Comment on Keeping pet cats indoors would save millions of native animals and billions of dollars. So what's stopping us?

kbin_space_program@kbin.run ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• trk@aussie.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The animals they catch are weakened from pesticides.

  Citation needed

  source

  • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Before pesticides cats used to just starve. Everyone knows this.

    /s

    source

    • kbin_space_program@kbin.run ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Equally, before the post-DDT pesticides(when the decline started), housecats didn't exist, never went outside and never killed anything.

      /s

      Go look at the other reply where I sourced my opinion.

      source

      • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        You don’t think house cats existed before DDT pesticides?

        You don’t think house cats, which have existed for 3600 years, existed before 1874?…

        Do I need to math that math for you?

        source

        • -> View More Comments
  • kbin_space_program@kbin.run ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    ttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8640698/

    1. We didn't know or study the effects of pesticides in various wild birds. And it varies wildly between species, with chickens not being a good general case. Also that birds are considerably more affected by pesticides than mammals.

    2. Simple logic. Housecats do not have access to deep woods or exist in large populations outside of cities and suburbs in North America, yet the populations are declining there. This implies that they are not the cause of the decline.

    3. This logic is backed up by https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/bring-birds-back#:~:text=All%20told%2C%20the%20North%20American%20bird%20population%20is,declined%20by%2053%25%2C%20or%20another%20720%20million%20birds.

    LWhich points out that it is a multitude of factors and that grassland species(i.e. farmland) are the most affected, with wetland and forest species being less affected.

    4. Further logic is that the decline is a relatively new phenomenon. But housecats killing birds is not new. Therefore something else is behind the decline, and simply keeping cats inside will not fix the issue.

    source

    • trk@aussie.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s a whole heap of words to say “maybe”.

      If you’re happy being a selfish piece of shit, feel free to leave your cat roam. When Mittens gets hit by a car / contracts feline aids / otherwise meets a premature death, you can rest easy knowing that akshually it was probably pesticides.

      source

      • kbin_space_program@kbin.run ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Say you didn't understand what any of those papers said without saying you didn't understand what those papers said.

        source

        • -> View More Comments