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this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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chapotraphouse
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They are a problem everywhere. Their natural habitat is one that does not exist anymore. Wanting it to be true doesn't change the fact. It'd be like saying "dogs should just go back to their natural habitats" while speaking of pugs or mastiffs or whatever. We've spent 12.000 years breeding them and domesticating them, changing their physiology as we've likewise changed the ecology and biology of the world.
If you wanna be weird and pedantic go ahead, but in that case you can only have outdoor cats in this region of the arabian peninsula. Everywhere else they're non-native.
if they lived everywhere with humans for at least 2000+ years, from imperial China to imperial Rome and everything in between, i think you can say cats are ok
but ok, if you want to be pedantic, sure, they are not real cats if they don't come from the kat region somewhere in palestine 🙄
They very obviously haven't lived everywhere withoutnissue. There are countless examples of the introduction of cats leading to mass extinction of local fauna. It's also as if you're being willfully obtuse about what I am writing, and it is a bit frustrating. Why do you choose to only engage with parts of the text? We have changed the biosphere over the last 2000 years (and especially the last 200) to such an extent that cats no longer have a natural habitat. Do you not think that change extends elsewhere? The massive urban environments that dominate the globe now, as well as the massive amount of land dedicated to farmland means there are precious few areas wherein fauna can exist and procreate. Since these areas now are so limited, it is incredibly damaging when cats are in them to predate on the animals.
You can twist yourself into a pretzel by trying to find a myriad of justifications that do not actually confront the facts of the matter, or you could look at the facts of the matter and accept that outdoor cats are very damaging to the ecology.
You were the one arguing that they could be outside, as long as it was in the region where they came from. We're just following your logic.
I tell you cats kill an inordinate amount of local wildlife and you call me a lunatic colonizer anglo. I'm not even telling you what to do about it lol.
I'm sorry but cats kill an inordinate amount of wildlife, that's just how it is. There's done a bunch of studies on it. I'm loathe to quote Wikipedia, but go to the site I linked you and look thru the sources yourself then.
Cats kill a shitton of animals, and they do that wherever they are. That's not colonialism.
That was not a sentence I ever expected I'd write.
What part of cats being good at killing things is that hard for you to believe?
Edit: also fuck off with your ableism.
Americans desperately need everything to have a definite Right Way and Wrong Way, and the Right Way needs to involve significantly more money and/or effort (preferably being impossible), so that we can properly judge people who are Doing Things The Wrong Way as immoral. Of course that extends to cat care.
that's why we kept them around for millenias, and that's why - unlike chickens, dogs or cows - cats are just semi-domesticated. keeping cats inside is just cruel and bad practice
I have a cat. I have always had cats in my life. I love cats. I consider myself a "cat person" (who also loves dogs). But you really are being obtuse here. Even in places where cats are not a threat to literally entire species (as they are in much of the world), they can cause massive, irreversible destruction to the local wildlife. That is a fact.
The argument that it's cruel to keep cats indoors doesn't resonate with me either. Outdoor cats are far more likely to be seriously injured or killed by any number of things that are found only outside. From diseases to predators to sadistic humans, with the big obvious factor being cars. But a well-cared for indoor cat is a safe cat. I'm not going to look it up right now, but it's something like the average lifespan of an outdoor cat is only 3-4 years whereas indoor cats it's like 16-18. In my experience (and I've known a lot of cats, both indoor and outdoor) most that are raised indoors are perfectly happy to remain that way so long as they are given the things they need. That includes exercise and mental, emotional, and social stimulation. If you provide for them, there aren't many things they desire that they can get outdoor that can't also be given to them indoors. It is much more cruel to have a cat that you let outside but mostly ignore except to feed them, than it is to have an indoor-only cat that you make time for every day to play with, give affection, or otherwise engage. There are also plenty of compromises if you're a human that's privileged enough to be able to provide them, like outdoor enclosures.
Finally, this thing about calling the "cats should be kept indoors" argument an American position is just crude and wrong. The American way is more along the lines of "lol, I'm going to do what I want because I feel like it, I don't give a shit about all the evidence that what I want is harmful to others." In other words, "I don't care about the local bird, rodent, reptile, and native predator populations, I'm going to do what I want with MY cat" seems to be a hell of a lot more of an Americanism than @Egon@hexbear.net explaining to you why outdoor cats are a detriment to wildlife all over the world. When it's also taken into account that it's typically islands that have suffered the worst consequences of cats as an invasive species, islands that are also victims of US imperialism, saying that cats should be kept indoors is an American moral imposition is straight up offensive. At best, it's adding insult to injury.
Thank you for chiming in. It's been pretty frustrating talking to this debatebro on my own. The ableism of being called a lunatic is pretty shitty
Thank you for doing most of the heavy lifting trying to get through to them despite all that ableism and the obvious attempts to rattle you. It started to work on me, I was taking the last reply pretty personally at first (as was intended) before I saw it for what it was. It's too bad. At the very top of the thread I thought they might have been a decent comrade.
Yeah at first they just seemed like someone that didn't understand and wanted to, or someone that just had a different outlook. Sucks to see.
And yeah it's pretty taxing at times, I'm glad you could remove yourself from the situation mentally. take care
I don't treat my cat as a commodity at all and fuck you for implying I do. I give him the happiest most fulfilling life I can possibly afford, and it is good and happy. He is a joyful cat and I'm glad I was able to rescue him from the feral environment he was in as an "outdoor cat" where he was facing a harsh and short life before likely an early and painful death. [editing out some personal info here]. Don't fucking tell me about responsibility you smug cretin.
But you... what animals do you treat as commodities? You better be a vegan or any bullshit you're saying about others treating living, breathing creatures as a commodity you can fuck RIGHT off with your hypocrisy and moral superiority bullshit. (I am a vegan by the way because I'm not a hypocrite in my refusal to treat sentient life as a commodity).
Frankly, I find your use of leftist terminology to justify your selfish cruelty to not only your own pets but to the other life around them to be disgusting. If you can't or won't take responsibility for the harm you cause in the world for taking the lazy way of caring for a pet, for putting the sentient life that relies on you in danger, you are not fit to care for them at all.
Dawg I'm not an American. I don't think people desperately want cats to be good or bad or something. I think academics in the field have discovered an issue and are trying to handle it.
You can have outdoor cats or you can have wildlife, but you can't have both.
You've taken this discussion from being about cats "natural habitats" to arguing that the world hasn't changed in 2000 years, to one of discussing wether there is anything wrong with cats at all, to one of you appropriating leftist language to make you not thinking cats kill animals be about me being a lunatic anglo colonizer (I resent that ableism by the way. I also resent the other stuff, but the ableism you should be above), to a moral discussion of how cats should be treated.
It's pretty frustrating, you're obviously just trying to move the goalposts until the subject of discussion is finally one where you will be unproblematically right. That's not a good way to have a discussion.
“Most cats are probably better off being able to go outside, but not all of them,” Bjarne Braastad tells sciencenorway.no. He is a retired professor in ethology, the study of animal behaviour, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
According to Braastad not all cats want to be outside. If the cat has only ever lived inside from when it was a tiny kitten, then it would be perfectly fine for it to live inside for the rest of its life also."
https://sciencenorway.no/animal-behaviour-animal-welfare-cats/is-it-cruel-to-keep-your-cat-indoors/2107167 so, yeah, there is a movement to keep cats indoor, but it's some pseudo scientific internet thing, that is mostly a thing in anglo-countries* (https://icatcare.org/indoor-only-or-outdoor-access/). While other countries see it as pure animal cruelty "It is animal cruelty not to let them do what they like."
Why do you choose to be obtuse? I'm not arguing from what is best for cats, that hasn't been the argument at any point - I haven't even said that cats should be kept indoors. You keep trying to shift the discussion, it's really shitty debatebro bullshit.
Like cats are just damaging to wildlife, that's a fact, but it's like you keep trying to deny it, but also you can't deny it so you just shift the argument.
It's uncomfortable sure, but such is life. Stop trying to make this into some weird moral discussion, or at least first accept the fundamental facts.
Notice the repeated hijacking of leftist rhetoric and terms in all that obvious goal post shifting and obnoxious debatebro shit. Like trying to tie your plain facts explanation to you somehow having an imperialist, capitalist, mindset. Then telling me I treat my cat "as a commodity" after I had gone on about how meaningful cats are to me. Almost as if they're just trying to push buttons.
This conversation isn't about discussing the issue in good faith, it's someone who clearly doesn't have anything to back up their position and can only do the classic lashing out in a pathetic attempt to provoke.
Yeah it sucks. The mods used to crack down on that debatebro type thing. It did wonders for site culture, kinda hope they do again