Cats: Why? Why not? Vote now please!

[Debs]

I love cats, have four of them, 9 years ago adopted three black sister rescue kittens, and some years later we adopted a young stray feral ginger tom who was terrorising the neighbourhood, however after getting caught and a trip to the vets he soon changed his caterwauling humping fighting spraying ways

I think it's a sad fact of reality that far too many cats are left to breed, and around here farmers are the worst culprits for allowing this.
My theory is the farmers like a supply of feral cats around the farm for rodent control, however the alpha feral tom cats force the weaker toms away, so they move into housing neighbourhoods to take their chances.

I believe the cat population of the UK is far too high, and control of it should be taken seriously by neutering as many as possible before they are let to breed.
One only has to look at the over capacity at cat rescue centres to see there is far more supply than demand, it's very heartbreaking.

[Vorpal]

Cat's hunt better with a bell on, it tells them how stealthily they are moving.

That seems to be an urban myth. Theis study found a 41% reduction in kills https://phys.org/news/2010-10-bell-coll ... birds.html

Although one does need to be a bit careful with collars on cats. They can get hung up on branches and fences and things.

I love cats, have four of them, 9 years ago adopted three black sister rescue kittens, and some years later we adopted a young stray feral ginger tom who was terrorising the neighbourhood, however after getting caught and a trip to the vets he soon changed his caterwauling humping fighting spraying ways

I think it's a sad fact of reality that far too many cats are left to breed, and around here farmers are the worst culprits for allowing this.
My theory is the farmers like a supply of feral cats around the farm for rodent control, however the alpha feral tom cats force the weaker toms away, so they move into housing neighbourhoods to take their chances.

I believe the cat population of the UK is far too high, and control of it should be taken seriously by neutering as many as possible before they are let to breed.
One only has to look at the over capacity at cat rescue centres to see there is far more supply than demand, it's very heartbreaking.

I think there should be a catch, neuter and release program, like they do some places in the US. Feral cats get to be feral, and look after the rodent populations on farms, but the reproduction numbers go down.

Our most recent adoptee is a former stray. We've been feeding him for years, but he wouldn't let us get close enough to pick him up & he was wary of traps, but last November, he let me pick him up, so I brought him inside. He has since been neutered. He has settled pretty well into indoor life, and is content to go out a couple of times per day, chase off the neighbour cats, and then sit in the sun. He's been a little slow to socialise & still keeps himself aloof from the other cats, but everyone has sort of settled on an uneasy truce.

[Debs]

Our most recent adoptee is a former stray. We've been feeding him for years, but he wouldn't let us get close enough to pick him up & he was wary of traps, but last November, he let me pick him up, so I brought him inside. He has since been neutered. He has settled pretty well into indoor life, and is content to go out a couple of times per day, chase off the neighbour cats, and then sit in the sun. He's been a little slow to socialise & still keeps himself aloof from the other cats, but everyone has sort of settled on an uneasy truce.

There are differing degrees of feral, i'm pretty sure the ones we get raiding our neighbourhood are local ex-farm cats, so are probably used to humans nearby if not close-up. I notice some are friendly enough to get close up and be stroked, others are far more timid and keep their distance.
These feral tom cats are a nuisance; noisy at nighttime, they fight dirty, and will spray on doorway or even worse if you leave a door open they will come in the house to scavenge any food and spray to their stinky delight.



This black feral tom [ picture above ] used to come calling a couple of times a month, he was a real charmer, very friendly, i had a plan to basket him up to the vets for biochemical adjustments [ have his nuts unscrewed ] but i don't have the facilities for the aftercare or rehoming, and can't take on another tom cat on having got one already. Besides with four cats in my household already there are no more vacancies. I don't want to turn in to Crazy Cat Lady - if i haven't already!

Picture below is my adopted ex-stray ginger displaying his injury after a fight with the black cat pictured above. This caused a trip to the vets.
Mysteriously, we haven't seen the stray black cat around here for a year now, i hope he's found a nice home somewhere to settle, but think it's more likely he's no longer alive. These cats live a very hard way of life, the life expectancy of a feral cat is 8 years.

[[XAP]Bob]

The bells might be an urban myth, the only cat I’ve ever had who had any interest in birds wasn’t affected by wearing one, two or even three (the breakaway collar never broke away).

He wasn’t that interested in birds normally, went through a phase of killing and eating them in addition to his food - though I might blame that on the grey squirrel.
Fitted an RFID cat flap when the food was going down a bit fast... next morning I was working early “thud” a grey squirrel was trying to get in.

[Vorpal]

There are differing degrees of feral, i'm pretty sure the ones we get raiding our neighbourhood are local ex-farm cats, so are probably used to humans nearby if not close-up. I notice some are friendly enough to get close up and be stroked, others are far more timid and keep their distance.
These feral tom cats are a nuisance; noisy at nighttime, they fight dirty, and will spray on doorway or even worse if you leave a door open they will come in the house to scavenge any food and spray to their stinky delight.



This black feral tom [ picture above ] used to come calling a couple of times a month, he was a real charmer, very friendly, i had a plan to basket him up to the vets for biochemical adjustments [ have his nuts unscrewed ] but i don't have the facilities for the aftercare or rehoming, and can't take on another tom cat on having got one already. Besides with four cats in my household already there are no more vacancies. I don't want to turn in to Crazy Cat Lady - if i haven't already!

Picture below is my adopted ex-stray ginger displaying his injury after a fight with the black cat pictured above. This caused a trip to the vets.
Mysteriously, we haven't seen the stray black cat around here for a year now, i hope he's found a nice home somewhere to settle, but think it's more likely he's no longer alive. These cats live a very hard way of life, the life expectancy of a feral cat is 8 years.

aww, poor mog.

We had a spraying war around ours between our (still tom, at the time) feral, and another that has since been rehomed. At one point one of them got our bike trailer, and I was not impressed. I was impressed with how well [product which the filter modifies to 'micturate off'] worked on it.

We have a little charity in our area that helps neuter and rehome cats.

[Pebble]

Not more than us of course. They are about to build a new retail park up the road, it will destroy hedges, a bit of woodland and some farmland which was generally under arable but could have been even more useful to wildlife when under a ley crop or pasture. That land will be lost to birds, small mammals, insects, soil dwelling creatures etc forever.

Essentially what we will do will be the effect of having 1,000 cats on it forever. It will be lost green space with maybe 1% of the previous biodiversity quality. It's hard to compare that to cats.

In an ideal world where there is an abundance of habitat, cats would have little if any impact on bird numbers. But unfortunately habitat for wildlife is being lost at an astonishing rate and the vast majority of our wildlife is in serious decline, 25% of UK bird species are now RED listed (considered as a risk of extinction). So even though cats are absolutely not to blame, the sheer collapse in bird numbers means we need to be doing everything we possibly can to help. get a bell for your cats neck, drive slower, put up bird boxes, create habitat, feed them in the winter, they need all the help they can get at the moment.

But the future does not look good, our population is increasing dramatically, rising faster in numbers than ever before, heck we need a 100,000 new homes every year just to keep up with the migration crisis, and another 100,000 homes for natural growth. We need a new city the size of Coventry or Leicester evry single year, As for the countryside our farmland can't even feed us now - wildlife is sadly just being pushed out.

[francovendee]

There are large numbers of farm cats here. Not really owned by the farm but hang around the buildings after the rodents. They're sort of semi-tame, you can sometimes stroke them but mostly they just watch you. As you'd expect they produce lots of kittens. If the farmer finds them he'll usually put them in a bucket and drown them. The ones that don't get this treatment have a poor life and don't live more than a couple of years.
Cats are a problem in our eyes but neighbors don't see it.

[kwackers]

In an ideal world where there is an abundance of habitat, cats would have little if any impact on bird numbers. But unfortunately habitat for wildlife is being lost at an astonishing rate and the vast majority of our wildlife is in serious decline, 25% of UK bird species are now RED listed (considered as a risk of extinction). So even though cats are absolutely not to blame, the sheer collapse in bird numbers means we need to be doing everything we possibly can to help. get a bell for your cats neck, drive slower, put up bird boxes, create habitat, feed them in the winter, they need all the help they can get at the moment.

It's not the lack of habitat (although that doesn't help).
It's the vast numbers of predators for the available habitat.

If like most people you live in the 'burbs' with a bit of a garden then that represents the available habitat. If there are enough trees the birds will try to nest and all is fine.
But in that area there are hundreds of cats too and they'll decimate any wildlife that tries to make it their home.

Cat's are territorial and with good reason, the landscape can't support very many of them and they don't need to cooperate to get their prey.
In the wild this means they have large territories and if prey starts to become scarce they move elsewhere or starve, thus limiting the number of cats for a given area.

In the 'burbs your domestic moggie can simply stay put and keep killing when prey becomes scarce instead of moving on and letting it recover simply because you're feeding it.

Once you move away from houses then the number of cats falls off sharply and they're much less of an issue.

[mumbojumbo]

I often watch 4 in a Bed and guests frequently comment on cat hairs on surfaces,including plates.Cats should be discouraged from using kitchen and their food placed outside,stimulating Nature.

[[XAP]Bob]

None of my cats have ever shown the slightest interest in human food.

They have occasionally had a lick around an empty plate left on a side table...

The in-laws always put their meat in the microwave (not on) whilst they eat, purely because it was the only way of keeping the meat from the cat.

[Cyril Haearn]

Best to keep cats away from food
They can be vectors for unpleasant diseases

[Audax67]

Not to mention allergens. Put one near me and my upper respiratory tract turns into snot and I get a vile unscratchable itch in my soft palette. I quite enjoy watching their "look at me, I'm a tiger" antics in next-door's midden back garden, though.

[Vorpal]

None of my cats have ever shown the slightest interest in human food.

They have occasionally had a lick around an empty plate left on a side table...

The in-laws always put their meat in the microwave (not on) whilst they eat, purely because it was the only way of keeping the meat from the cat.

Two of ours will eat almost anything, but especially love chicken and fish. One of them seems to be allergic to something in some human foods, I suspect grains, as he also cannot eat many main cat food brands.

The other two like to investigate human food, but seldom eat it. Although one of them like to knock things down and play with them. She has been known to knock food off a surface for the others to eat.

[mercalia]

an article on pets

To all pet owners and lovers

A 2017 study assessed the environmental impact of companion animals in the US. The findings were that dogs and cats were responsible for 25-30% of the environmental impact of all meat consumption, that they created 64m tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane, and produced 5.1m tonnes of faeces annually, the same as 90 million humans. The study suggested that, in the light of these figures, increasing pet-keeping worldwide will make a hugely significant contribution to our current ecological crisis. (The suggestion that the food fed to animals is a byproduct of human food production is refuted by the same study that points out that, increasingly, pets are being fed higher-quality meat and much of what is regarded as unfit for human consumption is deemed so more on aesthetic than other grounds.)




https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/aug/11/pets-how-we-hurt-the-animals-we-cherish?

Another decision is whether or not to have a newly acquired pet neutered. It may be a responsible action in limiting the future numbers of free-roaming animals such as cats, but while it may be convenient for owners, there may be future health consequences for the animal, such as obesity, cancers or joint disease.

[Cyril Haearn]

Right again mercalia, I fear

I have a small teddy to meet my need for non-human company