A gift for soon to be many multiples of the currently estimated 2 million rats in NYC.
Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets
171–180 of 244 posts
Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets
#172In other news: Mysterious rats & mice plague in NYC...
Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's do this. And when we're done killing all the cats and the rat problem becomes worse and somehow the birds don't seem to return to the filthy and noisy concrete jungle with no trees we can just pretend it never happened.
> and the rat problem becomes worse Cats usually won't tackle rats, this is even mentioned in the article.
The rats dont just pop out fully grown, the young rats are an easy prey.
Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets
#174Pet 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.
Do you know how traumatic spaying is, and how absolutely trivial it is to not get your dog knocked up unintentionally? Until you snip all your own tubes and those of all your children, keep your euthanasia propaganda to yourself. Every human causes far more environmental harm than any animal.
What does this have to do with environmental harm? I thought the discussion was about animal population.
I'd also argue that starving to death is pretty traumatic, hence why we should have better regulation on pet population.
Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets
#175Be careful what you wish for. It reminds me of the Four Pests campaign in China around 1960, especially the extermination of sparrows, one of the causes of the Great Chinese Famine. 500k feral cats: that's a lot of mice, pigeons and young rats! Without predators like feral cats, NY's rat problem could become even more, well, interesting.
The article mentions that the cats may be responsible for control of mice population, but apparently attacks on the New York rats are relatively rare being far larger and more aggressive.
Time for foxes or bigger stray cats
Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets
#176NYC should learn from Istanbul and accept their rodent cleaners.
I've seen NYC subway rats and I'd wager most cats wouldn't take them on.
Imagine how many more rats would get to that size if cats didn't get them when they were smaller. Or if they could breed in spaces currently occupied by cats.
Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets
#177how about they start earning their keep and start hunting the 5M rats out there.
I'm gonna guess the main problem is the rats are smart and will stay in sewers and other places cats can't get to them.
I imagine that rats will become way more visible to humans after elimination of cats
Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and the rat problem becomes worse Cats usually won't tackle rats, this is even mentioned in the article.
The rats dont just pop out fully grown, the young rats are an easy prey.
Haven't you read any James Herbert?
Joking aside, cats aren't going to be very inclined to head into a lair to pick off their young.
Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets
#179Be careful what you wish for. It reminds me of the Four Pests campaign in China around 1960, especially the extermination of sparrows, one of the causes of the Great Chinese Famine. 500k feral cats: that's a lot of mice, pigeons and young rats! Without predators like feral cats, NY's rat problem could become even more, well, interesting.
The article mentions that the cats may be responsible for control of mice population, but apparently attacks on the New York rats are relatively rare being far larger and more aggressive.
How would anyone know how many rats the cats are eating?
Re: Clearing 500k feral cats from New York’s streets
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do I care about the bird population over the cat population? Who's playing god?
Because there's a real danger of losing some of these bird species, and absolutely zero danger of losing domestic cats as a species?
This is absolutely untrue. Most studies on cat impact on bird species are ridden with incomplete and bad data. In Germany, estimates are around 200 million birds killed by cats every year. But since the total population of birds is estimated at 400 million that would be every second bird! That's insane and grounds for immediate skepticism. Well, it turns out that extrapolating local results to global scenarios does not at all represent what is going on in reality.
For example, while cats might kill a lot of animals in settled areas like NYC that doesn't at all mean that species are endangered as a result of it. Birds don't exclusively live in human settlements and their continental populations might barely be affected by cats as there are sufficient areas outside of human settlements where feral cats are simply non-existent or at least not a problem.
Furthermore, the decline of birds is almost entirely human made - no one doubts this. Habitat loss and insect decline. Reducing the cat problem will simply not have a notable impact at all. Yes, millions of birds are killed by cats but what does that mean in the grand context if billions and billions of birds are killed by humans? It's a drop in the bucket and not worth the effort and I would ask ornithologists to name species that have been wiped out by wild cats in a continental context and not just from Smallstown, Minnesota.
Disclaimer: island scenarios like New Zealand are different due to the locality of the problem.
It's like trying to save ants from some dude stepping on their streets once a day while ignoring a ravaging fungus that is destroying the colony from the inside. But here you are, saying "not stepping on the ant street is also helpful!". Congrats to saving 10 ants while the colony is being decimated by a fungus.