I am torn by stories like this. I share my house with 6 indoor only cats, but when i had cats that were inside/outside, they definitely did their fair share of hunting. On the other hand, I do worry about threatened species, and on top of it all, my alma mater's mascot is the "fighting burrowing owl" Go Hootie!!!
As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
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Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#12Outdoor cats kill billions of birds annually. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife
Obligatory: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#13Cats, especially feral cats, commonly carriers of Toxoplasma gondii, are a public health hazard to humans. The city could potentially employ this fact as a consideration.
Owls, and birds in general, also carry lots of disease. Psittacosis for example. So I don't see why that should be a consideration (unless you advocate something crazy like a complete sterilization of all non-human life?).
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#14Feeding feral cats is easy, instant gratification. They should adopt an endangered owl instead, or make a goal to measure and increase the population.
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#15You can't take on cat lovers and expect to win. If there's one thing humans enjoy, it's a subservient apex predator who curls up on your lap and purrs.
My cat looks at me with "If only you were smaller" eyes. Should I be concerned?
You shouldn't anthropomorphise. Animals don't like it.
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#16Cats, especially feral cats, commonly carriers of Toxoplasma gondii, are a public health hazard to humans. The city could potentially employ this fact as a consideration.
You pretty much have to directly interact with cat shit to catch toxo, and cats instinctively shit in out-of-the-way places, so your odds of actually getting it from a feral cat are pretty slim.
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#17You can't take on cat lovers and expect to win. If there's one thing humans enjoy, it's a subservient apex predator who curls up on your lap and purrs.
My cat looks at me with "If only you were smaller" eyes. Should I be concerned?
If a cat looks at you through narrowed eyes, it generally means they're pretty chill with you and like having you around.
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#18Cats, especially feral cats, commonly carriers of Toxoplasma gondii, are a public health hazard to humans. The city could potentially employ this fact as a consideration.
You pretty much have to directly interact with cat shit to catch toxo, and cats instinctively shit in out-of-the-way places, so your odds of actually getting it from a feral cat are pretty slim.
Out of the way places like kid’s sandboxes.
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#19Are the most trivial of topics publishable if they say something negative about a big tech company? I think NYT would not have gone with this if say, John Deere employees were feeding cats outside their headquarters.
People who work at John Deere don't make journalists feel that they've badly failed at career planning.
I’ve often heard how Silicon Valley tech bros aren’t capable of empathy. But here you are, perceptively realizing how everyone who doesn’t work at Google is constantly aware of and jealous of those who do.
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#20Outdoor cats kill billions of birds annually. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife
I wonder if it offsets the surplus birds created by bird feeding. According to USA
WILD BIRD FEEDING INDUSTRY YEARLY RESEARCH 2015 [1] US consumers spend about $6B on bird seed annually. I pay about $1/lb (or a pound per kilogram ;-) for seed. A house finch weighs about 20 grams and will eat about 10 grams of seed a day. Say 100 days of winter feeding and that is 1kg of seed per bird. So something like 3 billion songbirds don’t die in the winter and nicely make up for the cat cull.
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[1] http://www.ectownusa.net/wbfi/docs/2015_WBFI__judy_final.pdf