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But birds in a giant blender is a more appealing headline (slrpnk.net)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/justpost@lemmy.world
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[โ€“] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

Who's saying don't adopt cats. You should totally adopt cats, cats are amazing pets, adopting from a shelter is the best place to get one. Spay neuter programs are the best way to control feral populations since there is no way to eradicate feral cats while allowing pet populations. Pet populations will ensure feral cats remain endemic forever.

That doesn't stop that the entire issue of feral cats and pet cats are linked, and also linked to bird predation. The US as a society has chosen pet cats over wild birds. Some other nations handle by culling, like Australia, or new Zealand now.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    That's my point, we should adopt cats, which is why presenting data as "cats bad" is not useful or productive. Separating the data to show it's feral cats that's are the real issue, is more useful because it lets us push the point that we need to deal with stray cats, which is what's important.

    since there is no way to eradicate feral cats while allowing pet populations. Pet populations will ensure feral cats remain endemic forever.

    Exactly, so the choice is either get rid of pets, or deal with feral cats. So we should present the data in a way that shows pets aren't the real problem.

    Yes, they are linked, but again, that's not the point, pet cats are linked to humans, but a graph that just lumps all that data in together isn't useful. The point of data visualisation is to present the data usefully.

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  • [โ€“] 0 points 10 months ago

    Is the data presenting as cats are bad? I see the data is pointing out how many bird deaths in the US are caused by different things. I'm pretty sure it's about turbines because no one cares how many birds cats kill.

    https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-killing-fields-for-birds/

    Domestic cats are bad for wild bird populations, unequivocally, whether they are pets or feral. Like I totally get what you are saying though, and you're right, I'm pretty sure one of those studies points out feral cats kill birds at a rate of 3 to1 compared to pets. But those feral populations don't exist without the domestic pets which are uncontrolled beyond a county level in most places. At best spay/neuter programs reduce the number of unhealthy animals, but the US has kinda chosen to allow the nearly uncontrolled population of feral cats (which result entirely from the pet industry) to exist and kill birds.

    I mean when when we try to control them we are more trying to reduce the amount of nuisance feral cats represent, they aren't like feral dogs, which the US treats very aggressively in most cases. Feral spay/neuter programs understand that the cats will always exist where there's food resources, so keeping those populations under control and healthier is the main purpose. They don't do the forests and shit, and they don't care how many birds those cats kill.

    You can realize your indoor only cats are not necessarily killing any birds, so the birds your cats kill is 0. Responsibly owning indoor pets is the best way to do it, but again, we don't care in the US how many birds cats kill, it's a passing figure to us. Not like New Zealand where they are very protective of their wild birds.

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