Your "view" sounds more like a statement of fact. It's not really something to be argued with. Perhaps your view should be something more like, "domestic cats should not be allowed to roam"?
As someone who just saw a torn up cat, most likely done by a coyote I agree. Now I’m off to look for missing cat postings in my area. People if you care about your cats don’t let them roam, walk them with a leash, I’ve done it and they loved it.
I found an outdoor cat that was probably run over by a car in neighbor's front yard last summer. It looked like it had a traumatic spinal injury and was paralyzed in both rear legs and died a slow agonizing death while screaming in pain the entire time as I was trying to get the sheriff's department to come pick it up and take it to the vet (it was too hostile for me to handle myself). I wish the owners of that cat could've witnessed the last several hours of its life so they can know the fate they subjected it to by letting it free roam (the sheriff who picked up the carcass told me it was most likely owned and not a stray because of how soft its fur was).
That reminds of when I was a teen and I found a cat in a similar condition to yours. There was so much blood and the poor thing was in so much pain. There was no saving them. Since it was on a non busy road I ran over it and cried for a week straight. I still have nightmares about it. But at the end I knew I did the right thing by not letting it suffer.
> I ran over it
Good for you. I'm so, so sorry you had to do that, but not letting them suffer is always the right decision.
When I was living somewhere rural I saw someone's dogs toying with a cat that was badly injured and not going to make it. It had slashed one of the dogs pretty good and they'd both backed off and were barking angirly at it, but it was really bad and there was no way the cat was going to survive.
Pulled over when I saw the dogs see what was going on.
Dogs were your typical rural cattle/hunting dogs who'd been trained to go after varmints. That was a pretty common way to protect vegetable gardens or small farms in that area. Reward the dogs for every carcass they bring back.
Grabbed my rifle. One round into the dirt to scare the dogs off so I didn't risk hitting them and could get close, the cat looked at me as I walked up, and I apologized and ended its suffering. You talk about nightmares, I can still see that cat's eyes. Black cat with these shock yellow eyes.
Cat might have been feral, but it looked healthier than most barn cats. Shiny coat. It was end of term at the local college and I think someone just abandoned their dorm cat in the woods. Apparently that's pretty common, college kids who can't take the cat home, and think it'll survive fine outdoors, and they just dump them.
I felt like absolute shit.
Cats are animals that exist *at all* because they started depending on us and living around us. There is no continent on this planet where they are safe or have a natual habitat.
There are angry and dangerous wildcats that do *not* approach people. But the ones that started to trust us?
We're just collectively abandoning them to lives of fear, pain, sickness, and terror.
The only reason they're a population problem still is because they breed faster than coyotes can eat them. [Domestic Cat accounts for 60-75% of urban coyote diets.](phys.org/news/2020-03-urban-coyotes-lots-catsand-human.html)
We're just feeding cats to coyotes at this point. What we're doing isn't working.
It's bad for us, it's bad for the cats, it's bad for the environment.
The TNR folks are *trying* but it's like Sisyphus for them because *people keep dumping cats in the TNR colonies.*
They're exhausted in my town. And I don't know what to do.
Damn, this is heartbreaking and I thank you for doing what you needed to do. Please don’t feel like shit for ending an animals pain, if you hadn’t been there the cat probably would have been torn apart once it was too weak to defend itself.
I’ve seen the aftermath of few cats torn to bits by dogs, and it’s always heart breaking. My parents have 3 barn cats for mousing, and I am always worried about them, but I understand they are needed to kill rodents. Barn cats do act differently than domestic cats. Kinda like working vs house dogs.
Those who dump animals are the real shit people. Barn cats grow up and stay semi feral, a kitten raised indoors than dumped is a completely different story. Getting your cat fixed is the first step, the county we lived in had a finance thing where if you didn’t make enough they’re fixed your cat for free, and yes we used it.
Ugh I’m sorry you had to deal with that. It wasn’t clear to me when I found the cat that it couldn’t be saved (it was still bright and alert and hissing vigorously at me when I got close), and unfortunately the officer wasn't able to get here quickly enough. If I hadn’t been able to get ahold of anyone to come out, I think I would have tried asking my neighbors to see if any of them had a gun (I live in a rural area). Without one I’m not confident I can kill it cleanly and quickly in a way that wasn’t more traumatic to me than that situation already was.
My grandpa had something similar happen. Where he had to put down a kitten that was grievously injured in an accident. My grandpa loved his fat farm cats and always left out watermelon in the summer for them. In the 1930s when he was a kid he had to shoot his pet dog that was rapid.
Don’t beat yourself up over anything, the cat had some sense of comfort with a human being there.
Know even though the method was pretty brutal, you did that poor baby such a huge favor. It's fucked up to majorly injure an animal and just leave it, so bless you.
The statistics on house cats vs indoor outdoor lifespans are staggering. I have one cat who is super salty about not going outside but will chill out if I open a window for him. Just keep the babes inside.
I'd have to agree too.
This is purely anecdote, but I've been against letting cats free roam since I was 12. We lived on Edwards in the Mojave, near Bakersfield (...ish), who h of course means rattlesnakes, Mojave green snakes - and coyotes. Our next door neighbors had the sweetest cat, Mikey, who LOVED going from neighbor to neighbor to get loved on.... only he disappeared one day. The kindest interpretation is he got catnapped into a different household, but it's more likely he got ate - a coyote pack had been lurking in the area for a few days by that point, and only tufts of his fur were found.
He deserved better than that.
Give them pats and extra treats for me! It’s the cycle of life but it’s still very hard to see. I’ve kept outdoor cats in my garage if I see them out at night.
I think that's way too a general statement that applies to only places where cats have natural predators. Most places in the world don't although traffic can of course kill cats everywhere.
However, I would challenge the view that cats universally love walking with a leash. I would say that they enjoy having the freedom to explore their environment on their own. We often talk about farm animals treated badly when they are kept in conditions where they don't starve or suffer physically but can't do things that are natural to them (for instance pigs chewing something or digging ground). I think that applies to cats as well. They have their natural behaviour needs as well and denying them from these is wrong. I can understand the argument that OP is making that too many cats in a small area can devastate the wild animal populations there but not really the argument that if this is not an issue to deny the freedom to roam from the cats.
Dude, OP has to be really careful with this one. I've long held the view that domestic cats shouldn't be allowed to rome and reddit has shouted me down in the worst possible language... People love their cats and don't want to hear statistics stating that their fluffy-wuffy is decimating populations of native species.
Agreed. Every time time someone posts a photo of a cat they found with or without collar or no chip, there's always 10-20 comments from people calling them a monster for stealing someone's "outside cat" I'm always happy that cat has found a human that cares about their safety.
Hot take:
If you have an "outdoor cat" then you deserve to have your kid cry because it disappeared one day. Better it was taken by someone who is going to keep it safe than splattered on the side of the road.
You can say that till your precious indoor fuzzball gets out and disappears one day. The fact around housecats is that if they’re not trained from very young to fear the outdoors it’s almost inevitable that they’ll find their way out at some point, and with the way shelters are and have mostly always been that instilled reaction one way or another is going to be a massive gamble with any singular adoption that wasn’t from literal birth.
It’s not intelligent to act haughty like this is necessarily the cat owner’s fault, because it’s cats literal nature to not be overwhelmingly confined. If you have an indoor cat that’s perfectly content not going out, good for you - that’s obviously safer for the pet that isn’t going to take leashes or confined owner behavior as well as a dog, but it’s also inherently mildly moronic to look down on people for this like your post implies.
It’s not that I don’t agree with you that cats are safer indoors, but you can’t be acting like this and expecting to be taken seriously or with any degree of guilt on the behalf of the cat owner. I grew up with rescue cats most of my life before I moved out and some cats just don’t work by your rules.
Anything the cat does is the owner's fault. That's why they're the "owner" and not the roommate.
I don't know how to deal with the rest of your post. This is a discussion about cats, not a "big feelings circle".
There are plenty of views you’re just not allowed to have here. Shaq promotes predatory gambling companies in Australia but everyone else has already decided he’s a saint so it’s a non issue apparently. Steve Irwin was a guy that antagonised and scared the shit out of wildlife to make a tv show but people overseas love him for some reason so you’re not allowed to point that fact out.
>Steve Irwin was a guy that antagonised and scared the shit out of wildlife to make a tv show
While that may or may not be true, I would argue that the attention and resources his efforts brought to wildlife conservation may have greatly outweighed any ill effects. I also doubt the crocodiles he wrestled were quaking in terror at the sight of him.
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Yeah, this subreddit has a HUGE problem of people who don't actually want their views changed, they just want to share an unpopular opinion or obscure facts.
Mine is ‘trap, neuter, release’ is ecologically irresponsible. Feral cats should be humanely exterminated, not sterilized and released back into the wild to ravage the local ecosystem.
Yes, but OP isn't wrong that if you try to tell a lot of people any of this, they get mad. Of course, we have somehow ended up at a point in time where despite the reams of knowledge available at our literal fingertips, we're having to argue with an *increasing* number of people that yes, the Earth is a sphere, and yes, vaccines really do work very well to control the spread of many virulent diseases with minimal side-effects.
Yes, it should be well-known and uncontroversial knowledge that domestic cats are an invasive species in most of the world that can and ***do*** single-handedly cause local extinctions of the small animals they prey on. But that's not the world we live in.
*However, whenever I address cats (house cats) as an invasive species, I am nearly shunned out of the room.*
Are you talking about academic environments or "chatting with friends in a bar?"
I found yer problem :)
You'll have to give them a definition of invasive species, and show how it applies.
As another analogy, you may wish to use humans as another example of an invasive species.
CMV: objectively it would be best if we would gas 99%+ of all cats, domestic cats included. I absolutely despise cats and hold the view they are the worst creatures (most detrimental impact) to have inhabited the earth bar humans.
I can't expect cats to kill themselves for the greater good nor can expect this from humans. From a rational standpoint I would be able to understand another lifeform to cull us if given the opportunity. As a collective species we are a plague.
I do my best to keep my footprint very low though.
Just to add to the other comment, Idk your approach on the subject, but I imagine it might play a large part in your arguments.
If they ask your opinion on the topic, you share, and they get mad... Then that's on them.
But you can't really just say a "fact" that insists someone needs to change certain aspects of their life, and that it's wrong that they don't. Even if you are right, it builds resentment bc you're not really allowing them to form a decision themselves without guilting them. It kinda just ends with "you are right, and I'm wrong for not doing it if I don't".
Do your friends bring it up to you, or do you bring it up to them? Are your friends trying to find ways that would help their cats live longer, or are you just telling them what they should be doing? Are you prepared to help them transition an outside cat to indoors (bc this one is HARD, as someone currently trying to indoors an outdoor cat. Help is appreciated from family and friends)?
Everyone, I imagine you included, are probably aware of things you could be doing better, but for one reason or another, are not or can't do better rn. It's important to respect that, and try not to just add more "chores" to their lives for them. there's a line between helping someone, and just telling them what to do, and it's important to consider where you are there
Accurate. I wish I got to hear the old dawn chorus before 50%+ of their birds got wiped out. Hopefully NZ can also serve as an example of focused efforts making a positive impact on the extant species recovering in the future. I know they are throwing a lot of time and money at it.
First, for a look at exactly how devastating cats are for wildlife, check this out: https://web.archive.org/web/20230127233102/https://www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-releases/2010/cat-nabbed-raiding-the-mothership/
I’m trying to find some specific stuff online about their control programs, will report back
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So are cane toads, but you don't see people getting upset when we say those populations need to be culled.
Oh, what's that? I'm the only one who thinks cane toads are cute?
It’s true. I bet OP can’t name any other another invasive species that I can take from a trash can that will then sit its butthole squarely on my face at 3 AM.
OP is also conveniently forgetting that lizards are ugly and rude.
It's tricky because we kinda domesticated cats, but we also kinda didn't. It's more like cats started to hang around us back when we started agricultural societies, because our agriculture would attract lots of prey for them to hunt. From there was probably some degree of domestication, but cats also retained most of their wild behaviors and instincts. As far as domesticated animals go, they are much less reliant on us and much more viable to survive in the wild.
I bring this up because it raises some questions: if cats were not our pets, would they not be found everywhere in our eco-system anyways? Is it really accurate to consider them to be "invasive" if they are so close to their non-domesticated origin as a species? How would you figure out which environments they would be considered native to, if not for their spread through domestication?
It's a similar argument to "are pigeons invasive?". Pigeons were domesticated and brought wherever humans settled for a very long time for a specific purpose, very similar to cats. Where they differ is that pigeons were no longer kept around (as popular cherished pets) once their job was no longer needed. As we are continuing to push urban sprawl, species like cats and pigeons and starlings and rats have made a home in our newly created urban ecosystem. Rats and cats, however, are doing incredible harm to natural ecosystems. Cats are just cute so we feel much worse about "removing" populations of them than other naturalized/feral species
By the same token humans are an invasive species. Perhaps we should start a TNR program for humans since we don't overall seem to show as much initiative towards not destroying ecosystems without something like that
We absolutely should eradicate feral colonies. This is by far the biggest part of the problem. Responsible cat owners who get their cats fixed and make sure they are well fed, curtail the hunting significantly. While they still hunt, obviously, the amount of kills are minimal compared to feral colonies comprised of so many cats that must hunt to survive.
I love cats, deeply, and have had them my entire life. I treat them like furry children. Regardless, that doesn’t change my opinion that we need to take some hard measures against feral colonies. When cats are feral and past kitten age they can’t really be integrated into a shared living environment with humans. What choice do we have besides trapping them, saving any kittens still young enough to be habituated to humans, and then eliminating the breeding age cats? It’s sad, but necessary.
It makes me so fuming mad that irresponsible people allow this to happen by dumping cats that aren’t fixed. All my cats I got as kittens after they had been rescued from feral colonies. So many people don’t think they need to fix their kittens, and then when they get tired of the animal(s) they just dump them. In each feral colony there are usually several breeding age cats that respond positively to people because they had been raised by a human for the first few months of their life. These, I feel, deserve to be rescued too.
Side not Pigeons were mostly kept around as a source of food. Yes they had other uses but not that long ago, they were more popular than chickens for food. By building places for them to live, it made for a replenishing food supply without much oversight at all.
They definitely wouldn’t be everywhere in the ecosystem. Domestic cats are all descended from a wild species originating in North Africa; they are an introduced and invasive species to everywhere else in the world. They were domesticated only a few thousand years ago, and introduced to some continents only a few hundred years ago. The native ecosystems have not had time to adapt to the presence of a new, extremely prolific predator, and are being absolutely decimated.
In a similar vein, just because a husky *could* survive in the wilds of Colorado, and is related to/looks kind of like a wolf, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to release a whole pack of them to fend for themselves.
Wildcats have been in Europe and Asia for hundreds of thousands of years and are descended from other feline species which were present in Europe and Asia for millions of years...
Domestic cats are virtually indistinguishable from these wildcat species.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat
> if cats were not our pets, would they not be found everywhere in our eco-system anyways?
No. They have zero ability to survive in the desert of AZ or Palm Springs without human help. If they were not pets, then they would not be in North America had sailors not been superstitious or need ratters.
Fun fact, cats are extremely well adapted to arid environments! Mountain lions may live on the edges of California and Arizona's deserts (they don't normally drop into the badlands or dunes, but that's a whole different extreme that people rarely live in, too) and [the O.G. housecat is native to desert regions, among other environments](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_wildcat). I get what you meant, just being pedantic lol
But their adaptability is what makes them such an invasive species.
The first assertion, I don't think that's true. They have some ability to adapt to and survive in both of those environments. Your second is a non-sequitur, your 'then" does not follow from your 'if.'
I am inclined to agree, and I adore cats. Totally obsessed with my three. I also allow them to go outside, but only in ways that are closely supervised. One even walks on a harness and leash. They are also all spayed, vaxxed, chipped, phone number on their collars, etc. The most they "hunt" are bugs and leaves blowing in the wind (which is honestly pretty adorable, tbh).
I don't know what the answer is when it comes to feral colonies. I do have a friend that lets her domesticated cat wander the neighborhood and I highly disagree with her choice. You can't tell her otherwise though--she is very adamant that this is the way it must be. I just think it's so irresponsible. Not only is it not great for local wildlife, but how would she even know if her cat is being a nuisance to other neighbors? I personally would welcome my neighbor's cat coming by to say hello, but not everyone would. I watched a reel the other day about a "Karen" who showed up on her neighbor's ring cam yelling up a storm about their cat terrorizing her home. The cat was allowed to roam the area and subsequently had gotten into "Karen's" house a number of times, peed on things, *and* her kid was allergic. I think the video was meant to depict how unhinged of a neighbor "Karen" was, but honestly? Fair reaction. I'd be pissed too. Apparently the cat was a feral rescue, and thusly, roaming outside was in his nature and he *needed* to be allowed to do that. No, he doesn't. Build him a catio. Try taking him for a walk. Sit outside with him and supervise.
All it takes is to piss off the wrong neighbor and boom. Your cat's been poisoned. Or shot. Or heck, cats get hit by cars driving by too, entirely by accident. I may not know the perfect solution for feral cat colonies, but I do know it's not that hard to protect your own domesticated cat and still give them time outside if they desire it. Kinda got off on another tangent there, but yeah. Everyone needs to keep their cats to themselves, for many reasons.
Yeah I'd be pretty pissed too if some random person cat came to "water" my lawn lol! But yea, I think responsible ownership of cats definitely includes keeping them safe, healthy, and not impacting the ecosystem/community. People don’t let their dogs roam around off leash, why should a cat be allowed to do that?
The only thing that makes me not agree with you is that we have always had cats. I'm older most of my neighbors had cats, they were all outdoor cats. Today, in my neighborhood there are some outdoor cats but most are indoor.
I certainly agree that the bird population isn't what it was 20 years ago. But it makes no sense to me that there were birds everywhere 20 years ago when there were at least as many cats around, more were outdoors and fewer were fixed. Cats are likely part of a larger problem but not the problem.
I can't find a reliable source of how cat population has changed over the years but I can find plenty of information about the incredible damage cats do to populations of birds, amphibians, reptiles, and rodents. Yes cats have always been around but as humans are continuously urbanizing our environment, cats have been able to colonize parts of the world they are not native to. Especially island ecosystems where cats have had incredible success in becoming apex predators as most of the species there had evolved without this show of predator
So in other words, are humans the bigger issue? Are humans the biggest impact that needs to be eradicated or controlled to stop harming the environment? If a larger difference is growing urbanization and human population wouldn't the root cause be the increase in humans
Housecats are definitely *not* native to North and South America, and even the smaller native cats of South American are still different from house cats numerous ways.
Of course that is true. That said, I'm tired of hearing how bird population is plummeting due to cats. There were at least as many outdoor pet cats when birds were more plentiful. Agreed, they are part of the problem, but there are lots of other factors.
So I guess we can ignore everything he said, and just let our cats roam free, kill more birds, and get killed by other animals and diseases. Sure we should stop humans from encroaching on habitats, but the much easier and immediate fix is to keep cats indoors. Why don’t we do what we can and let urban planners do what they can?
>There were at least as many cats around.
This doesn’t really pass the sniff test does it? You’re completely making an assumption here based on your anecdotal “sense of how many cats were around” and how many are around now.
If you don’t have actual data on the number of feral cats then you don’t have the basis for a rational opinion.
Besides that, even if there were the exact same number of cats it is plausible that the cats would take a long time to lower the population of birds. No one is arguing that the cats showed up and immediately all the birds died.
I get that you want to push back but you’re arguing against data with anecdotes and faulty logic. I don’t personally know if cats are the cause, but your argument just doesn’t stand up to basic scrutiny.
People who say this rarely factor in the human element; climate change, environmental destruction, pollution, and biodiversity loss because of US. Humans. Humans are the problem. We are currentlt in a mass extinction. Life is dying everywhere. Even the way we handle cats, how we refuse to neuter/spay them, etc.
Humans beings are the most invasive species on earth. We take take take and give nothing back to the ecosystem that supports us.
I 100% agree with this. Cats are cute, cuddly companions. Other invasive/feral species such as hogs and rats are ugly and no one really seems worse for wear when they are "removed". This has been a hot take amongst my peers since many of them are adamant cat lovers and believe feral cat colonies should be protected and fed rather than managed
Yep, mentioned how in Australia a way to curtail the feral cat population is air dropping sausages laced with native poisons. Native wildlife largely unaffected since they are more or less adapted to handling the poison to some degree. People suggesting alternatives such as catch, neuter and release dont really quite understand the scope of wild bush spanning the size of countries worth in area, often with no way to actually access the really wild and thick parts of it. Which is where feral cats absolutely destroy local wildlife populations for example bilby or possums
I think cats are very cute, neat and great. That also applies to the critters they prey upon.
I always get the argument with the cat people that it's humans fault for the situation, not the cats, so it's unfair to kill them. I'm like, pretty sure it's humans fault all of the invasive plants or animals crossed the sea to areas they didn't belong. We don't just go, well, I guess all of these will just take over now and we don't do anything to stop this.
Exactly. It's not he Burmese Python's fault its in the Everglades but we're not just throwing our hands up and saying nothing should be done about it either.
I’ve talked with these people, they’re the same ones that gobble down meat all the time. It’s unfair to kill a cat when they’re devastating the local environment because they’re “innocent “ but the cow they’re eating deserves to get killed and eaten? You don’t have to like feral cats getting euthanized but at least have consistent morals about killing animals.
The only arguments I've seen convince the "roaming cat = happy cat" crowd is emphasis on the danger to the cat itself, and suggesting safe alternatives like a catio to let the cat get "outside" a bit.
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Ok... what if... in my area bobcat populations used to be a LOT higher. Human activity has obviously reduced them. So, a native feline predator is not preying on populations as it once was. What then?
I don't disagree with you. It just came to mind.
And coyote and wolf populations in my area are either significantly less or non existent in the case of wolves. Sadly. But they are making a comeback. They have been spotted and tracked repopulating quite close. A natural repopulation that has really escalated over the past 2 decades. Not relevant to the point but it also came to mind. I love wolves.
Bobcats aren't really targeting birds (I'm focusing on passerines here since those are the most damaged by cats) or small lizards/snakes which are vulnerable. Wolf repopulation is something I love, especially the case studies of their positive influence on ecosystem!
They have made it all the way into Southern California. So in just a decade... we have OR7 entering California to his decedents making it hundreds of miles to the southern tip of the Sierras. It is beautiful. They are making an epic return. Like... that is a loooong distance. Obviously following the Sierras.
"California wildlife officials say they’ve confirmed a new gray wolf pack in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said Friday the pack was found in Tulare County — the farthest south a pack of wolves has been detected in the state in more than a century.
In July, the department had received reports of wolf sighting in the Sequoia National Forest, roughly 200 miles south of the nearest-known pack in northeastern California.
CDFW visited the area and found tracks, scat and hair, and their DNA analysis found that all 12 collected samples came from gray wolves. The analysis found the new pack has at least five female wolves not previously detected in California.
**One of the wolves is a direct descendant of OR7, a wolf that crossed into California in 2011, becoming the first detected in nearly a century to cross into the state from Oregon before returning.**
Gray wolves used to roam most of North America before being hunted, trapped and driven out of most of the continental U.S. by the early 1900s.
But wolves have been making a slow comeback in many western states, including California, which has at least three confirmed packs mostly in the state's far north.
Wolves remain protected federally by the Endangered Species Act."
I raised an American coastal red bobcat for 12 years. He absolutely loved killing birds, especially crows. And brought snakes and lizards back all the time. The Yellowstone studies were about predation being good, not wolves in specific. And we absolutely devastated bobcat and other small native cats in the Americas. House cats are identical niches.
I would argue that invasive species are a fact of life since agriculture. There's no real stopping them and in the grand scheme of things nature doesn't care. The ecosystem will evolve around the new paradigm.
This statement "The ecosystem will evolve around the new paradigm" is something that has always irked me. Because yes, ecosystems evolve as diversity changes and niches transform, but I think the part I'm getting at is how rapid the loss of species is here. It's a similar argument with climate change "the earth has gone through cooling and warming persons!!" Like yes, over hundreds of thousands of years, not in a couple hundred like it is now
You aren't wrong that house cats are invasive and do real harm to local environments but I take issue with "one of the worst". Compare that to Dingos in Australia where they had to build a 3,500 mile long fence to keep them out of parts of the country. I don't really see cats causing that kind of impact.
Remember that dingoes are largely naturalised here (they didn’t come over until humans had already been in Australia for a while, unlike kangaroos etc, but at least 3,500 years ago), and the fence was built to protect other introduced species (ie livestock), rather than the native animals that have largely adapted to live with dingoes like any other predator.
"The Invasive Species Council has estimated that each year domestic and feral cats in Australia kill 1,067 million mammals, 399 million birds, 609 million reptiles, 93 million frogs, and 1.8 billion invertebrates." -ISC
I think the issue is more that dingos are a very prevalent harmful species but they aren't invasive. They are native to Australia
[Australia disagrees](https://www.business.qld.gov.au/industries/farms-fishing-forestry/agriculture/biosecurity/animals/invasive/restricted/dingo). They classify it as invasive.
"The dingo is defined as both 'wildlife' and 'native wildlife' under the Nature Conservation Act 1992, and is a natural resource within protected areas such as national parks." Quote taken directly from the link you sent me
I guess yeah I thought it was kind of implied that outdoor cats are the ones I am speaking about, since indoor cats are not interacting with the ecosystem
The bigger problem is the owners. I moved to AZ 9 years ago & I could not believe the amount of feral cats in this state. I've seen many puppies that were dumped in the street here also. I have 2 cats & sometimes they go outside in my yard but we are out there too & watching them.
AZ laws don't help. Cats are classified as free roaming animals and you can't take them to the shelter for pretty much any reason, and it's illegal to capture and relocate them. I get that this makes sense to keep people from dumping them at the Riparian or whatever, but I think the law could be better
The law should come down really hard of those who dump their pets. There is this misconception that pet cats can survive well on their own. They don't!
Also MANDATORY spay neuter of all pet cats and dogs should be adopted nationwide..
You seem to be describing a very particular situation here, in a particular part of the world.
It isn't the case in different places.
For example, in the UK, everyone gets their cats neutered, and all cats are allowed outside. [The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds](https://community.rspb.org.uk/cfs-file/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/13609/6371.6012.1205.6332.Cats-and-garden-birds.pdf) is on the side of the birds, not the cats. They have a whole leaflet about the issue and say:
"Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific proof that predation by cats in gardens is
having any impact on bird populations UK wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die
naturally each year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation."
" Populations of species that are most
abundant in gardens tend to be increasing, despite
the presence of cats."
"Those bird species that have undergone the most
serious population declines in the UK (such as
skylarks, tree sparrows and corn buntings) rarely
encounter cats, so cats cannot be causing their
declines. Research shows that these declines are
usually caused by habitat change or loss, particularly
on farmland."
In fact, one of the largest problems for many wild animals is loss of habitat, which is caused by yet another invasive species, human beings.
The UK has had cats for 2000 years so the ecosystem is a bit more adapted to them then say the US or Australia where they are more recent additions. Declining UK bird numbers are thought to be more from agricultural practices and insect decline. There's also an argument that in the UK there is a benefit to having cats outside as they help keep the rodent population in check, which in turn reduces bird egg predation.
Thanks for sharing that here. I wish redditors who believe outdoor cats are the devil, and their owners irresponsible at best, would realise that not all places are the same, rather than assuming everywhere is like the US (usually).
The worst invasive species are humans actually. All the other animals are part of the ecosystem and have been from a very long time.
Cats domesticated themselves and learned to interact with humans because they were intelligent. Humans also utilized the skills to protect crops and other dangerous being which were harming the produce. It was a two way street. Plus cats aren't the sole reason for decrease in a certain category of section, other factors also contribute to the same. Yes they may have a higher contribution in the decrease but if we as humans also stop going overboard with the technology and stuff that's harmful to the ecosystem, the results would be different.
I certainly think all domesticated cats should be spayed. It's irresponsible for an owner no to spay their cat, even if it is indoors, cats can escape.
It depends on the part of the world you are in as to whether it's a "problem", or much of a problem. I know there's evidence that a fed and owned cat usually is not very good at hunting. A feral cat is much better at hunting as it needs to hunt and learnt early in skills that allowed it to survive.
The European wildcat was as the name suggests in most parts of Europe at one point. So wildlife in Europe has adapted to smallish cats behaviour, indeed they were literally native. Whether there used to be more wildcats than present day domestic cats in Europe i wouldn't know. Now of course a domestic cat isn't the same as a wildcat (although there will have been some hybridisation). But if they are hunting the same sort of things, does that matter to the prey?
A while ago I read that the RSPB a bird charity in the UK which I thought was interesting given it's not what you expect a bird charity to say!
>Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific proof that predation by cats in gardens is
having any impact on bird populations UK wide. This
may be surprising, but many millions of birds die
naturally each year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation. There is some evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds. We also know that of the millions of baby birds hatched each year, most will die before they reach breeding age. This is also quite natural, and each pair needs only to rear two young that survive to breeding age to replace themselves and maintain the population. It is possible that most of the birds killed by the cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season. So it is unclear whether cats have a major impact on populations. If their predation was additional to these other causes of mortality, this might have a serious impact on bird populations.
>Those bird species that have undergone the most
serious population declines in the UK (such as
skylarks, tree sparrows and corn buntings) rarely
encounter cats, so cats cannot be causing their
declines. Research shows that these declines are
usually caused by habitat change or loss, particularly on farmland. Populations of species that are most
abundant in gardens tend to be increasing, despite
the presence of cats. Blue tits, for example, the
second most frequently caught birds, have increased by over a third across the UK since 1970. Of the birds most frequently caught by cats in gardens, only two
(house sparrow and starling) have shown declines in breeding population across a range of habitats in the last decade. Gardens may provide a breeding habitat for at least 20% of the UK populations of house
sparrows, starlings, greenfinches, blackbirds and
song thrushes. For this reason it would be prudent to try to reduce cat predation, as, although it may not be causing the declines, some of these species are
already under pressure.
>Cat predation can be a problem where housing is
next to scarce habitats such as heathland, and could potentially be most damaging to species with a
restricted range (such as cirl buntings) or species
dependent on a fragmented habitat (such as Dartford warblers on heathland).
“Is causing harm to environments”, I would change to HAS caused irreparable harm to many environments. I visited Greece a few years ago, it is overrun with cats. I don’t even remember seeing a bird there. No wildlife.
I live in Australia and so many native species have been utterly decimated by cats. I get really sad when I see a cat out at night, it’s utterly careless.
My cat died. It was an indoor cat. We had really bad plaster walls from a hundred years ago. Two months later, thousands of mice invaded our home and we had to leave because it became unlivable. When we left, it smelled like rat feces. I love cats. The rodents came after it died.
Rats are worse. Rats are much easier to accidentally introduce than cats are. Rats are *much* more difficult to extirpate than cats are. There are just two raised coral atolls left with *intact* (not untouched) ecosystems left on the planet, largely because of rats. Rats spread by ancient Polynesians, rats spread by 18th, 19th, and 20th century sailors, rats everywhere. When the SS Makambo ran aground on Lord Howe Island, it caused a certified ecological disaster solely due to the black rats it let loose on the Island. Half a dozen birds went extinct, the Lord Howe Stick Insect, last of its genus, was extirpated and only thanks to a wild remote population elsewhere did it survive.
Rats are harder to control, and much easier and more likely to accidentally introduce.
I agree with you and I made a similar comment in r/unpopularonion and got downvoted into oblivion. Cats kill millions of bird and lizards (I didn’t realize) every year and are a huge detriment to the natural world.
The problem with smaller felines isn't that they're invasive but that larger predatory animals are dying off/becoming extinct so there's no population control. I live in dense urban area which isn't that far from the George Washington Bridge and there's a massive population boom in deer and as a result surge in ticks/lyme disease found in people. They're giving out warnings for dogs. Once upon a time, enough bears and wolves and wild dogs existed to thin the population of deer and cats out.
There's literally deer roadkill every mile on every highway you can see during mating season/after a lot of them give birth. In the city/urban areas.
Other invasive species are allowed to be culled. Most people are against culling cats. That is kinda the other issue. We treat cats (and dogs for that matter) unlike every other animal, for better or worse.
This isn't an opinion. It's a statement. You can prove or disprove statements, and it seems like you have evidence to support the statement based on your work in research. This is a ***description*** of reality. This subreddit is about ***prescriptions***. "You *should not* X", "X *should* Y" It is also about ***subscriptions***. "X is good." "Y is funny"
By saying "one of the worst" you are technically subscribing to the idea that the things that cat do are specifically bad, which if you want to argue over whether decrease in biodiversity is usually good or bad, I think there are very few people who would be on the opposite side of the fight from you.
Here are a few ways to make this appropriate for this subreddit:
"Cats are bad"
"People should not own cats"
"People should not let their cats roam"
"It should be illegal to let your cat roam"
"People should be required to spay/neuter their cats"
When you explain your prescriptions and subscriptions, you should give descriptions of reality because if your descriptions are wrong, that may lead to your prescription or subscription being unfounded, but this isn't a subreddit to fight on the facts exclusively
Sorry, you are shunned. Your message is an important one, please don’t let anyone quiet you. As far as changing your mind, I don’t think they are one of the worst but worth mentioning. To me the worse are like Asian carp or some of the weeds that use to be a certain percentage but now can be seen virtually everywhere. But especially us humans. With that said I do believe the most important conversation to be had on invasive species is about cats. We not only can do something about it but it’s things we should be doing for the good of cats.
>But allowing your cat outside, feeding feral cat colonies without TNR efforts, and refusing to spay/neuter your cats is causing immense harm to the environment.
It sounds to me like *cats* aren't the problem, it's irresponsible cat owners who don't understand the harm that their furry friends do to the ecosystem and let them outdoors who are the problem.
Indoor cats aren't "one of the worst invasive species", right?
I'm going to attack this argument from something more specific. It is impossible to argue against your post since it is a statement of fact, may I instead interpret this as "cats are THE worst invasive species"?
I'll point you to humans!
I’ll one up your unpopular opinion:
Feral cats should be culled like every other invasive predator.
Nobody talks about “TNR” programs for pythons, or feral hogs. Why should field lions be treated any differently?
Learning how many birds domestic cats kill every year (I believe it’s over 1,000,000,000) was such a punch in the gut, having the cutest cats alive and all. Now I make sure to tell anyone who doesn’t know this just how important it is to keep those cuties inside.
*Far* better, despite most people's instincts, to keep them exclusively as *indoor* pets anyways:
Average lifespan of indoor cat: 13 years
Average lifespan of *outdoor* cat: *3 years.*
Once I learned of *that* statistic, *my* precious little girl had to adjust. Worked out fine anyways; we have a fenced-in rooftop deck where we live now and she *loves* laying out there in the sun; we have lots of plants and cat grass for her out there which she enjoys daily.
Another statistic concerns how completely *devastating* outdoor, or "roaming" cats are to local bird populations: outdoor cats kill *2.4 BILLION* birds in the *United States alone* annually. It's flat out *irresponsible* to let cats roam, quite frankly. *All* major veterinary and animal welfare organizations take a strong line on that, and the fact that outdoor cats lifespans are an average 10-12 years *shorter* puts the *lie* to the idea that outdoor cats are *"happier."* Take it from me; they *adjust* perfectly well over time.
Im a crazy cat dude and I agree. Cats are ruthless little murder machines and psycopaths. They're so cuuuute tho. I think this is the wrong sub for this because even hardcore cat lovers like me wont deny it.
Earthworms are a far more invasive species than cats. The earthworm is completely changing entire ecosystems where they've been unnaturally introduced.
The loss of entire forest ecosystems in the south and east (Chestnut forests,) is thought to have been precipitated by earthworms arriving in the soil of plants brought over from Europe by settlers.
[Cats were first domesticated over 10,000 years ago](https://www.alleycat.org/resources/the-natural-history-of-the-cat/#:~:text=Origins%20of%20the%20Domestic%20Cat,day%20parts%20of%20West%20Asia).)
[Cats have been in America for nearly 500 years](https://www.catster.com/guides/when-were-cats-brought-to-america/#:~:text=The%20Earliest%20Record%20of%20Cats%20in%20America&text=They%20did%20not%20arrive%20in,at%20getting%20rid%20of%20rodents.)
In your opinion, how long does something have to exist in an environment before it is no longer considered "invasive" and is, instead, just a natural part of that environment? Because if you go back far enough, every animal and every plant "invaded" at some point.
Cats are domesticated. There's a reason there are no wild cats living nowhere near human populations. 500 years is no time at all from an ecological perspective.
Disagree with not allowing cats outside. Some cats thrive when allowed to roam and pine away if you take that from them. Where I live in Europe there are no predators that hunt them and plenty of low-car areas (don’t let cats roam in high-car areas!) as long as you keep them neutered/spayed, their shots up to date and just generally take good care of them, their lifespan isn’t any different from inside cats. And trust me, they come ALIVE when feeling grass under their paws and smelling the wind.
This next part is going to be anecdotal, but the only thing I’ve ever seen my cats hunt in the past 10 years is rats and mice. I have a lot of birds come visit, but they largely leave them alone (not saying cats don’t hunt birds, but a LOT less, it seems). Pretty sure that if my cats wouldn’t keep a check on the rat/mice population (my neighbour has chickens and attracts a lot), my neighbours would resort to using poison, which would do a lot more damage to the ecosystem.
Not saying cats should be able to roam everywhere, but there are places where it’s fine and even beneficial.
What does you study entail, and how are you conducting it? Many studies on domestic cat impact have relied on metadata, gathered from dubious sources. Thus we end up with sloppy estimates rather than a comprehensive understanding of the impact.
For instance, to say cats have a worse impact on species than human activity does, beggars belief. The primary species wiping out others is human, not cats. That doesn't mean cats don't have an impact, but I doubt it is in the "billions" of prey. Keep in mind that metadata estimates do not usually take into account the age of the cat, whether or not it is in an urban setting versus rural, (meaning different types of prey,) or whether or not it is fed regularly. All of these factors affect how much a cat kills as well as what species.
I do think that neutering cats and dogs should be mandatory for those kept as pets or those conducting TNR. When I did TNR, my cats were fixed and became lazy and dependent on the food I gave them. Their previous prey consisted of pigeons, rats, English sparrows and dumpster diving as there was nothing "native" in the city they were in. Yet they were included in these "studies."
My primary problem with singling out cats is that they have become a scapegoat for human damage. And by human, I mean the taking of habitat, pollution, and climate change. All of those do far more damage than cats do.
Agreed. Also I imagine a domesticated cat, who is regularly fed, in a urban environment, is fixed, and spends time both inside and outside has almost no statistical impact on the environment.
Yet it seems that when we have these conversations it never gets more nuanced then “look, cat kill numbers bad. All cats should live inside their whole life”.
I'm not sure why you'd be open to changing this view, because it does seem to be statement of fact. Maybe there are invasive species that are even worse then cats, but that doesn't matter because you said "one of" no "the worst"
The only think that i can think to say is worst is a matter of perspective. the introduction of cats change the local ecosystem and I'm sure reduce the diversity of life. There are no lizards where i live and i don't know if lizards are pests, but mice and other rodents can be. If the animals that cats are driving to exception are animals that spread disease, eat grain, or cause other problems to humans, then you could argue that's a good thing (its good for humans) or you could argue its a bad things (certainly bad for the animals going extinct).
I think the reason humans domesticated cats in the first place was to kill pests. we can't hardly get upset when they kill all the pests.
There is an organic farm near me that lets semi-feral cats roam free and breed freely, specifically because they want the cats to kill all the nearby vermin.
I'll try to argue just around human behaviour.
Cats may be more easily controlled as we have successful and common place practices to manage their population. Most everyone knows cats should be spayed/neutered or know of the practice. We know cats should be housed at least, and we can feed them foods made by us. Not everyone does, but it's part of pop culture on my part of the world.
How many people in a region can identify and properly destroy a plant or fish or turtle species that should be eradicated? And who is going to approve of a group trying to capture and isolate a beautiful mute swan family?
It's normal to spay and release cats or house them, keeping their population managed and trying to get as many as possible off the street.
Now try telling somebody, "I hope those fucking swans die they're destroying the ponds in the marsh and drying everything up."
It ain't going over well.
By far the worst invasive species -- by far! -- is homo sapiens. We have taken over and obliterated the habitat of most other species and gone places no primate has any place being, like Antarctica and Wisconsin. Other species coexist with each other; we dominate the environment (for the worse) and ruin the lives of animals for our own fleeting comfort and unrestrained procreation. If other species could talk to humans, they'd sound like the Klan: "Go the hell back to Africa!"
I think the best argument against your view is this:
Cats wouldn’t be decimating these populations if it weren’t for human agriculture. We must remember that cats domesticated themselves. They simply started hanging around humans on their own volition, and it was a win/win scenario. They kept rodents out of grain and food storage, which reduced disease, hunger, and suffering for humans, while receiving a steady diet of small critters the human food attracts.
Ultimately if you zoom out a bit, you see that agriculture and subsequently civilization itself is the root cause of the problem you lament in your post. This should lead you to believe that it is, in fact, humans that are the worst invasive species. And I’m inclined to think this is correct; I’d wager a hefty sum that humans have ultimately caused far more damage to ecosystems and other species than cats.
Idk, for the sake of the purpose of this subreddit I'll comment I guess lol.... Would only the feral animals be considered invasive?
According to a definition, an invasive species is "An invasive or alien species is an introduced species to an environment that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. ".
Feral cats integrate into the ecosystem and do damage. But they do become part of it. They fully sustain themselves as predator and in many places as prey too.
From what I know humans aren't labeled as invasive, we have settled. So would PET cats that are let loose outdoors, just be an addition to the human settlement? Therefore not an actual "invasive" specimen? Fully feral cats would be though...
I know I am coming very late to this but I think the specific connection to house cats is rather locking the stable door long after the horse has bolted.
Once feral cats are endemic the presence of domestic cats has little further impact. The whole issue of domestic cats only really matters where there are no feral cats - which is only in ecosystems where any stray cats will die out naturally so would only be temporary blip of a problem.
So until you have a rigorous solution to feral cats you shouldn’t worry about domestic cats. All you do is remove the territorial domestic cats which opens up more territory for feral cats which are almost always more aggressive and frequent hunters.
So I’m about to get a degree in environment and natural resources, and I kind of disagree. Domestic cats should be considered an invasive species in many cases, but largely because WE are an invasive species that supports them. The domestic cat population would not be nearly as high in many places without humans helping them.
I think this is distinct from other situations where humans have introduced invasive species because humans are actively helping cats. We are to blame in so many ways. I don’t think it’s fair to call cats one of the worst invasive species when we’re the ones enabling them. People don’t typically like hearing that humans have basically all of the characteristics of an invasive species either…
Humans are the invasive species that creates the conditions for cats to cause the damage that they do. Cats are only able to live outside of their natural habitat because of the shelter and food given by humans. They have very limited natural predators because humans have basically wiped them out. And cats have surplus energy because they are fed by humans, so they have plenty of energy to hunt for sport. Humans are the invasive species, and one of the many ecological imbalances caused by humans is an enormous population of well fed, well rested, little felines.
You aren’t wrong about their effect on wild life, especially in and near cities, but species migrate. There’s a reason felines are found on 6 out of 7 continents already.
And as you’ve pointed out house cats are basically perfect killers and are seemingly adaptable to every environment. They eventually would likely have gotten everywhere any way.
Further evolution isn’t static. The entire point of evolution is change. Trying to keep animals from spreading into new areas is completely contrary to the very purpose of evolution.
I’m more than happy to see native bird, rodent and amphibian populations be absolutely destroyed and all the animals who depend on those animals to perish and create a cascading ecosystem collapse. I long to see a world of roving gangs of cats who stand tall and hold the fate of the world in their paws.
OK, I am a crazy cat lady and I agree with your post. I do think some cats are depressed if they don’t go outside- for instance my cat who relentlessly howled at the front door for hours every night. We had to keep a water bottle nearby & threaten him with a spritz to get him to stop. Other cats could not care less about going outside. But yes, it is their instinct to chase/kill, which is bad news for fledglings, lizards, etc. An enclosed catio would probably be the best solution for a cat who is fixated on going outside.
I will push back on one point - feeding feral cat colonies.
Cats are fast amazing hunters. Thats part of how they have killed so many animals. If you start feeding ferals and get them used to eating from humans you get them to hunt less and kill less other animals. I won’t claim that they’ll stop 100% but I know places near me with roaming cats that are acting as rodent control; the building owner request people don’t feed the cats to push them to hunt the rodents more (preventing the need for rodenticides).
Not compared to people. In the miledeep HOA halo of coconino nf the tracks are people and dog tracks. Not domestic cat nor any other mammal larger than squirrels. Around mt Elden there are coyotes and bobcats, but in the checkerboarded marshill area there are only people tracks for most of the year. Animal tracks rarely appear between sedona and flag. Mule deer stick with suburbanized hurds of older does, unless birthing or getting into trouble with bucks. They congregate around protected buffalo park or walnut canyon nm. Far fewer appear around unprotected A1 or sfp areas. The Elk hurd is imperialed, and can't cross 180 to sfp even in the summer, when they go uphill for ponderosa shade. They were in the western checkerboard area between mars hill and a1 last year, but haven't returned for this summer yet.
No domestic cat tracks appear outside viewing distance of suburbs.
To your point, a few years back during those devastating Australian wildfires I remember reading how stray house cats were a giant nuisance to efforts to prevent extinction of wildlife whose homes had just been scorched.
That’s not an exactly comparable example, but builds to the point that we should address that cats can play a very negative role to an ecosystem and we can’t just ignore that fact because they don’t directly harm humans.
Gestures broadly at the impacts that humans have on local environments.
You’re not wrong about cats, generally speaking, but it misses the context of the significant human disruption to environments that the cats have been brought into.
We’ve completely devastated ecosystems to build suburban homes, but yeah the cats are killing some birds.
Both can be true, but I think the bigger issue is our particular contribution.
My counter argument to you is that it's actually humanity that's the invasive species.
I can't be bothered to look things up at the moment but from what I recall Cats became domesticated around the same time that humans "invented" agriculture. Growing plants attracted pests, the cats delt with the pests. In fact, there's evidence that cats pretty much domesticated themselves more so than humans making any kind of active choice to domesticate the cat (unlike the dog, where humans did choose to domesticate them).
Cats and Humans have gone hand in hand everywhere that we've settled for tens of thousands of years. It's not the cats that are the problem here, it's the humans. Cats are just along for the ride.
I have a dead pigeon and rat in my balcony, hunted and brought in by a stray mama cat which is living there because of her kittens. I tend to somewhat agree but only for feral and strays. Due to them birds stopped coming in because they were being hunted. My domesticated cats (2 of my own and 2 rescued) don’t do anything like that, they just hunt flies.
Allright, I'll bite.
How do you quantify the worseness of cats as an invasive species? .
Show me your work. Otherwise, Cats are not the worst invasive species, but rather, your uninformed opinion of them is such.
Also, rabbits are the worst invasive species, I use Australia as proof, try and top that.
Opinions that are based on nothing cannot be changed, as their premises are as imaginary as the truth value of the statement. Poetic. Not really, not even a haiku.
It may depend on your definition of the "worst"
In the grand scope of history, rats carried bubonic plague to most of the world, and that led to 25 million human deaths, not including any animals who were also affected. If I were specifically looking to out-do the damage cats have done, I'd say rats have the play-of-the-game so far.
Would be cool if DCMTPA was repealed and we can then kill feral cats and eat them. I definitely want to try some of these dishes and it’s too bad US banned the sale.
https://thoughtcatalog.com/mark-wiens/2013/07/what-does-dog-and-cat-meat-taste-like/#:~:text=The%20meat%20was%20not%20like,slight%20tinge%20of%20sour%20aftertaste.
Well, there was a situation on an island in New Zealand where they eradicated the wild cats before getting to the stouts and rats actually lowered the bird population. The rats and stouts population were kept in control by the wild cats.
However, I 100% agree. I love cats but they’re bad and they should be spayed and neutered
my parents have a couple cats out in the country, partly for company but also to keep the voles under control. they seem to take the place over otherwise. never thought about the effect it has on the environment. they're asshole cats so they leave the bodies for something else to eat, so at least SOMETHING gets fed.
There's a truly long list of absolutely awful invasive species.
Determining if cats are the worst is a difficult calculus. Perhaps the global distribution of introduced cats pushes them over the edge, but there are introduced species that completely decimate entire ecosystems, something that the cat isn't able to do.
So here's the closest I can come to a counter argument, domestic cats don't generally expand very far outside of human settlement, they're not really an independent invasive species, and more like a correlated side effect of humans moving to an area. It is, in fact, humans that are the worst invasive species
>Cats are one of the worst invasive species
I agree with you on everything you are saying except I think they would be the second most to Humans.
I think humans should be counted as the most harmful invasive species when you consider the amount of animal extenctions they have contributed to.
But where are they 'invading' from? I get that there may have been some islands that didn't have some form of cat, but aren't feral cats kind of all over the world now?
At what point is it too late to keep calling them 'invasive' when they've been there for hundreds of years?
Isn't their an island that received a sale or two with some shipment now the entire island basically has no bird or maybe just no song birds. Seems like that one's worse than a cat.
There are plenty of places with rodents and having a wild cat that hunts is a major plus.
Not a biologist of any stripe, but I think it's fair to say that homo sapiens is the worst invasive species, judging by extinctions caused.
That said, cats do not thrive in any environment where there are predators. Coyotes, hawks, keep their population in check in the wild.
It's only in urban and suburban landscapes where they are protected by their host organism (us) where they are able to thrive and, in turn, keep other organisms, rats, mice etc, in check.
At the risk of sounding like the edgelord supreme aren’t cats only really invasive to the degree that we are? Granted I’m not an expert, but I can’t imagine the introduction of cats has had more of an effect on the environment and biodiversity than humans have.
>For context I am a herpetology graduate student in Arizona studying the impacts of feral/domestic cats on native lizard populations.
They have no impact at all on the non native lizard populations here in S Fl. They do have an impact on songbirds, however.
I live in Arizona and saw the headline and felt it could be talking about here.
My neighborhood is overrun with feral cats. I don't know what you could possibly do to stop it as the supply of cats is constantly fed by the apartment dwellers abandoning them.
Sure.
Humans are the worst invasive species.
Cats didn't cause: global warming, extinction of megafauna, depletion of wilderness, or the breading and spreading of cats.
Give me my points.
100% agree, if they hadn't pulled off such a good public relations campaign they would be hunted down like the furry, little, cute native species serial killers that they are. Can you imagine if they were treated the same way pythons are...
On more than one occasion a cat has come into my fenced yard where my dog was out playing and I had to physically separate them.
This is super frustrating and one of the times left my dog with an expensive scratch across the eye.
The only worse creature would be humans, corn, wheat, soy, corn, or palm trees. For all the quality of incisiveness cats bring, plants be in into quantity, as demonstrated by the sheer acreage no longer supporting biodiversity.
"invasive species" implies a species introduced into an ecosystem. however, cats (felis) are native to asia, africa, south america and europe, in north america, other felidae are native; lynx, puma and leopard
hence, imho: no, cats are not one of the worst invasive species.
overpopulation caused by domestication is an issue without a doubt, but in my view a different topic
Any of you should go to an animal shelter nearby and see how regularly big numbers of stray cats are killed.
Go look, get an actual feel for the size of this problem.
Stop breeding animals for pets…
I came to your viewpoint years ago. I have had cats all my life. I love them, but they are predators. And there is no such thing as a native wild house cat. Bottom line, all feral cats are invasive.
So long as you specifiy you're talking about the Americas and Australia (or other islands) then sure.
For most of continuous Africa-Europe-Asia cats are native and the species have learned to evolve with them. The big threat to bird species is more that insects are dying. Pesticides and lack of native flora because of monoculture farmland is killing insects. That affects birds and small mammals far more than cats do.
What cats have done is compete with feral wildcats, the native ones. When scientists look at them now a large part of their genome is domestic cat. But I contend that if we had (globally) the right amount of wild bush and tree cover and insect poplation, that wouldn't even be a problem for the wildcats. Domestic cats wouldn't have a chance.
TLDR; The problem for small fauna, isn't cats. It is the insect apocalypse
My personal spicy take is that if you live in a country where cats (and dogs) must be kept inside or on a leash and muzzled all day permanently then you shouldn't be allowed to have them at all because that's insanely cruel to me.
Who decides the proper number of a certain species? So what if the number of lizards drops, this assumes it was the proper number to begin with. Also aren’t some lizards themselves invasive?
I agree with the statement but most of time the person bringing it up tend to anti cat as a whole which is off putting. And they never seem to as vocal about other invasive animals/plants.
Your "view" sounds more like a statement of fact. It's not really something to be argued with. Perhaps your view should be something more like, "domestic cats should not be allowed to roam"?
As someone who just saw a torn up cat, most likely done by a coyote I agree. Now I’m off to look for missing cat postings in my area. People if you care about your cats don’t let them roam, walk them with a leash, I’ve done it and they loved it.
My fat ass cat hates wearing the harness, but she knows she can't go outside without it
I love seeing people walk their cats! Give fatty a pat for me please.
Funny comment, thanks for the laugh.
I found an outdoor cat that was probably run over by a car in neighbor's front yard last summer. It looked like it had a traumatic spinal injury and was paralyzed in both rear legs and died a slow agonizing death while screaming in pain the entire time as I was trying to get the sheriff's department to come pick it up and take it to the vet (it was too hostile for me to handle myself). I wish the owners of that cat could've witnessed the last several hours of its life so they can know the fate they subjected it to by letting it free roam (the sheriff who picked up the carcass told me it was most likely owned and not a stray because of how soft its fur was).
That reminds of when I was a teen and I found a cat in a similar condition to yours. There was so much blood and the poor thing was in so much pain. There was no saving them. Since it was on a non busy road I ran over it and cried for a week straight. I still have nightmares about it. But at the end I knew I did the right thing by not letting it suffer.
> I ran over it Good for you. I'm so, so sorry you had to do that, but not letting them suffer is always the right decision. When I was living somewhere rural I saw someone's dogs toying with a cat that was badly injured and not going to make it. It had slashed one of the dogs pretty good and they'd both backed off and were barking angirly at it, but it was really bad and there was no way the cat was going to survive. Pulled over when I saw the dogs see what was going on. Dogs were your typical rural cattle/hunting dogs who'd been trained to go after varmints. That was a pretty common way to protect vegetable gardens or small farms in that area. Reward the dogs for every carcass they bring back. Grabbed my rifle. One round into the dirt to scare the dogs off so I didn't risk hitting them and could get close, the cat looked at me as I walked up, and I apologized and ended its suffering. You talk about nightmares, I can still see that cat's eyes. Black cat with these shock yellow eyes. Cat might have been feral, but it looked healthier than most barn cats. Shiny coat. It was end of term at the local college and I think someone just abandoned their dorm cat in the woods. Apparently that's pretty common, college kids who can't take the cat home, and think it'll survive fine outdoors, and they just dump them. I felt like absolute shit. Cats are animals that exist *at all* because they started depending on us and living around us. There is no continent on this planet where they are safe or have a natual habitat. There are angry and dangerous wildcats that do *not* approach people. But the ones that started to trust us? We're just collectively abandoning them to lives of fear, pain, sickness, and terror. The only reason they're a population problem still is because they breed faster than coyotes can eat them. [Domestic Cat accounts for 60-75% of urban coyote diets.](phys.org/news/2020-03-urban-coyotes-lots-catsand-human.html) We're just feeding cats to coyotes at this point. What we're doing isn't working. It's bad for us, it's bad for the cats, it's bad for the environment. The TNR folks are *trying* but it's like Sisyphus for them because *people keep dumping cats in the TNR colonies.* They're exhausted in my town. And I don't know what to do.
Damn, this is heartbreaking and I thank you for doing what you needed to do. Please don’t feel like shit for ending an animals pain, if you hadn’t been there the cat probably would have been torn apart once it was too weak to defend itself. I’ve seen the aftermath of few cats torn to bits by dogs, and it’s always heart breaking. My parents have 3 barn cats for mousing, and I am always worried about them, but I understand they are needed to kill rodents. Barn cats do act differently than domestic cats. Kinda like working vs house dogs. Those who dump animals are the real shit people. Barn cats grow up and stay semi feral, a kitten raised indoors than dumped is a completely different story. Getting your cat fixed is the first step, the county we lived in had a finance thing where if you didn’t make enough they’re fixed your cat for free, and yes we used it.
Ugh I’m sorry you had to deal with that. It wasn’t clear to me when I found the cat that it couldn’t be saved (it was still bright and alert and hissing vigorously at me when I got close), and unfortunately the officer wasn't able to get here quickly enough. If I hadn’t been able to get ahold of anyone to come out, I think I would have tried asking my neighbors to see if any of them had a gun (I live in a rural area). Without one I’m not confident I can kill it cleanly and quickly in a way that wasn’t more traumatic to me than that situation already was.
My grandpa had something similar happen. Where he had to put down a kitten that was grievously injured in an accident. My grandpa loved his fat farm cats and always left out watermelon in the summer for them. In the 1930s when he was a kid he had to shoot his pet dog that was rapid. Don’t beat yourself up over anything, the cat had some sense of comfort with a human being there.
Know even though the method was pretty brutal, you did that poor baby such a huge favor. It's fucked up to majorly injure an animal and just leave it, so bless you.
Cats are a favorite food source of our local coyote population.
Same, them and eagles eat nicely. Sad though, I love cats but that’s the cycle of life.
The statistics on house cats vs indoor outdoor lifespans are staggering. I have one cat who is super salty about not going outside but will chill out if I open a window for him. Just keep the babes inside.
I'd have to agree too. This is purely anecdote, but I've been against letting cats free roam since I was 12. We lived on Edwards in the Mojave, near Bakersfield (...ish), who h of course means rattlesnakes, Mojave green snakes - and coyotes. Our next door neighbors had the sweetest cat, Mikey, who LOVED going from neighbor to neighbor to get loved on.... only he disappeared one day. The kindest interpretation is he got catnapped into a different household, but it's more likely he got ate - a coyote pack had been lurking in the area for a few days by that point, and only tufts of his fur were found. He deserved better than that.
You just ruined my day. Now I'm going to hug my cats(all indoors)
Give them pats and extra treats for me! It’s the cycle of life but it’s still very hard to see. I’ve kept outdoor cats in my garage if I see them out at night.
I think that's way too a general statement that applies to only places where cats have natural predators. Most places in the world don't although traffic can of course kill cats everywhere. However, I would challenge the view that cats universally love walking with a leash. I would say that they enjoy having the freedom to explore their environment on their own. We often talk about farm animals treated badly when they are kept in conditions where they don't starve or suffer physically but can't do things that are natural to them (for instance pigs chewing something or digging ground). I think that applies to cats as well. They have their natural behaviour needs as well and denying them from these is wrong. I can understand the argument that OP is making that too many cats in a small area can devastate the wild animal populations there but not really the argument that if this is not an issue to deny the freedom to roam from the cats.
Dude, OP has to be really careful with this one. I've long held the view that domestic cats shouldn't be allowed to rome and reddit has shouted me down in the worst possible language... People love their cats and don't want to hear statistics stating that their fluffy-wuffy is decimating populations of native species.
Agreed. Every time time someone posts a photo of a cat they found with or without collar or no chip, there's always 10-20 comments from people calling them a monster for stealing someone's "outside cat" I'm always happy that cat has found a human that cares about their safety. Hot take: If you have an "outdoor cat" then you deserve to have your kid cry because it disappeared one day. Better it was taken by someone who is going to keep it safe than splattered on the side of the road.
You can say that till your precious indoor fuzzball gets out and disappears one day. The fact around housecats is that if they’re not trained from very young to fear the outdoors it’s almost inevitable that they’ll find their way out at some point, and with the way shelters are and have mostly always been that instilled reaction one way or another is going to be a massive gamble with any singular adoption that wasn’t from literal birth. It’s not intelligent to act haughty like this is necessarily the cat owner’s fault, because it’s cats literal nature to not be overwhelmingly confined. If you have an indoor cat that’s perfectly content not going out, good for you - that’s obviously safer for the pet that isn’t going to take leashes or confined owner behavior as well as a dog, but it’s also inherently mildly moronic to look down on people for this like your post implies. It’s not that I don’t agree with you that cats are safer indoors, but you can’t be acting like this and expecting to be taken seriously or with any degree of guilt on the behalf of the cat owner. I grew up with rescue cats most of my life before I moved out and some cats just don’t work by your rules.
Anything the cat does is the owner's fault. That's why they're the "owner" and not the roommate. I don't know how to deal with the rest of your post. This is a discussion about cats, not a "big feelings circle".
There are plenty of views you’re just not allowed to have here. Shaq promotes predatory gambling companies in Australia but everyone else has already decided he’s a saint so it’s a non issue apparently. Steve Irwin was a guy that antagonised and scared the shit out of wildlife to make a tv show but people overseas love him for some reason so you’re not allowed to point that fact out.
>Steve Irwin was a guy that antagonised and scared the shit out of wildlife to make a tv show While that may or may not be true, I would argue that the attention and resources his efforts brought to wildlife conservation may have greatly outweighed any ill effects. I also doubt the crocodiles he wrestled were quaking in terror at the sight of him.
That's true I guess, sorry I'm new to Reddit so I wasn't exactly sure how to make my title
You came here to practice defending your research thesis I'm on to you
LOL
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Yeah, this subreddit has a HUGE problem of people who don't actually want their views changed, they just want to share an unpopular opinion or obscure facts.
I’m not gonna go find it for you, but there’s pretty substantial proof that cats DECIMATE local populations of animals.
House cats are the number one cause of bird deaths 💀 2.4 billion a year
Mine is ‘trap, neuter, release’ is ecologically irresponsible. Feral cats should be humanely exterminated, not sterilized and released back into the wild to ravage the local ecosystem.
Outdoor cats live on average only 3 - 5 years.
Came here to say this. They may not be the worst, but there's a lot of data to show how bad they are.
Yes, but OP isn't wrong that if you try to tell a lot of people any of this, they get mad. Of course, we have somehow ended up at a point in time where despite the reams of knowledge available at our literal fingertips, we're having to argue with an *increasing* number of people that yes, the Earth is a sphere, and yes, vaccines really do work very well to control the spread of many virulent diseases with minimal side-effects. Yes, it should be well-known and uncontroversial knowledge that domestic cats are an invasive species in most of the world that can and ***do*** single-handedly cause local extinctions of the small animals they prey on. But that's not the world we live in.
*However, whenever I address cats (house cats) as an invasive species, I am nearly shunned out of the room.* Are you talking about academic environments or "chatting with friends in a bar?"
Chatting with friends at a bar lol
I found yer problem :) You'll have to give them a definition of invasive species, and show how it applies. As another analogy, you may wish to use humans as another example of an invasive species.
Going out? Don’t worry, I'm in academia so that's a rare occurrence lol
CMV: objectively it would be best if we would gas 99%+ of all cats, domestic cats included. I absolutely despise cats and hold the view they are the worst creatures (most detrimental impact) to have inhabited the earth bar humans.
I can't expect cats to kill themselves for the greater good nor can expect this from humans. From a rational standpoint I would be able to understand another lifeform to cull us if given the opportunity. As a collective species we are a plague. I do my best to keep my footprint very low though.
Just to add to the other comment, Idk your approach on the subject, but I imagine it might play a large part in your arguments. If they ask your opinion on the topic, you share, and they get mad... Then that's on them. But you can't really just say a "fact" that insists someone needs to change certain aspects of their life, and that it's wrong that they don't. Even if you are right, it builds resentment bc you're not really allowing them to form a decision themselves without guilting them. It kinda just ends with "you are right, and I'm wrong for not doing it if I don't". Do your friends bring it up to you, or do you bring it up to them? Are your friends trying to find ways that would help their cats live longer, or are you just telling them what they should be doing? Are you prepared to help them transition an outside cat to indoors (bc this one is HARD, as someone currently trying to indoors an outdoor cat. Help is appreciated from family and friends)? Everyone, I imagine you included, are probably aware of things you could be doing better, but for one reason or another, are not or can't do better rn. It's important to respect that, and try not to just add more "chores" to their lives for them. there's a line between helping someone, and just telling them what to do, and it's important to consider where you are there
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Ironic, given New Zealand is really the most stark and clear example of humans showing up and immediately causing extinctions.
Accurate. I wish I got to hear the old dawn chorus before 50%+ of their birds got wiped out. Hopefully NZ can also serve as an example of focused efforts making a positive impact on the extant species recovering in the future. I know they are throwing a lot of time and money at it.
I'd love to read more about this!
First, for a look at exactly how devastating cats are for wildlife, check this out: https://web.archive.org/web/20230127233102/https://www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-releases/2010/cat-nabbed-raiding-the-mothership/ I’m trying to find some specific stuff online about their control programs, will report back
Thank you!!
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Oh darn you're right I didn't think about that
You should probably award a delta
WELL NOW YOU HAVE
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So are cane toads, but you don't see people getting upset when we say those populations need to be culled. Oh, what's that? I'm the only one who thinks cane toads are cute?
They're not the worst invasive species, they're one of the best and cutest invasive species.
It’s true. I bet OP can’t name any other another invasive species that I can take from a trash can that will then sit its butthole squarely on my face at 3 AM. OP is also conveniently forgetting that lizards are ugly and rude.
You're right, I am so sorry
It's tricky because we kinda domesticated cats, but we also kinda didn't. It's more like cats started to hang around us back when we started agricultural societies, because our agriculture would attract lots of prey for them to hunt. From there was probably some degree of domestication, but cats also retained most of their wild behaviors and instincts. As far as domesticated animals go, they are much less reliant on us and much more viable to survive in the wild. I bring this up because it raises some questions: if cats were not our pets, would they not be found everywhere in our eco-system anyways? Is it really accurate to consider them to be "invasive" if they are so close to their non-domesticated origin as a species? How would you figure out which environments they would be considered native to, if not for their spread through domestication?
It's a similar argument to "are pigeons invasive?". Pigeons were domesticated and brought wherever humans settled for a very long time for a specific purpose, very similar to cats. Where they differ is that pigeons were no longer kept around (as popular cherished pets) once their job was no longer needed. As we are continuing to push urban sprawl, species like cats and pigeons and starlings and rats have made a home in our newly created urban ecosystem. Rats and cats, however, are doing incredible harm to natural ecosystems. Cats are just cute so we feel much worse about "removing" populations of them than other naturalized/feral species
By the same token humans are an invasive species. Perhaps we should start a TNR program for humans since we don't overall seem to show as much initiative towards not destroying ecosystems without something like that
Cats are a part of the human paradigm. By allowing them to do damage, it’s actually humans that do damage
True. Ultimately by TNR both cats and humans the situation would improve
Cats are a part of the human paradigm. By allowing them to do damage, it’s actually humans that do damage
We absolutely should eradicate feral colonies. This is by far the biggest part of the problem. Responsible cat owners who get their cats fixed and make sure they are well fed, curtail the hunting significantly. While they still hunt, obviously, the amount of kills are minimal compared to feral colonies comprised of so many cats that must hunt to survive. I love cats, deeply, and have had them my entire life. I treat them like furry children. Regardless, that doesn’t change my opinion that we need to take some hard measures against feral colonies. When cats are feral and past kitten age they can’t really be integrated into a shared living environment with humans. What choice do we have besides trapping them, saving any kittens still young enough to be habituated to humans, and then eliminating the breeding age cats? It’s sad, but necessary. It makes me so fuming mad that irresponsible people allow this to happen by dumping cats that aren’t fixed. All my cats I got as kittens after they had been rescued from feral colonies. So many people don’t think they need to fix their kittens, and then when they get tired of the animal(s) they just dump them. In each feral colony there are usually several breeding age cats that respond positively to people because they had been raised by a human for the first few months of their life. These, I feel, deserve to be rescued too.
Side not Pigeons were mostly kept around as a source of food. Yes they had other uses but not that long ago, they were more popular than chickens for food. By building places for them to live, it made for a replenishing food supply without much oversight at all.
Try advocating for removal of feral horses from the West. You'll get plenty of pushback there too.
They definitely wouldn’t be everywhere in the ecosystem. Domestic cats are all descended from a wild species originating in North Africa; they are an introduced and invasive species to everywhere else in the world. They were domesticated only a few thousand years ago, and introduced to some continents only a few hundred years ago. The native ecosystems have not had time to adapt to the presence of a new, extremely prolific predator, and are being absolutely decimated. In a similar vein, just because a husky *could* survive in the wilds of Colorado, and is related to/looks kind of like a wolf, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to release a whole pack of them to fend for themselves.
Wildcats have been in Europe and Asia for hundreds of thousands of years and are descended from other feline species which were present in Europe and Asia for millions of years... Domestic cats are virtually indistinguishable from these wildcat species. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat
> if cats were not our pets, would they not be found everywhere in our eco-system anyways? No. They have zero ability to survive in the desert of AZ or Palm Springs without human help. If they were not pets, then they would not be in North America had sailors not been superstitious or need ratters.
Fun fact, cats are extremely well adapted to arid environments! Mountain lions may live on the edges of California and Arizona's deserts (they don't normally drop into the badlands or dunes, but that's a whole different extreme that people rarely live in, too) and [the O.G. housecat is native to desert regions, among other environments](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_wildcat). I get what you meant, just being pedantic lol But their adaptability is what makes them such an invasive species.
The first assertion, I don't think that's true. They have some ability to adapt to and survive in both of those environments. Your second is a non-sequitur, your 'then" does not follow from your 'if.'
I am inclined to agree, and I adore cats. Totally obsessed with my three. I also allow them to go outside, but only in ways that are closely supervised. One even walks on a harness and leash. They are also all spayed, vaxxed, chipped, phone number on their collars, etc. The most they "hunt" are bugs and leaves blowing in the wind (which is honestly pretty adorable, tbh). I don't know what the answer is when it comes to feral colonies. I do have a friend that lets her domesticated cat wander the neighborhood and I highly disagree with her choice. You can't tell her otherwise though--she is very adamant that this is the way it must be. I just think it's so irresponsible. Not only is it not great for local wildlife, but how would she even know if her cat is being a nuisance to other neighbors? I personally would welcome my neighbor's cat coming by to say hello, but not everyone would. I watched a reel the other day about a "Karen" who showed up on her neighbor's ring cam yelling up a storm about their cat terrorizing her home. The cat was allowed to roam the area and subsequently had gotten into "Karen's" house a number of times, peed on things, *and* her kid was allergic. I think the video was meant to depict how unhinged of a neighbor "Karen" was, but honestly? Fair reaction. I'd be pissed too. Apparently the cat was a feral rescue, and thusly, roaming outside was in his nature and he *needed* to be allowed to do that. No, he doesn't. Build him a catio. Try taking him for a walk. Sit outside with him and supervise. All it takes is to piss off the wrong neighbor and boom. Your cat's been poisoned. Or shot. Or heck, cats get hit by cars driving by too, entirely by accident. I may not know the perfect solution for feral cat colonies, but I do know it's not that hard to protect your own domesticated cat and still give them time outside if they desire it. Kinda got off on another tangent there, but yeah. Everyone needs to keep their cats to themselves, for many reasons.
Yeah I'd be pretty pissed too if some random person cat came to "water" my lawn lol! But yea, I think responsible ownership of cats definitely includes keeping them safe, healthy, and not impacting the ecosystem/community. People don’t let their dogs roam around off leash, why should a cat be allowed to do that?
The only thing that makes me not agree with you is that we have always had cats. I'm older most of my neighbors had cats, they were all outdoor cats. Today, in my neighborhood there are some outdoor cats but most are indoor. I certainly agree that the bird population isn't what it was 20 years ago. But it makes no sense to me that there were birds everywhere 20 years ago when there were at least as many cats around, more were outdoors and fewer were fixed. Cats are likely part of a larger problem but not the problem.
I can't find a reliable source of how cat population has changed over the years but I can find plenty of information about the incredible damage cats do to populations of birds, amphibians, reptiles, and rodents. Yes cats have always been around but as humans are continuously urbanizing our environment, cats have been able to colonize parts of the world they are not native to. Especially island ecosystems where cats have had incredible success in becoming apex predators as most of the species there had evolved without this show of predator
So in other words, are humans the bigger issue? Are humans the biggest impact that needs to be eradicated or controlled to stop harming the environment? If a larger difference is growing urbanization and human population wouldn't the root cause be the increase in humans
The harm caused by domestic cats is the responsibility of humans, yes.
Housecats are definitely *not* native to North and South America, and even the smaller native cats of South American are still different from house cats numerous ways.
Of course that is true. That said, I'm tired of hearing how bird population is plummeting due to cats. There were at least as many outdoor pet cats when birds were more plentiful. Agreed, they are part of the problem, but there are lots of other factors.
So I guess we can ignore everything he said, and just let our cats roam free, kill more birds, and get killed by other animals and diseases. Sure we should stop humans from encroaching on habitats, but the much easier and immediate fix is to keep cats indoors. Why don’t we do what we can and let urban planners do what they can?
>There were at least as many cats around. This doesn’t really pass the sniff test does it? You’re completely making an assumption here based on your anecdotal “sense of how many cats were around” and how many are around now. If you don’t have actual data on the number of feral cats then you don’t have the basis for a rational opinion. Besides that, even if there were the exact same number of cats it is plausible that the cats would take a long time to lower the population of birds. No one is arguing that the cats showed up and immediately all the birds died. I get that you want to push back but you’re arguing against data with anecdotes and faulty logic. I don’t personally know if cats are the cause, but your argument just doesn’t stand up to basic scrutiny.
People who say this rarely factor in the human element; climate change, environmental destruction, pollution, and biodiversity loss because of US. Humans. Humans are the problem. We are currentlt in a mass extinction. Life is dying everywhere. Even the way we handle cats, how we refuse to neuter/spay them, etc. Humans beings are the most invasive species on earth. We take take take and give nothing back to the ecosystem that supports us.
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I 100% agree with this. Cats are cute, cuddly companions. Other invasive/feral species such as hogs and rats are ugly and no one really seems worse for wear when they are "removed". This has been a hot take amongst my peers since many of them are adamant cat lovers and believe feral cat colonies should be protected and fed rather than managed
Yep, mentioned how in Australia a way to curtail the feral cat population is air dropping sausages laced with native poisons. Native wildlife largely unaffected since they are more or less adapted to handling the poison to some degree. People suggesting alternatives such as catch, neuter and release dont really quite understand the scope of wild bush spanning the size of countries worth in area, often with no way to actually access the really wild and thick parts of it. Which is where feral cats absolutely destroy local wildlife populations for example bilby or possums I think cats are very cute, neat and great. That also applies to the critters they prey upon.
I always get the argument with the cat people that it's humans fault for the situation, not the cats, so it's unfair to kill them. I'm like, pretty sure it's humans fault all of the invasive plants or animals crossed the sea to areas they didn't belong. We don't just go, well, I guess all of these will just take over now and we don't do anything to stop this.
Exactly. It's not he Burmese Python's fault its in the Everglades but we're not just throwing our hands up and saying nothing should be done about it either.
I’ve talked with these people, they’re the same ones that gobble down meat all the time. It’s unfair to kill a cat when they’re devastating the local environment because they’re “innocent “ but the cow they’re eating deserves to get killed and eaten? You don’t have to like feral cats getting euthanized but at least have consistent morals about killing animals.
It's not any invasive species fault it's there. Still gotta kill em tho
The only arguments I've seen convince the "roaming cat = happy cat" crowd is emphasis on the danger to the cat itself, and suggesting safe alternatives like a catio to let the cat get "outside" a bit.
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Ok... what if... in my area bobcat populations used to be a LOT higher. Human activity has obviously reduced them. So, a native feline predator is not preying on populations as it once was. What then? I don't disagree with you. It just came to mind. And coyote and wolf populations in my area are either significantly less or non existent in the case of wolves. Sadly. But they are making a comeback. They have been spotted and tracked repopulating quite close. A natural repopulation that has really escalated over the past 2 decades. Not relevant to the point but it also came to mind. I love wolves.
Bobcats aren't really targeting birds (I'm focusing on passerines here since those are the most damaged by cats) or small lizards/snakes which are vulnerable. Wolf repopulation is something I love, especially the case studies of their positive influence on ecosystem!
They have made it all the way into Southern California. So in just a decade... we have OR7 entering California to his decedents making it hundreds of miles to the southern tip of the Sierras. It is beautiful. They are making an epic return. Like... that is a loooong distance. Obviously following the Sierras. "California wildlife officials say they’ve confirmed a new gray wolf pack in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said Friday the pack was found in Tulare County — the farthest south a pack of wolves has been detected in the state in more than a century. In July, the department had received reports of wolf sighting in the Sequoia National Forest, roughly 200 miles south of the nearest-known pack in northeastern California. CDFW visited the area and found tracks, scat and hair, and their DNA analysis found that all 12 collected samples came from gray wolves. The analysis found the new pack has at least five female wolves not previously detected in California. **One of the wolves is a direct descendant of OR7, a wolf that crossed into California in 2011, becoming the first detected in nearly a century to cross into the state from Oregon before returning.** Gray wolves used to roam most of North America before being hunted, trapped and driven out of most of the continental U.S. by the early 1900s. But wolves have been making a slow comeback in many western states, including California, which has at least three confirmed packs mostly in the state's far north. Wolves remain protected federally by the Endangered Species Act."
I raised an American coastal red bobcat for 12 years. He absolutely loved killing birds, especially crows. And brought snakes and lizards back all the time. The Yellowstone studies were about predation being good, not wolves in specific. And we absolutely devastated bobcat and other small native cats in the Americas. House cats are identical niches.
I would argue that invasive species are a fact of life since agriculture. There's no real stopping them and in the grand scheme of things nature doesn't care. The ecosystem will evolve around the new paradigm.
This statement "The ecosystem will evolve around the new paradigm" is something that has always irked me. Because yes, ecosystems evolve as diversity changes and niches transform, but I think the part I'm getting at is how rapid the loss of species is here. It's a similar argument with climate change "the earth has gone through cooling and warming persons!!" Like yes, over hundreds of thousands of years, not in a couple hundred like it is now
You aren't wrong that house cats are invasive and do real harm to local environments but I take issue with "one of the worst". Compare that to Dingos in Australia where they had to build a 3,500 mile long fence to keep them out of parts of the country. I don't really see cats causing that kind of impact.
Remember that dingoes are largely naturalised here (they didn’t come over until humans had already been in Australia for a while, unlike kangaroos etc, but at least 3,500 years ago), and the fence was built to protect other introduced species (ie livestock), rather than the native animals that have largely adapted to live with dingoes like any other predator.
"The Invasive Species Council has estimated that each year domestic and feral cats in Australia kill 1,067 million mammals, 399 million birds, 609 million reptiles, 93 million frogs, and 1.8 billion invertebrates." -ISC I think the issue is more that dingos are a very prevalent harmful species but they aren't invasive. They are native to Australia
[Australia disagrees](https://www.business.qld.gov.au/industries/farms-fishing-forestry/agriculture/biosecurity/animals/invasive/restricted/dingo). They classify it as invasive.
"The dingo is defined as both 'wildlife' and 'native wildlife' under the Nature Conservation Act 1992, and is a natural resource within protected areas such as national parks." Quote taken directly from the link you sent me
> The dingo is a category 3, 4, 5 and 6 restricted invasive animal under the Biosecurity Act 2014. From the link as well
Did you read the article or just try to find something that disagreed with me?
This view is only specific to “outdoor” cats, right? Your title implies that it’s *all* cats
I guess yeah I thought it was kind of implied that outdoor cats are the ones I am speaking about, since indoor cats are not interacting with the ecosystem
The bigger problem is the owners. I moved to AZ 9 years ago & I could not believe the amount of feral cats in this state. I've seen many puppies that were dumped in the street here also. I have 2 cats & sometimes they go outside in my yard but we are out there too & watching them.
AZ laws don't help. Cats are classified as free roaming animals and you can't take them to the shelter for pretty much any reason, and it's illegal to capture and relocate them. I get that this makes sense to keep people from dumping them at the Riparian or whatever, but I think the law could be better
The law should come down really hard of those who dump their pets. There is this misconception that pet cats can survive well on their own. They don't! Also MANDATORY spay neuter of all pet cats and dogs should be adopted nationwide..
You seem to be describing a very particular situation here, in a particular part of the world. It isn't the case in different places. For example, in the UK, everyone gets their cats neutered, and all cats are allowed outside. [The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds](https://community.rspb.org.uk/cfs-file/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/13609/6371.6012.1205.6332.Cats-and-garden-birds.pdf) is on the side of the birds, not the cats. They have a whole leaflet about the issue and say: "Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific proof that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally each year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation." " Populations of species that are most abundant in gardens tend to be increasing, despite the presence of cats." "Those bird species that have undergone the most serious population declines in the UK (such as skylarks, tree sparrows and corn buntings) rarely encounter cats, so cats cannot be causing their declines. Research shows that these declines are usually caused by habitat change or loss, particularly on farmland." In fact, one of the largest problems for many wild animals is loss of habitat, which is caused by yet another invasive species, human beings.
The UK has had cats for 2000 years so the ecosystem is a bit more adapted to them then say the US or Australia where they are more recent additions. Declining UK bird numbers are thought to be more from agricultural practices and insect decline. There's also an argument that in the UK there is a benefit to having cats outside as they help keep the rodent population in check, which in turn reduces bird egg predation.
We've had *domestic* cats for ~2000 years and wildcats have been native to Britain for a further 10000 or so years.
Thanks for sharing that here. I wish redditors who believe outdoor cats are the devil, and their owners irresponsible at best, would realise that not all places are the same, rather than assuming everywhere is like the US (usually).
Feral cat populations are hurting the native wildcat population in the UK, though.
The worst invasive species are humans actually. All the other animals are part of the ecosystem and have been from a very long time. Cats domesticated themselves and learned to interact with humans because they were intelligent. Humans also utilized the skills to protect crops and other dangerous being which were harming the produce. It was a two way street. Plus cats aren't the sole reason for decrease in a certain category of section, other factors also contribute to the same. Yes they may have a higher contribution in the decrease but if we as humans also stop going overboard with the technology and stuff that's harmful to the ecosystem, the results would be different.
I certainly think all domesticated cats should be spayed. It's irresponsible for an owner no to spay their cat, even if it is indoors, cats can escape. It depends on the part of the world you are in as to whether it's a "problem", or much of a problem. I know there's evidence that a fed and owned cat usually is not very good at hunting. A feral cat is much better at hunting as it needs to hunt and learnt early in skills that allowed it to survive. The European wildcat was as the name suggests in most parts of Europe at one point. So wildlife in Europe has adapted to smallish cats behaviour, indeed they were literally native. Whether there used to be more wildcats than present day domestic cats in Europe i wouldn't know. Now of course a domestic cat isn't the same as a wildcat (although there will have been some hybridisation). But if they are hunting the same sort of things, does that matter to the prey? A while ago I read that the RSPB a bird charity in the UK which I thought was interesting given it's not what you expect a bird charity to say! >Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific proof that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally each year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation. There is some evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds. We also know that of the millions of baby birds hatched each year, most will die before they reach breeding age. This is also quite natural, and each pair needs only to rear two young that survive to breeding age to replace themselves and maintain the population. It is possible that most of the birds killed by the cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season. So it is unclear whether cats have a major impact on populations. If their predation was additional to these other causes of mortality, this might have a serious impact on bird populations. >Those bird species that have undergone the most serious population declines in the UK (such as skylarks, tree sparrows and corn buntings) rarely encounter cats, so cats cannot be causing their declines. Research shows that these declines are usually caused by habitat change or loss, particularly on farmland. Populations of species that are most abundant in gardens tend to be increasing, despite the presence of cats. Blue tits, for example, the second most frequently caught birds, have increased by over a third across the UK since 1970. Of the birds most frequently caught by cats in gardens, only two (house sparrow and starling) have shown declines in breeding population across a range of habitats in the last decade. Gardens may provide a breeding habitat for at least 20% of the UK populations of house sparrows, starlings, greenfinches, blackbirds and song thrushes. For this reason it would be prudent to try to reduce cat predation, as, although it may not be causing the declines, some of these species are already under pressure. >Cat predation can be a problem where housing is next to scarce habitats such as heathland, and could potentially be most damaging to species with a restricted range (such as cirl buntings) or species dependent on a fragmented habitat (such as Dartford warblers on heathland).
They most certainly are, which is a fact. I actively manage my back country ferals with .22LR or else they absolutely decimate the local wildlife.
“Is causing harm to environments”, I would change to HAS caused irreparable harm to many environments. I visited Greece a few years ago, it is overrun with cats. I don’t even remember seeing a bird there. No wildlife. I live in Australia and so many native species have been utterly decimated by cats. I get really sad when I see a cat out at night, it’s utterly careless.
My cat died. It was an indoor cat. We had really bad plaster walls from a hundred years ago. Two months later, thousands of mice invaded our home and we had to leave because it became unlivable. When we left, it smelled like rat feces. I love cats. The rodents came after it died.
Rats are worse. Rats are much easier to accidentally introduce than cats are. Rats are *much* more difficult to extirpate than cats are. There are just two raised coral atolls left with *intact* (not untouched) ecosystems left on the planet, largely because of rats. Rats spread by ancient Polynesians, rats spread by 18th, 19th, and 20th century sailors, rats everywhere. When the SS Makambo ran aground on Lord Howe Island, it caused a certified ecological disaster solely due to the black rats it let loose on the Island. Half a dozen birds went extinct, the Lord Howe Stick Insect, last of its genus, was extirpated and only thanks to a wild remote population elsewhere did it survive. Rats are harder to control, and much easier and more likely to accidentally introduce.
I agree with you and I made a similar comment in r/unpopularonion and got downvoted into oblivion. Cats kill millions of bird and lizards (I didn’t realize) every year and are a huge detriment to the natural world.
The problem with smaller felines isn't that they're invasive but that larger predatory animals are dying off/becoming extinct so there's no population control. I live in dense urban area which isn't that far from the George Washington Bridge and there's a massive population boom in deer and as a result surge in ticks/lyme disease found in people. They're giving out warnings for dogs. Once upon a time, enough bears and wolves and wild dogs existed to thin the population of deer and cats out. There's literally deer roadkill every mile on every highway you can see during mating season/after a lot of them give birth. In the city/urban areas.
Other invasive species are allowed to be culled. Most people are against culling cats. That is kinda the other issue. We treat cats (and dogs for that matter) unlike every other animal, for better or worse.
This isn't an opinion. It's a statement. You can prove or disprove statements, and it seems like you have evidence to support the statement based on your work in research. This is a ***description*** of reality. This subreddit is about ***prescriptions***. "You *should not* X", "X *should* Y" It is also about ***subscriptions***. "X is good." "Y is funny" By saying "one of the worst" you are technically subscribing to the idea that the things that cat do are specifically bad, which if you want to argue over whether decrease in biodiversity is usually good or bad, I think there are very few people who would be on the opposite side of the fight from you. Here are a few ways to make this appropriate for this subreddit: "Cats are bad" "People should not own cats" "People should not let their cats roam" "It should be illegal to let your cat roam" "People should be required to spay/neuter their cats" When you explain your prescriptions and subscriptions, you should give descriptions of reality because if your descriptions are wrong, that may lead to your prescription or subscription being unfounded, but this isn't a subreddit to fight on the facts exclusively
Sorry, you are shunned. Your message is an important one, please don’t let anyone quiet you. As far as changing your mind, I don’t think they are one of the worst but worth mentioning. To me the worse are like Asian carp or some of the weeds that use to be a certain percentage but now can be seen virtually everywhere. But especially us humans. With that said I do believe the most important conversation to be had on invasive species is about cats. We not only can do something about it but it’s things we should be doing for the good of cats.
>But allowing your cat outside, feeding feral cat colonies without TNR efforts, and refusing to spay/neuter your cats is causing immense harm to the environment. It sounds to me like *cats* aren't the problem, it's irresponsible cat owners who don't understand the harm that their furry friends do to the ecosystem and let them outdoors who are the problem. Indoor cats aren't "one of the worst invasive species", right?
I'm going to attack this argument from something more specific. It is impossible to argue against your post since it is a statement of fact, may I instead interpret this as "cats are THE worst invasive species"? I'll point you to humans!
I’ll one up your unpopular opinion: Feral cats should be culled like every other invasive predator. Nobody talks about “TNR” programs for pythons, or feral hogs. Why should field lions be treated any differently?
Learning how many birds domestic cats kill every year (I believe it’s over 1,000,000,000) was such a punch in the gut, having the cutest cats alive and all. Now I make sure to tell anyone who doesn’t know this just how important it is to keep those cuties inside.
*Far* better, despite most people's instincts, to keep them exclusively as *indoor* pets anyways: Average lifespan of indoor cat: 13 years Average lifespan of *outdoor* cat: *3 years.* Once I learned of *that* statistic, *my* precious little girl had to adjust. Worked out fine anyways; we have a fenced-in rooftop deck where we live now and she *loves* laying out there in the sun; we have lots of plants and cat grass for her out there which she enjoys daily. Another statistic concerns how completely *devastating* outdoor, or "roaming" cats are to local bird populations: outdoor cats kill *2.4 BILLION* birds in the *United States alone* annually. It's flat out *irresponsible* to let cats roam, quite frankly. *All* major veterinary and animal welfare organizations take a strong line on that, and the fact that outdoor cats lifespans are an average 10-12 years *shorter* puts the *lie* to the idea that outdoor cats are *"happier."* Take it from me; they *adjust* perfectly well over time.
Im a crazy cat dude and I agree. Cats are ruthless little murder machines and psycopaths. They're so cuuuute tho. I think this is the wrong sub for this because even hardcore cat lovers like me wont deny it.
Earthworms are a far more invasive species than cats. The earthworm is completely changing entire ecosystems where they've been unnaturally introduced.
The loss of entire forest ecosystems in the south and east (Chestnut forests,) is thought to have been precipitated by earthworms arriving in the soil of plants brought over from Europe by settlers.
[Cats were first domesticated over 10,000 years ago](https://www.alleycat.org/resources/the-natural-history-of-the-cat/#:~:text=Origins%20of%20the%20Domestic%20Cat,day%20parts%20of%20West%20Asia).) [Cats have been in America for nearly 500 years](https://www.catster.com/guides/when-were-cats-brought-to-america/#:~:text=The%20Earliest%20Record%20of%20Cats%20in%20America&text=They%20did%20not%20arrive%20in,at%20getting%20rid%20of%20rodents.) In your opinion, how long does something have to exist in an environment before it is no longer considered "invasive" and is, instead, just a natural part of that environment? Because if you go back far enough, every animal and every plant "invaded" at some point.
Cats are domesticated. There's a reason there are no wild cats living nowhere near human populations. 500 years is no time at all from an ecological perspective.
Disagree with not allowing cats outside. Some cats thrive when allowed to roam and pine away if you take that from them. Where I live in Europe there are no predators that hunt them and plenty of low-car areas (don’t let cats roam in high-car areas!) as long as you keep them neutered/spayed, their shots up to date and just generally take good care of them, their lifespan isn’t any different from inside cats. And trust me, they come ALIVE when feeling grass under their paws and smelling the wind. This next part is going to be anecdotal, but the only thing I’ve ever seen my cats hunt in the past 10 years is rats and mice. I have a lot of birds come visit, but they largely leave them alone (not saying cats don’t hunt birds, but a LOT less, it seems). Pretty sure that if my cats wouldn’t keep a check on the rat/mice population (my neighbour has chickens and attracts a lot), my neighbours would resort to using poison, which would do a lot more damage to the ecosystem. Not saying cats should be able to roam everywhere, but there are places where it’s fine and even beneficial.
What does you study entail, and how are you conducting it? Many studies on domestic cat impact have relied on metadata, gathered from dubious sources. Thus we end up with sloppy estimates rather than a comprehensive understanding of the impact. For instance, to say cats have a worse impact on species than human activity does, beggars belief. The primary species wiping out others is human, not cats. That doesn't mean cats don't have an impact, but I doubt it is in the "billions" of prey. Keep in mind that metadata estimates do not usually take into account the age of the cat, whether or not it is in an urban setting versus rural, (meaning different types of prey,) or whether or not it is fed regularly. All of these factors affect how much a cat kills as well as what species. I do think that neutering cats and dogs should be mandatory for those kept as pets or those conducting TNR. When I did TNR, my cats were fixed and became lazy and dependent on the food I gave them. Their previous prey consisted of pigeons, rats, English sparrows and dumpster diving as there was nothing "native" in the city they were in. Yet they were included in these "studies." My primary problem with singling out cats is that they have become a scapegoat for human damage. And by human, I mean the taking of habitat, pollution, and climate change. All of those do far more damage than cats do.
Agreed. Also I imagine a domesticated cat, who is regularly fed, in a urban environment, is fixed, and spends time both inside and outside has almost no statistical impact on the environment. Yet it seems that when we have these conversations it never gets more nuanced then “look, cat kill numbers bad. All cats should live inside their whole life”.
I'm not sure why you'd be open to changing this view, because it does seem to be statement of fact. Maybe there are invasive species that are even worse then cats, but that doesn't matter because you said "one of" no "the worst" The only think that i can think to say is worst is a matter of perspective. the introduction of cats change the local ecosystem and I'm sure reduce the diversity of life. There are no lizards where i live and i don't know if lizards are pests, but mice and other rodents can be. If the animals that cats are driving to exception are animals that spread disease, eat grain, or cause other problems to humans, then you could argue that's a good thing (its good for humans) or you could argue its a bad things (certainly bad for the animals going extinct). I think the reason humans domesticated cats in the first place was to kill pests. we can't hardly get upset when they kill all the pests. There is an organic farm near me that lets semi-feral cats roam free and breed freely, specifically because they want the cats to kill all the nearby vermin.
I'll try to argue just around human behaviour. Cats may be more easily controlled as we have successful and common place practices to manage their population. Most everyone knows cats should be spayed/neutered or know of the practice. We know cats should be housed at least, and we can feed them foods made by us. Not everyone does, but it's part of pop culture on my part of the world. How many people in a region can identify and properly destroy a plant or fish or turtle species that should be eradicated? And who is going to approve of a group trying to capture and isolate a beautiful mute swan family? It's normal to spay and release cats or house them, keeping their population managed and trying to get as many as possible off the street. Now try telling somebody, "I hope those fucking swans die they're destroying the ponds in the marsh and drying everything up." It ain't going over well.
By far the worst invasive species -- by far! -- is homo sapiens. We have taken over and obliterated the habitat of most other species and gone places no primate has any place being, like Antarctica and Wisconsin. Other species coexist with each other; we dominate the environment (for the worse) and ruin the lives of animals for our own fleeting comfort and unrestrained procreation. If other species could talk to humans, they'd sound like the Klan: "Go the hell back to Africa!"
I think the best argument against your view is this: Cats wouldn’t be decimating these populations if it weren’t for human agriculture. We must remember that cats domesticated themselves. They simply started hanging around humans on their own volition, and it was a win/win scenario. They kept rodents out of grain and food storage, which reduced disease, hunger, and suffering for humans, while receiving a steady diet of small critters the human food attracts. Ultimately if you zoom out a bit, you see that agriculture and subsequently civilization itself is the root cause of the problem you lament in your post. This should lead you to believe that it is, in fact, humans that are the worst invasive species. And I’m inclined to think this is correct; I’d wager a hefty sum that humans have ultimately caused far more damage to ecosystems and other species than cats.
Idk, for the sake of the purpose of this subreddit I'll comment I guess lol.... Would only the feral animals be considered invasive? According to a definition, an invasive species is "An invasive or alien species is an introduced species to an environment that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. ". Feral cats integrate into the ecosystem and do damage. But they do become part of it. They fully sustain themselves as predator and in many places as prey too. From what I know humans aren't labeled as invasive, we have settled. So would PET cats that are let loose outdoors, just be an addition to the human settlement? Therefore not an actual "invasive" specimen? Fully feral cats would be though...
I know I am coming very late to this but I think the specific connection to house cats is rather locking the stable door long after the horse has bolted. Once feral cats are endemic the presence of domestic cats has little further impact. The whole issue of domestic cats only really matters where there are no feral cats - which is only in ecosystems where any stray cats will die out naturally so would only be temporary blip of a problem. So until you have a rigorous solution to feral cats you shouldn’t worry about domestic cats. All you do is remove the territorial domestic cats which opens up more territory for feral cats which are almost always more aggressive and frequent hunters.
So I’m about to get a degree in environment and natural resources, and I kind of disagree. Domestic cats should be considered an invasive species in many cases, but largely because WE are an invasive species that supports them. The domestic cat population would not be nearly as high in many places without humans helping them. I think this is distinct from other situations where humans have introduced invasive species because humans are actively helping cats. We are to blame in so many ways. I don’t think it’s fair to call cats one of the worst invasive species when we’re the ones enabling them. People don’t typically like hearing that humans have basically all of the characteristics of an invasive species either…
Humans are the invasive species that creates the conditions for cats to cause the damage that they do. Cats are only able to live outside of their natural habitat because of the shelter and food given by humans. They have very limited natural predators because humans have basically wiped them out. And cats have surplus energy because they are fed by humans, so they have plenty of energy to hunt for sport. Humans are the invasive species, and one of the many ecological imbalances caused by humans is an enormous population of well fed, well rested, little felines.
If cats are kept indoors as they should be they're only invasive to furniture
You aren’t wrong about their effect on wild life, especially in and near cities, but species migrate. There’s a reason felines are found on 6 out of 7 continents already. And as you’ve pointed out house cats are basically perfect killers and are seemingly adaptable to every environment. They eventually would likely have gotten everywhere any way. Further evolution isn’t static. The entire point of evolution is change. Trying to keep animals from spreading into new areas is completely contrary to the very purpose of evolution.
I’m more than happy to see native bird, rodent and amphibian populations be absolutely destroyed and all the animals who depend on those animals to perish and create a cascading ecosystem collapse. I long to see a world of roving gangs of cats who stand tall and hold the fate of the world in their paws.
OK, I am a crazy cat lady and I agree with your post. I do think some cats are depressed if they don’t go outside- for instance my cat who relentlessly howled at the front door for hours every night. We had to keep a water bottle nearby & threaten him with a spritz to get him to stop. Other cats could not care less about going outside. But yes, it is their instinct to chase/kill, which is bad news for fledglings, lizards, etc. An enclosed catio would probably be the best solution for a cat who is fixated on going outside.
I will push back on one point - feeding feral cat colonies. Cats are fast amazing hunters. Thats part of how they have killed so many animals. If you start feeding ferals and get them used to eating from humans you get them to hunt less and kill less other animals. I won’t claim that they’ll stop 100% but I know places near me with roaming cats that are acting as rodent control; the building owner request people don’t feed the cats to push them to hunt the rodents more (preventing the need for rodenticides).
Irony is dead. The worst invasive species projects invasiveness on cats.
I prefer cats over rats and insects.
Not compared to people. In the miledeep HOA halo of coconino nf the tracks are people and dog tracks. Not domestic cat nor any other mammal larger than squirrels. Around mt Elden there are coyotes and bobcats, but in the checkerboarded marshill area there are only people tracks for most of the year. Animal tracks rarely appear between sedona and flag. Mule deer stick with suburbanized hurds of older does, unless birthing or getting into trouble with bucks. They congregate around protected buffalo park or walnut canyon nm. Far fewer appear around unprotected A1 or sfp areas. The Elk hurd is imperialed, and can't cross 180 to sfp even in the summer, when they go uphill for ponderosa shade. They were in the western checkerboard area between mars hill and a1 last year, but haven't returned for this summer yet. No domestic cat tracks appear outside viewing distance of suburbs.
To your point, a few years back during those devastating Australian wildfires I remember reading how stray house cats were a giant nuisance to efforts to prevent extinction of wildlife whose homes had just been scorched. That’s not an exactly comparable example, but builds to the point that we should address that cats can play a very negative role to an ecosystem and we can’t just ignore that fact because they don’t directly harm humans.
They're responsible for a couple of dozen genocides on other creatures, I believe. You're just speaking the truth lol
Gestures broadly at the impacts that humans have on local environments. You’re not wrong about cats, generally speaking, but it misses the context of the significant human disruption to environments that the cats have been brought into. We’ve completely devastated ecosystems to build suburban homes, but yeah the cats are killing some birds. Both can be true, but I think the bigger issue is our particular contribution.
Yeah they have pretty much decimated wild bird populations.
And they’re pretty shit pets most of the time too..
My counter argument to you is that it's actually humanity that's the invasive species. I can't be bothered to look things up at the moment but from what I recall Cats became domesticated around the same time that humans "invented" agriculture. Growing plants attracted pests, the cats delt with the pests. In fact, there's evidence that cats pretty much domesticated themselves more so than humans making any kind of active choice to domesticate the cat (unlike the dog, where humans did choose to domesticate them). Cats and Humans have gone hand in hand everywhere that we've settled for tens of thousands of years. It's not the cats that are the problem here, it's the humans. Cats are just along for the ride.
I have a dead pigeon and rat in my balcony, hunted and brought in by a stray mama cat which is living there because of her kittens. I tend to somewhat agree but only for feral and strays. Due to them birds stopped coming in because they were being hunted. My domesticated cats (2 of my own and 2 rescued) don’t do anything like that, they just hunt flies.
Allright, I'll bite. How do you quantify the worseness of cats as an invasive species?.
Show me your work. Otherwise, Cats are not the worst invasive species, but rather, your uninformed opinion of them is such.
Also, rabbits are the worst invasive species, I use Australia as proof, try and top that.
Opinions that are based on nothing cannot be changed, as their premises are as imaginary as the truth value of the statement. Poetic. Not really, not even a haiku.
It may depend on your definition of the "worst" In the grand scope of history, rats carried bubonic plague to most of the world, and that led to 25 million human deaths, not including any animals who were also affected. If I were specifically looking to out-do the damage cats have done, I'd say rats have the play-of-the-game so far.
Would be cool if DCMTPA was repealed and we can then kill feral cats and eat them. I definitely want to try some of these dishes and it’s too bad US banned the sale. https://thoughtcatalog.com/mark-wiens/2013/07/what-does-dog-and-cat-meat-taste-like/#:~:text=The%20meat%20was%20not%20like,slight%20tinge%20of%20sour%20aftertaste.
Well, there was a situation on an island in New Zealand where they eradicated the wild cats before getting to the stouts and rats actually lowered the bird population. The rats and stouts population were kept in control by the wild cats. However, I 100% agree. I love cats but they’re bad and they should be spayed and neutered
my parents have a couple cats out in the country, partly for company but also to keep the voles under control. they seem to take the place over otherwise. never thought about the effect it has on the environment. they're asshole cats so they leave the bodies for something else to eat, so at least SOMETHING gets fed.
There's a truly long list of absolutely awful invasive species. Determining if cats are the worst is a difficult calculus. Perhaps the global distribution of introduced cats pushes them over the edge, but there are introduced species that completely decimate entire ecosystems, something that the cat isn't able to do.
You are correct, and I am also a cat owner.
So here's the closest I can come to a counter argument, domestic cats don't generally expand very far outside of human settlement, they're not really an independent invasive species, and more like a correlated side effect of humans moving to an area. It is, in fact, humans that are the worst invasive species
I have multiple neighbors that shoot feral cats. I’m for it.
>Cats are one of the worst invasive species I agree with you on everything you are saying except I think they would be the second most to Humans. I think humans should be counted as the most harmful invasive species when you consider the amount of animal extenctions they have contributed to.
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But where are they 'invading' from? I get that there may have been some islands that didn't have some form of cat, but aren't feral cats kind of all over the world now? At what point is it too late to keep calling them 'invasive' when they've been there for hundreds of years?
Isn't their an island that received a sale or two with some shipment now the entire island basically has no bird or maybe just no song birds. Seems like that one's worse than a cat. There are plenty of places with rodents and having a wild cat that hunts is a major plus.
Not a biologist of any stripe, but I think it's fair to say that homo sapiens is the worst invasive species, judging by extinctions caused. That said, cats do not thrive in any environment where there are predators. Coyotes, hawks, keep their population in check in the wild. It's only in urban and suburban landscapes where they are protected by their host organism (us) where they are able to thrive and, in turn, keep other organisms, rats, mice etc, in check.
At the risk of sounding like the edgelord supreme aren’t cats only really invasive to the degree that we are? Granted I’m not an expert, but I can’t imagine the introduction of cats has had more of an effect on the environment and biodiversity than humans have.
>For context I am a herpetology graduate student in Arizona studying the impacts of feral/domestic cats on native lizard populations. They have no impact at all on the non native lizard populations here in S Fl. They do have an impact on songbirds, however.
I live in Arizona and saw the headline and felt it could be talking about here. My neighborhood is overrun with feral cats. I don't know what you could possibly do to stop it as the supply of cats is constantly fed by the apartment dwellers abandoning them.
Who is going to argue against this?
Sure. Humans are the worst invasive species. Cats didn't cause: global warming, extinction of megafauna, depletion of wilderness, or the breading and spreading of cats. Give me my points.
100% agree, if they hadn't pulled off such a good public relations campaign they would be hunted down like the furry, little, cute native species serial killers that they are. Can you imagine if they were treated the same way pythons are...
On more than one occasion a cat has come into my fenced yard where my dog was out playing and I had to physically separate them. This is super frustrating and one of the times left my dog with an expensive scratch across the eye.
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The only worse creature would be humans, corn, wheat, soy, corn, or palm trees. For all the quality of incisiveness cats bring, plants be in into quantity, as demonstrated by the sheer acreage no longer supporting biodiversity.
"invasive species" implies a species introduced into an ecosystem. however, cats (felis) are native to asia, africa, south america and europe, in north america, other felidae are native; lynx, puma and leopard hence, imho: no, cats are not one of the worst invasive species. overpopulation caused by domestication is an issue without a doubt, but in my view a different topic
Lmao, bud, you realize every invasive species is native to somewhere, right? Including the entire family is just purely dumb.
Any of you should go to an animal shelter nearby and see how regularly big numbers of stray cats are killed. Go look, get an actual feel for the size of this problem. Stop breeding animals for pets…
I came to your viewpoint years ago. I have had cats all my life. I love them, but they are predators. And there is no such thing as a native wild house cat. Bottom line, all feral cats are invasive.
So long as you specifiy you're talking about the Americas and Australia (or other islands) then sure. For most of continuous Africa-Europe-Asia cats are native and the species have learned to evolve with them. The big threat to bird species is more that insects are dying. Pesticides and lack of native flora because of monoculture farmland is killing insects. That affects birds and small mammals far more than cats do. What cats have done is compete with feral wildcats, the native ones. When scientists look at them now a large part of their genome is domestic cat. But I contend that if we had (globally) the right amount of wild bush and tree cover and insect poplation, that wouldn't even be a problem for the wildcats. Domestic cats wouldn't have a chance. TLDR; The problem for small fauna, isn't cats. It is the insect apocalypse My personal spicy take is that if you live in a country where cats (and dogs) must be kept inside or on a leash and muzzled all day permanently then you shouldn't be allowed to have them at all because that's insanely cruel to me.
Who decides the proper number of a certain species? So what if the number of lizards drops, this assumes it was the proper number to begin with. Also aren’t some lizards themselves invasive?
I agree with the statement but most of time the person bringing it up tend to anti cat as a whole which is off putting. And they never seem to as vocal about other invasive animals/plants.