Canis lupus hominis

Posted in domestic animals | Tagged cats, domestic cats | 7 Comments

7 Responses

1. on August 11, 2012 at 6:26 pm ragingbulldogges

   I totally agree with you on this one, Scotty. When I first moved here 29 years ago, i used to see wild rabbits and quail in the park all the time. Then, people started feeding stray cats right in the park. Then came neuter/release. It hasn’t made any difference. It’s been at least 20 years since I’ve seen any rabbits or quail. I can only hope that the newly immigrated coyotes will catch lots of cats.

   
   
   • on August 11, 2012 at 6:28 pm retrieverman

     California quail are beautiful animals.

     
     
2. on August 11, 2012 at 7:40 pm Jen Robinson

   Getting the right predator / prey balance in a managed ecosystem is tricky.
   It takes me about an hour to download a minute of video, so I’m not going to watch this one. The cover shot, however, reminds me of my late mother, who used to have a similar bird feeder setup. Except that she stood by with a squirt rifle filled with a rich mixture of ammonia and water. The cats learned to stay away from her bird feeder.
   California quail are lovely, but a bit like free range chickens in a veggie garden, and they are definately r-strategists. Mom always kept one Labbie. All her dogs knew ‘bad birds’ as a command. It meant “go storm the quail.” The dog never caught quail, but seemed to enjoy chasing them. They still damaged the garden, but the dog did no harm.

   
   
3. on August 12, 2012 at 6:28 am Peter Dawson

   I don’t think people in our village are necessarily meaning to show off and it doesn’t matter if they are because the profusion and variety of feeding stations and nest boxes definitely help to sustain our garden bird numbers. Mary and I even keep our nut feeder filled all year, especially for the blue tits which seem to appreciate year round nut provision. We use a double walled design which defeats your Eastern Grey squirrels. I say “your” because they were unwisely introduced from America, (though not with such devastating effect as your dreadful ‘fast food’) but fortunately the squirrels cannot swim the English Channel so that the native red squirrels still prevail on the mainland free from squirrel pox. Rather mixed comment there, sorry about that.

   Since they were reintroduced to England from Spain around 1989 the beautiful red kites (milvus milvus) have increased massively. They are once again a wonderful sight soaring above us on that nearly six foot wingspan. They eat mainly worms and roadkill plus small rodents, but are also being fed from gardens in the winter where they make a magnificent spectacle swooping down like eagles to pick up chicken remains from snowy lawns.

   
   
4. on August 13, 2012 at 8:46 pm Alejandro

   Ive been reading your posts about all the damage feral cats do.
   I think there is a case in which feral cats are good

   I live in a megalopolis of 14 million inhabitants, Buenos Aires, and the animals feral cats eat are basically rats and pidgeons, and since both rats and pidgeons are pests I think cats generally do good, at least in this enviroment.

   
   
   • on August 13, 2012 at 8:57 pm retrieverman

     I bet the do some damage to indigenous species in Argentina. So much that it’s not worth whatever good they do with rats and pigeons.

     I bet they kill all sorts of native lizards, frogs, and birds.

     In even in a city, cats carry diseases, like rabies and toxoplasmosis.

     
     
5. on August 13, 2012 at 11:47 pm Alejandro

   Hi, I asked some people on twitter if they had ever heard of domestic cats gone wild in the countryside and they thought that there were none or very few. One is going to ask some biologist friends tomorrow. I googled and found nothing about it, I also never saw anything on the news about feral cats outside of cities. We do have 2 small wild cat species, pampas cat and geoffreys (probably misspelled) cat, perhaps those 2 are too good for the domestic cat to succeed outside of cities.

   
   

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