The answer to the question is obviously “yes”.
[deleted]
Keeping pet cats indoors would save millions of native animals and billions of dollars. So what's stopping us?
Submitted 5 months ago by trk@aussie.zone to australia@aussie.zone
Comments
fartington@lemm.ee 5 months ago
awwwyissss@lemm.ee 5 months ago
There’s a quote in the body of the post that ends with
So, should cat owners be required to keep their pets contained to their property?
trk@aussie.zone 5 months ago
On desktop you get a preview of the article, which I’ve now included in the heading since I’m guessing it doesn’t display on mobile / in apps.
Baku@aussie.zone 5 months ago
SaintWacko@midwest.social 5 months ago
Haha, I saw it the same way at first!
YungOnions@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I’ve always assumed that a cat would go nuts stuck inside all the time. Maybe I’m wrong but I imagine that most people would view it as cruel.
trk@aussie.zone 5 months ago
Maybe I’m wrong
You totally are, but at least now you know
Riftinducer@aussie.zone 5 months ago
Cats go nuts at the witching hour anyway, being inside or outside has nothing to do with it.
Basically, nah, they’re alright inside. They sleep for between 12 to 18 hours a day and get most active at dawn and dusk, so having some way for them to burn off energy with a good cat tree or the like will keep them occupied. And if they want more than that, they will come to you and make their demands known. And if that’s still not enough and you’re willing to put the effort in and do some acclimatising, you could get a second cat and they’ll keep each other occupied.
Baggie@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
I have two cats, they have never been let outside and they’ve been completely happy. Granted the house is a decent size and we have a lot of things to keep them entertained, but that responsibility comes with the ownership I figure.
Taleya@aussie.zone 5 months ago
They don’t if you exercise a modicum of responsibility and actually make the environment one that meets their needs
itsmect@monero.town 5 months ago
That’s because it is cruel.
Large numbers always seem terrifying, because our human minds are not made for them. The only way to comprehend them is to compare them to other things - in this case all the ways we humans cause damage to the environment directly. Our suburbs are ecological dead zones already. There is just not much space left between asphalt roads, driveways, and neatly trimmed lawn. It’s definitely the cat that goes outside for one hour a day who is the problem. Right next to plastic straws.
The real frustrating thing about all this that the companies that exploit our planet to core keep doing their shit (Noooo you cant work from home for your office job, you MUST commute to the city daily, because reasons!) while we fight with our neighbors about things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
Benefits for cats: No FIV infections, no car injuries, safe temperatures, no fights, no parasites.
Benefits for wildlife: no murder, fewer vectors, no loss of habitat to cats
Benefits for community: No digging up poop while gardening, no roaming cats triggering sensor lights/setting off other pets/damaging property with claws, no toxo transmission, no digging up poo while gardening/losing plants to cat piss
Cons to cats: Keepers must provide entertainment
Cons to keepers: Exercise the level of basic responsibility every other keeper of pets is expected to, or parent with children.
Issue: Controversial???
TheHolm@aussie.zone 5 months ago
Try to keep non de-sexed cat indoor. I tried, no way it can work. In the end poor boy lost his balls.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 5 months ago
Try to keep non de-sexed cat
I’mma stop you right there. No, don’t do that.
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
Balls vs literally thousands of wildlife. What a hard decision?
Letting a desexed cat roam is literally hatred for this land. Do you want more feral cats? desex pets, it’s again basic responsibility.
Baku@aussie.zone 5 months ago
I think this is the the thread with the highest ratio of downvoted top level comments to upvotes ones I’ve ever seen on Lemmy
Ilandar@aussie.zone 5 months ago
It’s always a controversial topic and rarely has any level of insightful or genuine discussion. Best to avoid unless your idea of living is engaging in meaningless social media pile-ons or rage-baiting.
Baku@aussie.zone 5 months ago
Ah I’m just here for the drama, so it suits me just fine
Jokes aside, it did surprise me a bit. Considering Lemmy tends to be quite left leaning and big into climate activism and stuff of that nature, I really didn’t expect there to be this many people who disagree with the OP. I’ve never really seen more than 1 comment per thread that goes against the common opinion
yopla@jlai.lu 5 months ago
Billions of bird die each year because of windows, go fight that battle instead. ;)
Screemu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
It’s why I use Linux…
Zane@aussie.zone 5 months ago
Yeah cool, here’s one good thing we can do to make a positive change but fuck doing it because of the other, completely unrelated thing, right?
kbin_space_program@kbin.run 5 months ago
That its only a symptom of the real problem and won't actually solve anything.
The animals they catch are weakened from pesticides.
trk@aussie.zone 5 months ago
The animals they catch are weakened from pesticides.
Citation needed
Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Before pesticides cats used to just starve. Everyone knows this.
/s
kbin_space_program@kbin.run 5 months ago
ttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8640698/
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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.
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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.
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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.
- 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.
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cro_magnon_gilf@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
In my neighbourhood in the city, tgere’s some people who take their cat out in the park on a leash. I’ve done it myself. Though I also let one out on his own. He got spooked by a reindeer and then stayed inside for a whole day lol
FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Walking your cat on a leash is pretty common here. I can’t even remember when I last saw a cat just roaming freely.
troed@fedia.io 5 months ago
We need to genetically modify cats to only hunt rats.
trk@aussie.zone 5 months ago
Good news, they also kill native bush rats!
… Wait that’s bad news.
TheHolm@aussie.zone 5 months ago
"We need to genetically modify cats to only hunt introduced rats. " In my area foxes were hunting outdoor cats, so you hardly ever see one. Foxes got baited, and now cats are everywhere. Q is, what is better.
ogmios@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
The laws of physics.
TassieTosser@aussie.zone 5 months ago
Selfishness
trk@aussie.zone 5 months ago
The factual answer
ajsadauskas@aus.social 5 months ago
@trk @TassieTosser Knox City Council in outer-eastern Melbourne did exactly this: https://www.knox.vic.gov.au/whats-happening/news/keeping-your-cats-safe-and-secured .
The council did it because some of its suburbs (The Basin, Ferntree Gully, Upper Ferntree Gully, parts of Boronia, Lysterfield) border national parks and the Dandenong Ranges.
Younger cats can adapt to living indoors.
But the challenge was with older cats, who are used to roaming around.
The happy medium would be to phase it in over five to 10 years, where any new cats registered or adopted after a particular date have to stay indoors, but older cats can continue to roam.
Outsider9042@aussie.zone 5 months ago
Don’t forget laziness.