A few years ago, the dog blogland was enamored with a concept: There is no pet overpopulation problem. There is only a bad animal rescue marketing problem.
In some sense, I think this is true, and as Christopher Landauer at the Border Wars blog has pointed out, the number of dogs being euthanized at shelters has dramatically dropped.
A few years ago, I was only an infant in this land of self-styled “experts” and “working dog” advocates. I believed just about everything the “elders” said until I started finding real flaws in their logic and “religious tenets.”
The concept that pet overpopulation could merely be addressed through marketing alone had a lot of people exciting came from a book called Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America (2007).
There may be some merits to what Winograd has to say about the exact nature of the pet adoption problem in North America, and I have noticed that there are really good moves on the behalf of some rescue organizations to better market dogs. For example, there are organizations that take dogs out of overfilled shelters in the South and take them up into New England, where shelter dogs are often somewhat difficult to come by.
I never read Winograd’s book, though, because I began to read some of his other writings. It turns out that he is in favor of TNR cat management plans, which go as follows: You catch the cat in a trap. You take it to the vet. It loses its gonads. You release the cat, and it forms a colony that keep other cats from coming in. Allegedly, this keeps cat colonies manageable, but in the reality there is little scientific evidence that this strategy reduces cat populations, though there are some “science through press release” studies out there that do make these claims.
Now, I am a firm believer in biodiversity. I think extinction is a big problem, and it is well-demonstrated that the one of the major causes of extinction is invasive species.
All over the world, man has introduced species after species to places where they wreak havoc upon native animals.
The best example of an invasive predator that destroys populations of native animals is the domestic cat. Now, in the US, we don’t have as severe problem with feral cats as a country like New Zealand does. Our native fauna has evolved with predators like cats, so they have evolved mechanisms to avoid predation. However, study after study has shown that even in a mesopredator filled North America, cats are making a big dent in our wildlife populations. According to one estimate, cats kill 1 billion birds in the US every year, and they are also taking their toll on reptile and amphibian populations.
Now, this is in North America, where the fauna evolved with terrestrial predation. In a place like New Zealand, the bird evolved for millions of years without ever seeing a mammalian predator. The birds became terrestrial themselves. Many, such as the giant night parrot known as the kakapo, became slow and inefficient breeders. And when cats, weasels, stoats, and ferret/polecat crosses arrived in their country, the native bird population had no way of dealing with predators. Species after species went extinct. This same story has been repeated on island after island, and it’s only now that we’ve tried to rectify the mistakes. Wildlife agencies all over the world are doing the best they can to control invasive species. In some places, like the islands off the coast of Baja California, the cat population has been extirpated, and native species have been given an opportunity to return.
We may not have a dog overpopulation problem, but we certainly do have a cat overpopulation problem. We are not an island with many unique endemic species, but we do have lots of lovely little animals that are certainly being harmed through predation from cats, both free-roaming and feral.
Now, when I say we have a cat overpopulation problem, I simply mean that cats can breed in the wild. Dogs almost never produce freely breeding populations, though they certainly can. It’s just that dogs have to learn so much in order to be effective scavengers and predators that are able to be able to raise young without humans caring for them, while cats, as somewhat lower animals, already have the instincts they need to survive on their own and rear their offspring. Further, when cats are born and raised in the wild, they become too wild to become tame. It matters not that their parents may have been pets. Without human contact during their critical periods for socialization, almost all feral cats cannot be tamed.
There are an estimated 82 million cats “owned” cats in the US, and there might be an additional 60 million ferals. These animals aren’t serving any real purpose in the ecosystem, other than they are adding to the mesopredator boom that has occurred in the United States since we’ve extirpated wolves and cougars from much of their native range.
Coyotes certainly are doing some good work on the feral cats in this country, but it’s pretty clear that coyote predation alone won’t control them.
In the Winograd world, TNR has been given near hallowed status. Never mind that these programs actually don’t end feral cat colonies. They manage them, and if this were implemented in an ecologically sensitive area, it would be a disaster. The cats would still be there killing whatever they could find.
The only way to end feral cat colonies is–gasp– to euthanize as many of them as possible.
Now, that might seem extreme, but let’s make one thing clear, we’re talking preserving as much biodiversity as possible. These cats are biological pollution. If a corporate polluter dumped chemicals into a river that killed as much wildlife as a cat colony does, you’d want them fined and forced to clean it up.
This is clean-up.
No one is saying that we should be torturing cats to death, but there is simply no good solution but to kill them.
Winograd has been challenged on this concept quite a bit. His answers actually reveal that he has a values system that is can simply be described as follows:
To hell with biodversity!
This is what Winograd has to say about those of us who think that invasive species ought to be controlled:
The idea that some animals have more value than others comes from a troubling belief that lineage determines the value of an individual animal. This belief is part of a growing and disturbing movement called “Invasion Biology.” The notion that “native” species have more value than “non-native” ones finds its roots historically in Nazi Germany, where the notion of a garden with native plants was founded on nationalistic and racist ideas “cloaked in scientific jargon.” This is not surprising. The types of arguments made for biological purity of people are exactly the same as those made for purity among animals and plants.
So I’m a Nazi because I think it is worthwhile to shoot stoats that might be preying upon New Zealand blue ducks? He can’t even argue his point without resorting to Godwin’s law, which tells you a lot about how much he’s actually carefully considered the concept of “invasive species.
Let me put it this way:
New Zealand blue ducks are native only to fast flowing streams in New Zealand.
Stoats are native to a wide range of the Northern Hemisphere. We North Americans call them short-tailed weasels or ermine, and many of our populations turn white in winter.
They are no way an endangered species.
They were introduced to New Zealand to control another invasive species, the European rabbit, which was destroying sheep grazing lands. The stoats did control rabbit numbers, but they were also able to expand much more rapidly because in addition to rabbits, New Zealand was then full of really predator-naive ground-nesting birds, most of which are now either extinct or endangered as the result of predation from animals like stoats.
Because New Zealand blue ducks are much more endangered than stoats are, it makes sense to control stoat numbers to protect the blue ducks.
It’s not a Nazi concept. It’s simply that conservationists don’t want to see a species disappear because of our stupid introduction of an invasive species.
And yes, in this calculus, the life of a blue duck is much more than that of a stoat.
That’s a reality-based calculus.
Winograd then goes on to make a strawman argument:
Trying to move the world to a mythical state that probably never existed lacks a moral or logical foundation. Nature cannot be frozen in time or returned to a pre-European past, nor is there a compelling reason why it should be. To claim that “native” species are somehow better than “introduced” species equally or better adapted to the environment is to deny the inevitable forces of migration and natural selection. No matter how many so-called “non-native” animals (and plants for that matter) are killed, the goal of total eradication can never be reached. As far as feral cats are concerned, they will always exist. To advocate for their eradication is to propose a massacre with no hope of success and no conceivable end. They exist and have a right to live, regardless of how and when they arrived or were “introduced.” Their rights as individuals supersede our own narrow, human-centric desires, which are often based on arbitrary biases, subjective aesthetics, or commercial interests.
No one is saying we want to return to a “pre-European past,” and it’s not just Europeans who have introduced species. The Polynesians brought pigs, dogs, and rats places like Hawaii and New Zealand, and it was North African traders who brought domestic cats into Sub-Saharan Africa. The goal of conservationists isn’t to return to past, but it is instead to preserve as much as we can.
Man has really waged war on nature in these past few thousand years. We have only now just begun to recognized the consequences of the war we have prosecuted. We cannot turn back time, but we can leave a few pocket behind. It may only be of aesthetic value, but in the long run, preserving biodiversity is the best thing we can do for life on the planet. Species come and species go, but the more diverse lineages we are able to leave relatively intact the better it will be for the forces of evolution to fill niches as extinction goes on.
Further, no one is saying is that we should freeze nature in time. Species have always introduced themselves through simple migration, but this not simple migration. This is man introducing a large number of species at a rate that has never occurred on the planet before. It took thousands of years for the two species of lynx that now exist in North America to become established here, but in only a few hundred years, we have established a vast breeding population of small wildcats.
Winograd thinks this desire to control invasive species is human-centric. It is not. It is life-centric.
That Winograd would go to such logical flights of fancy about animals really shows a vast weakness in the so-called No Kill Movement.
In another post from last year, Winograd goes into a bizarre reflection about the Audubon Society to cut down some cypress trees near where he walks his dogs:
They were beautiful. A row of Monterey Cypress trees that lined a path to the ocean. They provided respite from the winds, a home for birds, shade, and oxygen in exchange for our CO2. They were part of the walking trails at Fort Funston in San Francisco and every time we reached them, the dogs would get excited. They would start vocalizing and surging ahead. They knew. Because the trees, or at least I liked to believe the trees, foretold of what was to come: The ocean was within reach. There was sand to kick up, balls to chase, water to frolic in. I don’t know if the trees meant anything to the dogs, but I loved those trees. And they exist no more. Each and every one was cut down, leaving a row of stumps, an ugly scar on the beautiful seascape of one of San Francisco’s open space treasures.
They were not cut down by loggers trying to profit from their timber. They were not cut down to make chairs or tables or copy paper or toilet tissue. They were cut down by so-called “environmentalists.” They were killed by those whose mission was supposed to be their protection. According to the local chapter of the Audubon Society, the trees were not “native” and had to be destroyed.
Well, I can tell you that introduced trees are not biologically neutral.
Take my favorite tree that I have only been able to read about: the American chestnut.
Once a dominant tree in the Eastern forests, it is now extinct as a freely producing species in its native range.
That’s because when Japanese chestnuts were brought over, they brought with them a type of fungus that soon spread to the native chestnuts. The Japanese chestnuts had some immunity to the fungus, but the Americans did not. By 1940, the American chestnut was essentially extinct in the Eastern US.
They only chestnuts I’ve ever seen were Chinese ones that were planted as ornamentals.
Now, Winograd’s cypress trees really can’t be attacked in this way, but the Audubon Society is concerned with biodiversity. “Let’s try to preserve a bit,” is all they are saying.
If Winograd had stopped there, he might have had a point, but then he goes into this strange rant:
Invasion Biologists believe that certain plants or animals should be valued more than others if they were at a particular location “first.” When the species that were there “first” are competing for habitat with a species that came later, they assert that the latter should be eradicated. In championing such views, the movement paradoxically has embraced the use of traps, poisons, fire, and hunting, even when these cause harm, suffering, and environmental degradation. And the destruction of a beautiful tree lined path to the sea.
He has no idea why ecologists (“invasion biologists”) would want invasive species controlled in the first place.
It has nothing to do with “firstness.” It has to do with preserving bits and pieces of biodiversity when we can. Most of these invasive species have a very wide range, and when they wind up killing or supplanting unique endemic species, they create greater homogeneity throughout the world.
In the Ethiopian Highlands, there exists a relict species of canid, which we now call an Ethiopian wolf. It now found in only two disjointed pieces of the Highlands, and one of its greatest threats is the domestic dog. Domestic dogs do occasionally interbreed with them, but their biggest threat to the wolves is they carry diseases for which the wolves have evolved no immunity.
Domestic dogs are not endangered at all, and as regular readers of this blog know, it’s one of my favorite animals.
But I don’t want to see the Ethiopian wolf go extinct because of dog-born diseases. I want to see this unique lineage of the genus Canis preserved. Not because of its “firstness,” but because I know that there is an ethic that says we should try to preserve what we can. The world that man has created is one of homogeneity and biological depauperacy. In the long run of progress, our descendants may ask why we didn’t do more to preserve these species.
I ask that question of those people who made the dodo and the great auk disappear.
It’s an ethical question for which Winograd has no answer, and it’s why I cannot adhere to this No Killism.
I would add the well-documented case for the argument that the more biodiverse an environment is, the healthier and more resilient it is.
One might argue that introducing another species increases biodiversity, and there are indeed introduced species that appear to have enhanced rather than degraded, or at least had neutral impact on, their new environments. But species do not evolve in isolation, they bring with them their own mini-ecologies (parasites and symbionts of many diverse kinds.) We can’t predict the unintended consequences of all of them, even if we’re aware of them.
Regarding the so-called “invasive” species. These are species that for whatever reason, have an edge in the competition for room in their new environments. They’re not evil in and of themselves, but they usually lack the evolved controls of their native environment, thus allowing them to overpopulate and negatively impact their new environment. Will the new environment eventually evolve controls for them? Indubitably, but probably not before they drive many competing native species to extinction. This ultimately puts the biodiversity and thus the health of the new environment in jeopardy.
Finally, natural “invasion” by non-native species is a biological constant, as witness the Cattle Egrets now living in the south-eastern US. They may have an impact on the local ecosystem, but taken in isolation, its limited–the ecosystem is robust enough to bounce back. But when you introduce dozens of species in a short time, as is happening now, what you end-up with is disaster–biological warfare between natives and aliens as well as between aliens.
In most cases we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. But we should take responsibility for ameliorating the effects until such time as a new balance is reached.
There is one species that truly is close to being evil and really is invasive if you have followed it’s spread across the Australian continent over the last few decades. That litter critter is the cane toad Bufo marinus. It’s not the toads fault it was released in Australia but nearly everything that eats it dies.
Though the chances of evolving immunity to Bufo marianis toxicity are much higher than the chances of evolving ability to escape predation from feral cats (or foxes). Moreover, Australia’s endangered small marsupials (the numbat, bilby, etc) tend to be in arid regions where cane toads are not a problem.
It isn’t just about numbats and bilbys. Species whose numbers were once plentiful or at least considered “safe” are now at risk. That include goannas (monitor lizards), storks, cranes, magpie geese, kookaburras, even crocodiles are being devastated not to mention domestic pets. Anything that is likely to eat them is one meal away from death. The hope is that predators will learn to avoid the toads. An expedition in the 1980’s to South America in search of biological controls specific for these toads came up empty.
As I recall, you do have one native species of snake that can handle the toxins.
Yes but that snake species doesn’t grow very large. The toads are in Florida too but there at least the opossums can eat them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia
“Regarding the so-called “invasive” species. These are species that for whatever reason, have an edge in the competition for room in their new environments. They’re not evil in and of themselves, but they usually lack the evolved controls of their native environment, thus allowing them to overpopulate and negatively impact their new environment.”
Species (invasive or otherwise) never evolve controls on their own growth to protect ecosystems. There is no “kindly hand” shaping evolution towards ecosystem health; the only checks on growth are applied through competition, from other species. It just turns out that evolution happens fast enough (and its current products are imperfect enough) that we end up with a lot of biodiversity as an unintended consequence.
That wasn’t my intent. The evolved controls I spoke of were those that had evolved in the native ecosystem of the species in question, i.e., predators, parasites, and competitors. Those controls are missing or reduced in the new system, thereby giving the invasives an edge over native competition. (And just for the record I don’t perceive any “kindly hand” of any way, shape, size or religious bent being involved in the evolutionary process.)
I never heard of Winograd until I read your post. If he needs to invoke references to Nazi Germany to make his point then he has already lost his case. He studied law afterall. He is not a biologist.
Winograd ought to look deeper. The ideology adopted by the Nazis with regard to race had its roots in the American eugenics movement. Back when I was in college, while looking for books about American Indians I came across a book by Madison Grant titled “The Passing of the Great Race”. After reading it I thought if Hitler had not read it he could have written it.
Winograd is part of the lunatic fringe and ought to be treated as such.
I agree. His comparison to Nazism tends to negate any possible validity in his argument. It becomes an emotional call to arms vice an appeal to intellect.
Thing is people prefer cats (domestic animal even if its living wild) to wildlife. Cats are companions that become humanized to some degree in our minds. Wild animals are not.
This is why discussions of wolf behavior have gone from alpha/dominance to family unit! This may be used to describe the same behaviors but is more palatable to the public and thus more likely to encourage people to support wolf populations.
Taken to its extreme view removing invasive species would mean removing everything none native from the environment. This would include us in many areas!
People see introduced cats preying on native species as natural (even if its not) you will win very few people over to conservation if it involves killing lots of animals they like!
Adam
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I think cat people confuse feral cats with stray cats or homeless cats. Feral cats living a truly wild existence perhaps for a number of generations are nasty things. Even when adopted as kittens there is a nervousness to them.
Adam wrote: “This would include us in many areas!”
You could probably amend that to read: This would include us in any area outside the Rift Valley!
With regards to the Ethiopian wolf.
Won’t hybridizing with domestic dogs give it a greater resistance to disease? This might well save it from extinction.
Adam
It would, but I intentionally didn’t go there because it would be even more controversial!
Seems to me that we’ve been here before. Synopsis? Purists prefer extinction, pragmatics prefer continuance through hybridization. The idea being that given evolutionary pressures comparable to those that shaped the original, the hybrid will eventually resemble same. Genotype may be different but convergence almost guarantees the phenotype will regularize. Neither answer is an ideal outcome. But those are often the only choices.
Retrieverman, I have been reading your blog for a couple of years, and I enjoy it very much. However, every time you talk about this topic, you shoot yourself in the foot, often early in your essay, and I wonder whether you realize that you’re doing it.
I agree with you. Feral cats should be humane euthanized, as should unwanted cats who are destined to live their lives going quietly insane behind bars. Cats take a toll on wildlife. I get it.
I say this in spite of the fact that I love cats. I like all animals, but cats are my favorite. I’m a traveling nurse anesthetist. I go all over the country with a cat. I have lived with 1-3 cats all my life. I have known stupid cats, and I have known brilliant cats. I have known sweet, gentle, social cats and I have known prickly, proud, die-before-I-ask-for-help cats (and, boy, does it feel like a compliment when those guys trust you). I have known cats who had exceptional emotional intelligence when dealing with their own species, but not with people. And I have known cats who were practically human, but did not know how to interact with their own kind. People who don’t like cats tend to speak as though cats are little meat-machines, driven by stimulus and instinct, and more-or-less identical. This is nonsense. They are as different as people.
It is abundantly evident that you have never been loved by a cat. I am sorry for you. But you could maybe extrapolate from having been loved by a dog. It is not that dissimilar.
When you talk about dogs, even when you talk about dogs that should not exist (like pugs), your love for dogs comes shining through, and it makes people want to listen to you. Even people who disagree with you. You are always well-reasoned, but when you talk about dogs, the emotional note of your arguments resonates. You care deeply about dogs, even dogs that should be put down.
But you don’t care about cats. This is often evident early in your essays about cats, because you cannot resist a snide remark about their value/intelligence/etc. “It’s just that dogs have to learn so much in order to be effective scavengers and predators that are able to be able to raise young without humans caring for them, while cats, as somewhat lower animals, already have the instincts they need to survive on their own and rear their offspring.” And, even though I agree with your premise, I’m kind of done listening to you at that point.
“Lower animals”? What exactly does that mean? When you talk about dogs, you talk about learning. When you talk about cats, you talk about instincts. Cats, learn, my friend. And some of them have very poor instincts. They are not stamped out of a factory somewhere. Each one of them is unique – a personality that has never been before and will never be again. And, yes, I agree with euthanizing ferals, but you would never convince me of that if I didn’t already think so walking into your argument. Who is your intended audience for this essay? Only people who already agree with you *and* dislike cats? You could make all of your best points here without exposing your bias. Better yet, volunteer at a cat shelter, love a few cats, and then bring that experience into your essay about euthanizing them. It will make you convincing in a way that your snide remarks never will.
It’s kind of like this – There is some good evidence that providing readily available birth control and abortion services in poor neighborhoods reduces crime (because the unwanted babies would have grown up ignored and abused and turned into criminals). This is quite logical. However, it is a very emotional topic for most people with logic riding shotgun. If I were trying to sell this argument to a skeptic, I would never reveal the facts that I don’t like babies and I believe the world is overpopulated. Those things are true, but they have no bearing on my point about low-income neighborhoods, and they show a bias that could invalidate my argument to listeners. Do you see what I’m saying?
Anyway, I enjoy your blog. You are a very smart guy. I wish a cat had loved you.
I say they are lower animals than dogs in the same way that crabs are lower animals than octopuses.
It is demonstrable that cats lack many cognitive abilities that dogs do. I can show you studies.
We can agree that a chimp is smarter than a dog, and we can use the exact same standard to prove that cats aren’t as intelligent as dogs.
There has never been a guide cat. No cat has ever been used in war. No cat has ever been used as a hunting animal, unless we count caracals and cheetahs.
Cat agility is kind of a joke too. People drag a string through the hoop and think it’s the same as a dog that takes cues and gives attention to the handler. Geez!
Being a cat (and dog) lover myself, I know what you mean. But also having been raised by a family that detested the ground cats walked on, I can accept Scottie’s aversion (not agree w/ it but accept it.)
Nevertheless, your argument about not sharing those views irrelevant to your intellectual argument that indicate a bias does hold water. But, its very hard to do, may be seen as underhanded, and will definitely cause problems if discovered later (think politics.)
Scottie lays all his cards on the table. That may put him at at disadvantage w/ those who disagree, but its an admirable quality.
It’s not that dislike cats that I wrote this.
Cat overpopulation is actually a major welfare problem. The sad thing is cats are cheap, and they reproduce at a rate that no native Carnivoran can match.
I love cats. Perhaps as much as dogs. But I would like to see all outdoor and feral cats eliminated by any means necessary.
See my comment above. I should have saved it for you.
Great post, thank you for posting! They use the TNR method to control raccoon populations in the Toronto Zoo.
I am amazed by the number of intelligent people who think catch, desex and release is an enlightened way to deal with feral cats.
btw, the American chestnut is not entirely extinct. Chestnuts that are hybrid between American and Chinese species are being produced. See
http://www.chestnuthilltreefarm.com/store/pg/35-The-Dunstan-Chestnut.aspx
I’ve heard of this cross, but I’ve not seen them in person.
They’ve begun some major planting programs in MD.
I completely agree with you on this essay, with the additional point that you gloss over the damage that “owned” outdoor cats do by focusing entirely on their feral peers.
Free-roaming cats are in many respects worse from an ecosystem standpoint as they are subsidized predators. If a feral cat population decimates the prey population, cats starve to death until the populations are somewhat in balance again, and the reduced numbers of predators gives the remaining prey at least some chance at recovery. Roaming housecats on the other hand don’t have to play by the same rules of population dynamics; if they eat nearly all the nearby songbirds, they can leisurely eat Fancy Feast back at the house instead and stay in fine hunting shape and numbers while wiping out the rest.
You’ve not seen my posts on keeping cats indoors!
Here’s my “Modest Proposal” : https://retrieverman.net/2011/03/21/a-modest-proposal-for-the-free-roaming-cat-mafia/
Indeed I hadn’t! Thanks.
Tbh I would never keep my cats indoors for much the same reasons that I would never keep my dogs permanently on leash.
I think any species that is wild for a number of generations will have nervousness in them. I bet dogs that have been wild for a few generations have added nervousness (nervousness might be the wrong term but weariness might be better) I have a client who has adopted two dogs descended from generations of feral dogs (captured as 4/5 wk puppies) these dogs are more alert than ”normal” dogs and seem more focused. The younger one is more adult than many dogs his age and in fact more adult than some mature dogs!
These dogs are very alert to the unfamiliar. I suspect this is a wild trait for survival.
Re the Ethiopian wolf. I believe some attempts are being made to vaccinate local dogs, plus to remove hybrids from the population. The population is quite small at this point and probably closely related. I suspect not only do hybrids have added resistance to disease but also add genetic diversity. It would be ironic if the pure wolf was saved from disease only to die off with inbreeding issues.
Hey Scottie,
I agree with you. I think SNR is a mistake. One thing you didn’t mention is that most of these colonies aren’t allowed to sink or swim. There is no pruning of the population by starvation. They create an attractive nuisance in that “cat ladies” (both male and female) come out of the woodwork and feed them. I know a woman here in San Francisco who has been doing this for years. Before she started feeding them, we had wild quail and rabbits in the park. I haven’t seen any of those in 20 years. And the cats carry fleas that infest the park. We have had some coyotes colonize the park in recent years, but I’m not sure of any affect they have had on the cats.
I question Winograd’s statement that environmentalists cut down those trees for the simple reason that Monterey Cypresses ARE native to the area, coming from Monterey, which is about 60 miles south of here. They are one of the few trees that can take the often brutal winds of the coast.
BTW, I read about a new experiment in SNR, where they give the caps vasectomies instead of neutering them. Supposedly, it works better because they still fight with other males and keep them out of their turf.
Oops, that’s “effect”, not “affect”. My fingers don’t always type what I tell them to.
Re cats v dogs on learning/instincts.
I suspect some of it is to do with the lifestyle. A free living cat hunting small prey has more chances to succeed and less risk than a feral dog trying to hunt large prey. My cats have gotten better and better at hunting as they get older, they certainly didn’t start out great as 6 month kittens but probably peaked in skill level at 3 or 4.
Many domestic dogs have excellent predatory instincts. I’ve known some dogs that were able to kill large prey on their first encounter with it. These were more natural breeds. Maybe just a physical advantage though!
Cats are less artificial than dogs! We breed lots of freaky dogs but most domestic cats are pretty much the same type as a feral/wild cat.
Re cat training, I suspect we’ve simply never needed to try, we have dogs. Why bother creating a cat (quite small) to hunt with you when you have a ready made dog/wolf.
Also you have the social aspect, cats are at bets semi social. They may live in colonies but hunt alone. Dogs often hunt together. Joint effort following direction is hard wired into dogs.
Be interesting to domesticate an Ethiopian wolf and see how trainable it was compared to a timber wolf! Why because timber wolfs hunt as a pack but Ethiopian wolves hunt alone.
Adam
“Cats are less artificial than dogs! We breed lots of freaky dogs but most domestic cats are pretty much the same type as a feral/wild cat.”
I agree for the standard DSH moggie, but not for pedigree cats.
The cat fancy has produced some quite unhealthy breeds that are about as likely to go feral as the average pug . . . do some searching on ‘most unhealthy pets’ and you’ll find that some pedigree cat breeds run annual vet costs to rival the most unhealthy of dog breeds. And the practice of desexing kittens before placement in family homes is very widespread among cat breeders.
Cat-lickers always make the same claim and lie, that cats can never be made extinct. Of course not, not with cat-lickers trying to solve the problem that they created and are hellbent on perpetuating — only finding excuses on why they can’t. They’re dead wrong.
There’s a well-known method that is able to completely eradicate any species on any continent — “Hunted to Extinction”. It worked where I live when it comes to cats. My lands were infested with hundreds of them. Then one day I realized how bad the situation had become when a mother raccoon who was so starving to death from cats having destroyed all her food-sources that she couldn’t even make milk for her cubs. She literally dragged her two starving cubs to my door in the middle of the day as a last-ditch effort to try to survive. (They recovered well under my care.)
The relentless and non-stop hunting of cats then started and didn’t stop until every last one was gone. And by inventing some unique methods, this was accomplished by myself on large tracts on land in dense brush and woods and heavy undergrowth in only 2 seasons of my time. The eradication so complete and effective that I’ve not seen even one cat in nearly 4 years now. Should any cat happen to wander through again one day? Shoot on sight, A.S.A.P. Cats attract cats (the origin of that “vacuum effect” myth and lie). If you leave even so much as one cat on your lands you can guarantee that you’ll be a**-deep in them again in no time, with them destroying all your wildlife and spreading their deadly diseases again. 1 cat = back to square one. Get rid of every last one and there’s none there to attract more of them.
My lands have been recovering faster than I could have ever thought possible. I estimate that I spot about 1 returning or one never-seen-before species PER DAY since every last cat has been gone. That’s a lot of species in 4 years. I had no idea that cats had destroyed or starved out that many species of life during their time here. Shooting and burying every last cat you see brings you a priceless, immeasurable, and lifelong reward; for all other life on earth, as well as for yourself.
Hunted to extinction (or in this case, extirpation of every last outdoor cats), works and is 100% effective.
A few of my tips and methods whereby I managed to get rid of every last one of hundreds of these destructive vermin in only two seasons can be found (in Reader’s Digest form) at: americanhunter D0T org SLASH blogs/arkansas-will-trap-feral-cats
For nighttime the scented trails on all roadsides and IR cams worked best, for daytime the help of learning the predator calls of squirrels was best. They always alerted me to the presence of, and led me directly to, some of the most wary and difficult to shoot cats of all.
You must take direct relentless action against stray cats, you can’t just wait for them all to show up one day or they just keep coming and coming. It’s the only way to stay ahead of their breeding rates and the rates at which MORON cat-lickers and cat-dumpers keep letting more being born and dumped outdoors.
May your cat-infestation disappear as fast and completely for you as it did for me.
I also found a perfectly 100% natural solution for those who don’t want to take more direct, more humane, and more effective measures (firearms and air-rifles) against free-roaming invasive species cats.
It is also legal in the USA to use poisons on any species that have been listed as “vermin”. Surprisingly, stray cats have been listed as vermin in the USA since the early 1900’s.
When considering cats, one must weigh the 1 or 2 days it takes a cat to die using the following method against the THOUSANDS of native animals that one cat will skin-alive, disembowel-alive, and torture to death or die slow deaths for days and weeks from infections and wounds during that invasive 4-legged killing-machine’s lifetime. The long-term suffering of thousands and thousands of native animals and their offspring far outweighs the short-term suffering of one invasive-species cat. Destroy one invasive species cat = save the lives of thousands of native animals from being tortured and left to suffer to death, animals that actually belong here.
Anyone who has criminally irresponsible cat-lickers in their area need only plant lilies on their properties. (Must be from the Lilium species, not just with “Lily” in the common name, see notes.) Cat-lickers always want their more responsible neighbors to grow plants around the perimeter of their properties that will repel their cats for them (from the cat-owners’ own criminally negligent and criminally irresponsible behaviors and values). Well now you can brighten up your yard AND repel cats naturally! — PERMANENTLY
(WARNING: If these plants are not native to your region don’t plant these if they cannot be contained, or risk introducing yet another invasive species!)
Google for: lily toxicity cats
It has been reported that a cat even licking a little bit of Lily pollen from their fur will be fatal in short order. A cat even drinking some of the water in which a bunch of lilies has been kept is also fatal to them.
Everyone happy! You get to have the kinds of plants that you want, they get to have the kind of pets that they want — if they take care of it like any responsible grown-up would. Or are cat-lickers now going to demand that you can’t plant flowers on your own property? That would be their next and usual move, wouldn’t it.
A perfectly natural solution to an invasive species animal that didn’t evolve with Lilium species around. Plus it’s a good incentive plan for cat-lickers to finally educate themselves all about ecology, native species, and evolution. :-)
Doing a little research on ASPCA’s toxic plants lists (Family: Liliaceae).
Lilies (Lilium species) that are deadly toxic to cats ONLY, in even small quantities (even the pollen will do):
Common Name | Scientific Name
Asian Lily (Asiatic Lily) | Lilium asiatica
Easter Lily | Lilium longiflorum
Red Lily | Lilium umbellatum
Rubrum Lily ** | Lilium speciosum cultivar
Stargazer Lily ** | Lilium orientalis
Tiger Lily ** | Lilium tigrinum
Wood Lily | Lilium umbellatum
(not of the Lilium species)
Orange Day Lily | Hemerocallis graminea
( ** see notes below)
Lilies (Lilium species) that may be toxic to dogs if the dog ingests enough:
[NONE]
Be sure they are from the Liliacea Family, has “Lilium” on the plant label or are common N. American Day Lilies. Many plants with “Lily” in the common-name are not of the “Lilium” species, and are in fact toxic to other species of animals besides cats. Double check. On further investigation I also found out that all plant-parts, the blossoms and pollen being the most toxic, if harvested and dried (for year-round use) are just as deadly toxic to cats (if not more-so because of the unknown toxin being concentrated), and the drying makes them even more palatable to cats. What a great mulch for gardens! (Or a ground-up additive for a special outdoor can of tuna.)
** There have been some anecdotal reports of some free-roaming cats that have spent many years around some of these particular species of plants and still survived. So it is best to harvest, dry, and grind-up the plants and mix them into any appropriate bait-foods to be most effective.
In case you are curious — the term that I use of “cat licker” is justifiably and accurately gleaned from the growing fad of people who are obsessed with cats and want to do everything possible to make their cats feel good, as naturally as possible, at the expense of all that is reasonable and sane.
They are now licking their cats clean.
youtube D0T com SLASH watch?v=p9xmiOxsTWg
Since they see a cat fighting back from being washed in water as animal abuse, but the cat not fighting if they use their tongues, they use their tongues instead to wash their cats.
It’s just another one of the many aberrant and mentally-ill behaviors of “cat lickers”.
I cannot, in all good conscience and honesty, EVER use the term “cat lover” again to describe these heartless and spineless cretins. People who love cats do not throw them under the wheels of moving cars, let them lap-up antifreeze in a gutter, force them to attack one another to fight for territory (no different than people who run dog-fight rings and are just as criminal of animal abuse), or let them be attacked by other animals by letting them roam free. “Cat Lover” is an extremely oxymoronic label. “Cat Licker” is the only one that accurately works today.
As a gardener/botanist.
Lillium is a genus. Lilliaceae is the family. Very few of these are weedy. Keeping them going will usually be harder than keeping them from escaping.
Lilium and Hemerocallis spp.are toxic to cats . . . so day lillies are also toxic.
If you can’t grow lillies, half the drugs in your medicine cabinet are toxic to cats, including most NSAI’s.
See http://www.petpoisonhelpline.com/2012/04/top-five-feline-toxins/
Daylilies do well here in MD–despite some deer depredation. True lilies of any kind are deer candy. There are tons of orange daylilies around, but I haven’t seen any dead or dying cats scattered in or near the clumps.
Day-Lilies aren’t just candy to deer. During my backpacking days I used to enjoy coming across some damplands full of them. The blossoms and unopened flower-pods have a refreshing sweet taste not unlike sweet-peas. A refreshing snack on the trail. One of the many wild edibles growing out there. Their sweetness could be why they are such a tasty treat for cats (and other animals) too. The nodding and bobbing blossoms being even more tempting to cats’ “attack anything that moves” instincts.
As far as finding some cats scattered around … it takes a day or two for the toxin to have any effect. If they are like most animals they will go off and hide somewhere when they know they are dying (or just ill) and not able to defend themselves like they used to — waiting to get better, or in this case for cats, waiting for the inevitable end.
The tubers are also edible.
Thanks for the clarification on genus vs. species. I was using the plural of species (spp) in reference to the genus, but I suppose for the non-layman, that’s not quite the way to do it. :-)
re: planting cautions — Since I usually post this information where there’s a worldwide audience today, I tend to cover all bases JUST IN CASE some of these species, if introduced, will grow like weeds in someone’s region. Never can be too careful if propagating a non-native species somewhere.
I also tell people about the use of acetaminophen (paracetamol, overseas) as being much safer for the environment and other species than the antifreeze and rat-poisons that cat-lickers have forced everyone into using, but thought a 100% “natural” method might be more palatable to those who don’t want to be confronted by manufacturers or those that balk at using other man-made chemical means. They think their cats are “natural”, so lets keep the solution “natural”. Whatever can they complain about then?! :-)
(Aside: the utter folly of TNR can be summed-up in one simple question to cat-advocates, “If you believe that your cats are a natural part of the environment then why are you even bothering to sterilize them?” Their agreement to sterilize them is also their agreement that they don’t even belong there in the very fist place. But try to get them to comprehend this simple and blatant hypocrisy of theirs and their home-schooled brains implode.)
There was also some new reports about many cats being poisoned by common flea/tick medication for canines. “Permethrin” being very species specific. Another one to keep in mind if you happen to have some around. From the reports I’ve read I guess even the vapor from a nearby application on another animal is sometimes enough.
As they say, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” (methinks the origin of that phrase being due to sharing past cat-infestation eradication methods :-) )
All I was going to say was an Aldo Leopold quote re blue ducks et al :, save all the pieces. Anything that endangers doing so is a problem.
Top notch article. I am really enjoying this latest series and hope they find a wide and appreciative audience.