Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets • Hacker News Board

Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets

#31

Post by bombcar » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #29

Pet ownership needs more regulation. And it needs to be enforced. Our neighborhood social media pages are full of stray animals roaming the streets, piles of newborn kittens in crawlspaces and dumpsters, emaciated dogs found everywhere... And then at the same time you have people trying to give away or even sell puppy after puppy and kitten after kitten. If you own an animal, it needs to be spayed or neutered.

Unless you are willing to throw poor people in prison over kittens, you can't really effectively enforce pet ownership laws, because the judgement-proof will keep pets.

I suppose you could have roving cat detector vans that would spay and neuter any cat they could get their hands on unless it had approved breeding chips embedded inside. I've heard a documentary on such a thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOonOtyoplY

Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets

#32

Post by jjtheblunt » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

Insanity wrote: post #17

MisterTea wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the pandemic irresponsible morons adopted cats to alleviate the loneliness only to abandon their new friends on the street once the restrictions waned. This inhumane treatment has resulted in thousands of feral cats added to city streets. This is not good for the city or the cats.

Which is also something I can just not comprehend as a pet owner (cat / dog). I already feel bad leaving my dog alone for a few hours a week lol. (With a cat, less so. They are less dramatic about being left alone.. :) ) EDIT: forgot to close a parenthesis and the LISPer in me panicked.

I’m not alone in rereading for mismatched parens!

Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets

#33

Post by asdajksah2123 » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

shermozle wrote: post #6

Didn't New York just create a "Rat Tsar"? Surely you solve both problems by stopping feeding the cats.

As the article points out, cats are not very good rat predators.

They will find other food far more easily.

Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets

#34

Post by Beached » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

k2enemy wrote: post #8

Given that the article is also kind of a PSA for New Yorkers, I'm surprised that it didn't mention ear clipping. If a feral cat has already been spayed or neutered, its left ear is clipped so that people know to leave it alone and not trap it again.

this is not always the case this is only done by public service organizations. if you have you pet taken into the vet to get fixed, the ear clip is optional and many choose not to get it clipped

Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets

#35

Post by gaucheries » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

dwhitney wrote: post #28

lofaszvanitt wrote: post #26

Bring in a cat and you get a burger! After a while the hamburger's will taste different. That's the point when you will surely know the program became self sufficient... lol

I was under the impression that expressing a sense of humor was not allowed on this site. Can someone clarify :)

I’ve noticed it depends on your karma score and reputation

Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets

#36

Post by JoBrad » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

lofaszvanitt wrote: post #26

Bring in a cat and you get a burger! After a while the hamburger's will taste different. That's the point when you will surely know the program became self sufficient... lol

That’s how you get more kitty mills.

Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets

#37

Post by bombcar » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

codeslave13 wrote: post #4

acaird wrote: post #2

pssp pssp pssp x 500,000

Thanks for that. I cracked up

Opportunity for a new children's book: The Pied Pssp Psst Pssper of New York.

Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets

#38

Post by canjobear » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #10

> Rattling off statistics that she has internalized as a volunteer, Ms. Adams points out that eight out of 10 street kittens die within their first six months. Those that survive are often disease-ridden. Winters here can be deadly for a species that originated in the Mediterranean climate of North Africa. And traffic takes a big toll. I wonder if those kitties show genetical adaptions specific to their challenging e…

Given the push to sterilize and kill them, their best bet is to evolve away from being friendly to humans.

Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets

#39

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

My neighbor is involved with a local program that does exactly this.

It takes a long time, but is effective, and fairly humane.

Cats breed like crazy. Even with a high mortality rate, they can still end up dominating their food chain.

Now ... NYC also has a bad rat problem ...

Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets

#40

Post by asdajksah2123 » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 3:05 PM UTC

mrDmrTmrJ wrote: post #3

The article is paywalled - but why would you ever want to do that?

Cats on the streets suffer. Badly. Cats on the streets are a disaster for the bird population. And contrary to what cartoons have taught us, cats are not an effective way at keeping rats at bay (in fact, the threat of dead cats makes rat poisoning efforts far more difficult to implement).