Outdoor cats kill billions of birds annually. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife
Humans kill 58 billion animals each year. I do not see anyone suggesting that we stop feeding humans.
Feral cats aren't people?
As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
41–50 of 63 posts
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#42Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#43TL;DR: Six owls that burrow underground (how's that for an adaptation?) used to live in a Mountain View park. Over the past three years, three of these have been killed or gone missing. Environmental activists have traced these deaths and disappearances to cats nurtured by a Google employee group that feeds feral cats, along with spaying or neutering them. Google has devoted significant resources to helping these bir…
Destroying biodiversity is a stretch, it's only three owls... Also, burrowing owls are Least Concern on IUCN red list. (Least Concern is their terminology, not mine, I don't agree with it) So it's not like there's really any merit to the claim that a few cars they fed, who then killed three owls, is "destroying biodiversity" It's not that slippery a slope. It's just cats. If they were teaching them and hunting these…
You should absolutely not feed feral cats, unless its 1080, or Curiosity[1]. Just the idea of feeding feral cats is patently absurd, Google employees should bloody well know better.
[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2016-11-16/curiosity-cat-ba...
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#443 dead owls in 3 years with no proof whatsoever that cats are responsible and somehow the NY Times thinks this is newsworthy. Mind-boggling.
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#45Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#46In other news, Australia just finished building the world largest cat-proof fence: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-44235185 Maybe that owl park could be fenced?
Maybe they could use an "invisible fence".[0] They're already capturing, neutering and chipping. So they could fit warning collars. But perhaps battery life is too short.
0) https://www.catological.com/best-invisible-fences-cats-revie...
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#47These are the only things you should feed a feral cat, in order of preference:
- Curiosity (When it becomes available)
- 1080
- Eradicat
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#48this article and this comment section are rather terrible. I am really opposed to Googles business model and the pervasive lack of privacy they inflict on the world-- but this is such a weird thing to write an article about. I personally, and this is my own opinion, find the need to save every niche endangered animal to be both fruitless and silly. Humans have a significant impact on the environment and should certainly strive to limit the negative effects as much as possible, but on balance cats eating owls doesn't rank particularly high on the priority list of high-impact adjustments we need to make. It's not really Google corporations fault and while feeding animals is sort of dumb, these feral cats are presumably living in the wild after escaping from random peoples houses, overbreeding pets and irresponsible pet ownership is to blame
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#49this article and this comment section are rather terrible. I am really opposed to Googles business model and the pervasive lack of privacy they inflict on the world-- but this is such a weird thing to write an article about. I personally, and this is my own opinion, find the need to save every niche endangered animal to be both fruitless and silly. Humans have a significant impact on the environment and should certai…
Why do you want to overpopulate the world with cats? They are a nuisance.
Re: As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul
#50Are 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.
Are you seriously calling the extuinguishing of a species - all because some socially deprived devs need a little furry killer maschine to cuddle - trivial?
Just do with strays as they do in every other country- trap them and put them down.
The need for a biological diverse environment outweights the needs of some humans for easy consumable and controllable "social" experiences. For the googlers, get a real human to interact with - yeah, its more challenging, but that is what a social life is all about.