I think we should compare dogs and cats to good pets to own, rather than pretending the choices are “big powerful dog” and “environment destroyer 3000.”
After all, both are safe in theory, but irresponsible pet owners ruin it. You can’t expect everyone to correctly take care of certain dog breeds, you can’t expect the majority of cat owners to give up the “proud to roll coal” attitude towards their cat + the environment.
Cats that are allowed to go outside are an absolute menace to small wildlife. They hunt and kill to play, so no matter how well fed they are they will still do it, and they are quite good at it. This is why only indoors cats are allowed on some islands with a fragile ecosystem
Yeah the comment you replied to is hyperbolic for sure, but even as a cat person I can see where they’re coming from. At the very least a lot of cat owners have a hard time recognizing the (iirc, scientifically proven) fact that the average outdoors cat kills a lot more small wildlife than they would ever require to survive, and by these numbers, it doesn’t take a ton of them to have a noticeable impact on an ecosystem, especially if you take into account the fact that they usually easily outnumber their natural predators since they are such a popular pet.
I think we should compare dogs and cats to good pets to own, rather than pretending the choices are “big powerful dog” and “environment destroyer 3000.”
After all, both are safe in theory, but irresponsible pet owners ruin it. You can’t expect everyone to correctly take care of certain dog breeds, you can’t expect the majority of cat owners to give up the “proud to roll coal” attitude towards their cat + the environment.
Let’s just have pet spiders or something.
How are cats bad for the environment? Sorry, first time I’ve ever heard someone claim this.
Cats that are allowed to go outside are an absolute menace to small wildlife. They hunt and kill to play, so no matter how well fed they are they will still do it, and they are quite good at it. This is why only indoors cats are allowed on some islands with a fragile ecosystem
Fair enough, but I would compare someone who owns a fat lazy cat to rollin coal assholes.
Yeah the comment you replied to is hyperbolic for sure, but even as a cat person I can see where they’re coming from. At the very least a lot of cat owners have a hard time recognizing the (iirc, scientifically proven) fact that the average outdoors cat kills a lot more small wildlife than they would ever require to survive, and by these numbers, it doesn’t take a ton of them to have a noticeable impact on an ecosystem, especially if you take into account the fact that they usually easily outnumber their natural predators since they are such a popular pet.