Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!philmtl!atha!auvax.AthabascaU.CA!charlesv
From: charlesv@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Charles van Duren)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: wandering domestic cats
Summary: domestic?
Message-ID: <482@auvax.AthabascaU.CA>
Date: 30 Nov 89 15:56:02 GMT
References: <4018@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Organization: Athabasca University
Lines: 45

In article <2196@leah.Albany.Edu> gmr044@leah.Albany.Edu (Gregg Recer) writes:
>
>Personally, I think letting your domestic animals run loose in other
>people's yards is irresponsible and rude, even if it isn't illegal.
>
>There's nothing natural about semi-feral animals being let out of
>someone's back door to go kill off the local wild bird or rodent
>population.  
>
[...stuff deleted...]
>
>This argument that cats do some kind of service by killing rodents is
>pretty flimsy.  Are there a lot of tabbies out there killing hordes of
>lice-infected sewer rats and thereby saving us all from the plague?
> 
(1) Domestic and domesticated are not the same thing. Cats are domesticated;
that is, they feel at ease in our homes, and are to some extent tamed. They
are not by nature domestic, that is house animals.

(2) Domestic cats are but one of the many predators. You may not see them, or be
aware of them. I am. We have wolves , coyotes, foxes. We have almost every
imaginable kind of raptor. This is not to mention the carnage on the roads.

(3) Birds and rodents are not defenseless, and exist in LARGE numbers. Our
young cat caught one robin last spring, most likely because the birds around
our place were not used to cats. She never got near another one. The swallows
and robins ran a watch system. Anyone spotting the cat set off the alarm, and
the rest, robins and swallows, attacked the cat, swooping and screaming.
Needless to say, she didn't show herself too much. 

(4) We had a bad problem with mice last year, as did our neighbours. Rodents
are responsible for eating/destroying something like 25% of the world's food
supplies. Birds do a fair bit of damage. Have you ever seen flocks of blackbirds
landing in a ripe grain field? Farmers just love them, as you can imagine.
This year, not a single mouse-damaged root vegetable. The same for the
neighbours.

If you have a shortage of birds (or rodents :-)), it may be that the problem
is the result of the spread of human habitat, pavement, concrete, etc. Take
your attitude about cats out of the city, and you would be advocating the
eradication of magpies and coyotes.

May plagues of rodents overrun your house. 

Charles van Duren (speaking for Little Cat and Arthur)


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