently doing makes any sense.
I do <insert bad thing> already so I don’t need to avoid doing <insert other bad thing> because I already do <bad thing> even though the nature of my effect on the world is the sum of my behavior and I’m really bad at logic.
Yup, and I’m the only one with agency in the whole world. It’s all about me.
literally everyone has agency.
Ok I see my sarcasm was lost on you so let me try again. There is nothing ethical about pet ownership or industrial civilization. If we cared about the well being of pets we wouldn’t keep them, and if we cared about the well being of the planet we wouldn’t build cities or burn fossil fuels.
I already have a cat. The above is moot for me. If I had to rethink this then maybe 12 years ago I would have made a different decision. At this point I am not going to euthenize my cat or blow up an oil pipeline. If you allow my cat agency then she should be allowed to explore her world and make her own decisions, just like the pigeons and rats that are forced to adapt to human civilization by eating garbage.
Anyway she’s safely locked away and miserable now so none of this matters.
Industrial civilization pre-dated me and my cat being from a shelter would have come into being without me. We all do what we can with what control we can. My cat is too stupid to protect himself because he doesn’t understand the risk of cars and not speaking english it’s difficult to teach him. Instead I choose to explore the outdoors with him instead of letting him roam and almost certainly get lost or killed because I’m not a moron and I don’t let my cat wander around a city.
Cats can live 20 years but most wont make it more than 3 outside because their instincts are ill suited for the circumstances.
How do you explore the outdoors with him? You take him hiking?
You are a human who thinks and cares about others and living creatures in nature, not a virtue signaler wanting points on the internet by shitting on cats. Thank you.
Yes, I will bring my half feral barn cat inside.
You know the reason it’s a feral cat, is because people let the cats roam free. It’s the result of people neglecting their pets and letting them roam to begin with.
This a compounding issue and people are justifying loose feral cats, because they found a loose feral cat so it must remain feral.
Barn cats with a job on a farm in the country are obviously a different story, my issue is more directed at the cats roaming in urban neighbourhoods, with no purpose/job.
Picture your neighbourhood with feral dogs…you’d be annoyed/upset/scared when you come across one taking a massive dump on your lawn and it gets defensive about its territory. Cats are realistically no different but somehow socially accepted. It makes no sense.
I used to be a kennel worker, met thousands of cats over the years. Never once met a cat who did not adapt to being indoor only within a month
But then who will catch the mice in my barn?
I can’t take anyone seriously on cat welfare if they have a cat mutilated just to prevent furniture getting some scratch marks.
My cat loves her 6 C-size breast implants thank you very much. The reduced scratching is just a tangential benefit to her self image.
Have you found a surgeon willing to do all eight breasts? I’m finding most top out at six, even on eight-nippled cats like mine. One surgeon said he’d only do two! I was like, this is a cat, sir, not a tabaxi.
My Nextdoor app = 1000 I lost my cat posts daily.
I had a idea of how to stop them but my wife wouldn’t let me.
Respond with a picture of a coyote, bobcat, mountain lion, great horned owl or other predator with the caption, “Thank you for dinner, it was delicious.”
I have a friend whose neighbour literally watched their cat get eaten by a coyote in their backyard. The friend still let her own cat out in that same neighbourhood after that happened cause "oh he just keeps getting out, we don’t know how…"🙄 Poor guy got hit by a car some months later.
What a shitty pet guardian. My brother in-law’s cat escaped once and was immediately attacked by a coyote right outside his front door. The cat survived, but used up 8 of his lives. 😆 The difference is the rest of that cat’s life was spent happily living comfortably inside…
Mostly it’s going to be dogs and cars
Where I live, it’s mainly coyote and raccoons.
🤣 Dead!
I lost my cat for a week once but he wasn’t an outdoor cat, he just snuck past as I was coming home in the dark once. It was so difficult to try to explain to people that no, he is not an outside cat, and please please help me get him back home because he doesn’t know how to get home. So many people in the neighbourhood saw him but they just assumed he was an outdoor cat and didn’t bother.
Thankfully I found him after many nights of going out to search for him, but I really can’t imagine people would’ve reacted the same to a lost dog.
This was like 15 years ago but I’m still in the habit of opening my door foot first now to make sure I push any curious kitties back before I walk in.
I thought this happened to me once, and spent several hours looking around the neighborhood just to discover it was still inside. I would have sworn on my life there was no space left unchecked that could physically fit a cat.
This happened and our cat was actually in the space between the screen door and the exterior door. Also sleeping in the closet
a lost dog will sometimes come to a rescuerer’s call. a cat almost never will.
It is better for the bird population, too.
As a coyote, this hurts me more.
I’ve had to chase the neighbor’s cat away several times in the mornings before work because the scrub jays that had a nest in our bushes would be screaming at 5 in the morning because the cat would be out there
I set up motion detector sprinklers in my yard this year for pretty much the same reason. Has worked really well. I definitely forget they are on sometimes and get blasted but worth it otherwise.
Why do we let humans go outside ???
to feed the bears
We’re too big for coyotes, know to stay away from bears, and can tell other people if we need rabies shots
You’re only too big for a coyote, packs will hunt lone humans
You don’t know that, they could be 20 ft tall
I believe discussion on this flares up now and then because it is an easy answer, tough decision.
If you make this decision for others: of course this is the most ethical thing to do, the data isn’t ambiguous.
If you are yourself affected: Oof. Yes it might be better for society, but personally I value this and that, and I am but one and would rather wait on legislation before I do anything.
We love to argue it because one side thinks experiencing it taints your view, the other that only reading data misses the point. Can be about indoor cats, vegan diets or pineapple on pizza, the argument itself never matters.
Is this funny or just an excuse for Lemmy to get vocal and preachy
Keep your kids inside too. Kids keep screeching and playing in the middle of the fucking road. Like, get out of the damn road, dumbasses. Someday, a car is gonna hit them.
Leash your pets, leash your kids. Be responsible. Smh
Non-dumbass parents understand that they aren’t raising children, but eventual adults. So yes, they have to balance boundaries and letting them fail and learn. Animals will never turn into the equivalent of adult humans. No, not even the absolute smartest animals ever born…
What if we are the dumbasses and not the smartest animals
Also, they love to let the little monsters run around in the stores. Is it my fault I ran over one with my grocery cart in produce? No!
This gets downvoted but it hits the truth, though maybe in macaber way.
Why do we blame cats for killing wildlife while its ok for humans to pave huge pieces of land with concrete and brick or kill biodiversity with pesticides and farm equipment? Maybe humans are the problems, not cats? Or is everyone here living off the grid, does not own a car and produces their own food? Ah and if you have kids you have no argument at all.
Maybe anthropogenic ecological change isn’t merely a thought-terminating excuse for all of it’s subordinate or constituent problems.
Cats deserve their freedom. If it’s not safe to let a cat out where you live, don’t get a fucking cat. They need an escape from your bullshit.
No, they decimate local bird population which are already in danger due to human development and pollution. In a perfect world where human factor was of no concern this wouldn’t be as controversial of a take.
Pft! You don’t seriously still believe in birds?!? My cat caught a tooth fairy the other day. Lol
If you can’t or won’t let your cat outside then don’t get a cat. A zoo keeping a cat, big or small, inside with no access to outdoors would rightly be charged with animal cruelty.
Zoos don’t keep domesticated animals. The physical requirements are not the same, domestic cats are perfectly fine indoors as long as you give them any amount of stimulation. Zoos definitely don’t let their tigers out in public unattended
besides all the reasons not to, house cats that are let out are a plague on ecosystems.
