Shit like this is why it's so hard for you to adopt an animal btw. Shelters have no idea if you're a coyote feeder
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Anyone who keeps outdoor cats in coyote territory is just an asshole. Can confirm. Do live in coyote territory.
People who have outdoor cats are facilitating the extinction of birds. I'm completely serious. Domestic cats kill billions of birds annually.
It's not possible to measure how much wildlife specifically domestic cats kill so that statistic is actually from all cats, which include strays. I'm not saying you're wrong, or that this means you should leave your cat out but it's important to be accurate.
I live in Western NY state, and even we have coyotes now. Not numerous but noticeable. They've extended their range beyond what you might think from the Roadrunner cartoons.
You likely don't have any coyotes over there anymore. You have coywolves.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/coywolves-are-taking-over-eastern-north-america-180957141/
This is a larger species that has the body size closer to a wolf. They hunt in urban and forested areas and are really good at taking out cats. They are also large enough to get deer.
Could be. I was on my bike, and they ran as soon as they saw me. Slightly larger than a German Shepherd but with a different body shape and longer legs. There's plenty of wild and domestic prey for them along the trail I ride, so not surprising they'd be hunting there. I'm usually out before sunrise and see a lot of wildlife that most people don't get to see.
We had farm cats in coyote territory without issue. We never lost one to coyotes to my knowledge. You just need to ensure that you also have coyote deterants like an assault donkey or a llama. Having a big guard dog also helps. Basically, anything that would protect your livestock will also protect the cats. If there are enough threats to coyotes in the area then the coyotes will steer clear.
In our case it probably also helped that mama farm cat was a monsterous maine coon who I once saw literally beat the shit out of a full grown rotweiler that got too close to her kittens. It wouldn't surprise me if she had been hunting coyotes for sport.
that mama farm cat was a monsterous maine coon who I once saw literally beat the shit out of a full grown rotweiler
video pls
No video was taken unfortunately because it was completely unexpected.This mama cat had had a few litters of kittens at this point and was always fine with our dogs being around them. She would sometimes bring them over to one of our dogs when she wanted a break. She was a very chill cat in general.
One day my sister brought her dog over who was about a 2 year old rotweiler. So they were fully grown but still had that curious puppy personality. Mama cat had recently had a litter of kittens which were young enough that they were still in the house in a padded laundry basket. My sisters dog was bound and determined to investigate these kittens. Being that mama cat didn't know this dog as well we knew that probably wasn't going to go over well, but the dog was determined enough that we figured we let them try and let them learn their own lesson when mama cat swatted them away. Well the dog went in for a sniff as mama cat was laying nearby watching. To our surprise she didn't seem to care for about 30 sec or so. Then very suddenly she morphed into a ball of fur, claws, and teeth and latched onto that poor dogs back. At that point the dog started panicking and screaming while sprinting around the house literally crapping theirself in fear while mama cat continued to give chase and maul them. We oppened the front door of the house to give the dog somewhere to escape to and the dog ran outside. Mama cat chased that poor dog around the property for a bit before chasing it up the driveway (rural property with a mile long driveway) and out of sight. About 5 min later mama cat came trotting back like nothing had happened. About 2 hours later my sisters dog started very timidly making their way back down the driveway towards the house. Surprisingly after that day mama cat and my sisters dog got along perfectly fine.
We've got outdoor cats in coyote country. Haven't had a problem, honestly I'm more afraid of a great horned owl moving in. We've got a dog that barks a lot. Also sometimes our neighbor will shoot a coyote and leave it out there to scare the others off. But the yipping and howling is why I wear earplugs when I go camping, or put a fan of during summer months.
Parents be like: "Oops, my child just died, good thing I made a few backups"
Go back far enough and yes, this is exactly how people thought.
My mom only had 2, but she still considers me the basically the backup in case my older brother fucks up.
Meme or whatever, but fuckwits that keep cats outdoors (and cat hoarders) are the main reason why my charitable donations to animal groups focus on spay/neuter programs rather than shelters. I know the animals in shelters need help too, but reducing the inflow of animals into the shelters helps them as well.
And reduces hazards to wildlife from cats, whether they be outdoor pets, strays, abandoned, or feral.
And reduces demand for meat-based cat foods.
It's the most efficient way to help that I can think of.
my environmental science teacher spent an hour talking about what apex predators cats are and how terrible outdoor cats are….
they pretty much kill for fun, all day….
if you declaw your cat (which is evil) and put a bell on it, then the last thing the bird will hear is a bell ringing while being batted to death.
they just decimate the local wildlife.
Cars kill 1000000x more than cats. If you care about wildlife, that's where you'll put your dent.
I have 3 outdoor cats. The older 2 take out 1 mole, 1 mouse and 0.3 birds a week. Combined.
The younger is a terror tho. 2 birds, 2 moles, 2 mice, a week.
Rural
a: not even kinda true.
b: one thing being bad for wildlife doesn’t make another thing that’s bad for wildlife stop also being bad.
c: they take out way more than that, they just bring back a mole as a tip for you. Scientists have tracked and followed cats and they kill for fun, all day.
e: check out Toxoplasma Gondii, the cat-rat brain parasite that infects human brains too… the reason pregnant women aren’t supposed to change litter boxes…
i love cats and grew up with outdoor cats and i love seeing them enjoy it and go on little adventures. However, it’s terrible for your local wildlife. With farms and pesticides everywhere, humans’ yards have become a lot more important.
Actually it's true, about the death thing.
And your argument seems to be more "letting your cats out is bad". I disagree.
no, it’s letting your cats out is bad for wildlife
reality is real whether or not you feel like agreeing with it.
And bad for the cats (pesticides) and pregnant women (toxoplasmosis). Right?
But ya, they hunt for fun. As for how much success they meet, it depends.
toxoplasmosis is a particular syndrome. In pregnant women toxoplasma gondii it will completely destroy the fetus’s brain (no immune system yet).
in healthy people it does all sorts of weird things to your personality… some links to schizophrenia but the jury is out on that.
Speaking of efficiency. The most efficient way to maintain our software developer population would be quad-amputated, in work-coffins, fed with a corpse-derived slurry.
Dude. Its obviously in a rural setting. Those cats are all oitdoor cats. Its how you keep the mouse population down. These aren't sit in the house all day cats. Farm cats are working cats.
I mean thsoe cats seem to be feed cats but that's beside the point.
Barn cats are actually pretty important. rodents can be terrible, and spread disease due to the conditions they often live in. Cats help with snakes and certain bugs as well (larger bugs they can swat at. Usually just kill them and play with them, but I've seen cats eat them too)
But is still absolutely essential to spay/neuter barn cats, and provide them with safe places to get away from coyotes. Spay/neuter is to prevent them from making more cats, which can quickly get out of hand. For getting away from coyotes, raised areas they can quickly climb to are good. Yes coyotes can jump, but I've never seen a coyote climb. Their front legs just dont bend the right way to let them grab the tree
Curious why you responding to my comment specifically rather than the dozen or so other comments similarly condemning outdoor cats.
Is it because I chose to put my money where my mouth is?
saying so in front of the daughter is low key savage.
But it always boggles my mind when adults are shocked and horrified that predators ...predate. Especially non-vegans.
Like Bro. Hommie needs to eat, and they can't live off beans. (well, maybe coyotes can.)
I'm glad I wasn't Disney'd in childhood. Better to know reality, than be deluded, made fragile and crippled by reality. Face the horror. Stop lying to children. Children become adults.
Grow up on a farm and you really have no delusions about how the world works. Although I did think teachers lived at the school so I was unclear with how Mrs Thatcher got pregnant.
how Mrs Thatcher got pregnant
Presumably, alcohol involved.
Although, that too likely still naive.
... The perversions in the crooked cabal... they're into a lot of really really vile stuff.
[Edit: Oh... or are you talking about a different Mrs Thatcher than
?]
Presumably, alcohol involved.
Oh we love you Mrs Thatcher, like your old man likes a brew;
such a lad your husband Denis when he's had a drink or two.
Sure he'll take a pint of Murphy's and a glass of Irish Mist
and because he sleeps with you each night, no wonder he's always pissed.
Yeah it was a different Mrs Thatcher, and to be clear that might not have been her actual name, I'm just coming up with something that sounds appropriately similar. I've subsequently seen pictures of her in the class yearbook. She was really really hot, when she was my teacher she was younger than I am now so I absolutely did not appreciate her attractiveness.
There were a lot of teachers that were married, and that in itself didn't make sense to me. Not because I thought they lived at school, but because they had such awful attitudes that I couldn't imagine somebody agreeing to spend their entire lives with them.
Then I grew up and realized that their husbands were probably awful, too. Either that, or the teachers took all their frustrations out on their students and had happier home lives. Either way, I still find it pretty sad. I know patience is a virtue, but you should know what you're getting into when you choose to become a teacher. Shitty teachers create traumatized students. If you don't think you can hack it, please, for the sake of all that is good, consider a different career.
Oh no she was wonderful, we got to hear all the hot gossip from her. None of the teachers liked Mrs Hall, she was the antichrist apparently. Even as a kid I could tell she hated children. God knows why she became a teacher.
Meanwhile Mrs Thatcher had a rabbit, a classroom pet. Oh it was wonderful, I'm not sure I necessarily learnt all that much from her, but I really liked her.
i dont think you know what teachers go through. elementary teachers get physically assaulted by their students and then get blamed by admin AND parents. teachers dont have shitty attitudes from their home life, they have it because they are exploited yet held to impossible standards.
one teacher i know, quit her job after some fifth grade students showed her a print of her house on google maps, said they know where she lives and were gonna go there and rape and kill her daughter. she ended up in inpatient psychiatric care from this job. the kids in question were not expelled and nothing was done.
Things have definitely escalated today. We didn't have Google maps and other instant-stalking technology when I went to elementary school. Columbine and school shootings hadn't been a thing yet either (though they would be, later on in my school years.) A lot of modern teacher stresses aren't applicable to a critique of the elementary school teachers that I had.
Also, I teach kids, specifically special needs students. Violent outbursts aren't uncommon, we even have blocking pads for those situations. One of my coworkers got a concussion this summer in spite of it. I know it isn't easy, but I also knew what I was getting into.
It's one thing to do the best with the situation you're dealt, but it's something else to lose your cool and take it out on your students. If I were ever to feel my spark for teaching start to fade, or a resentment of children set in, I'd move onto a different job. That wouldn't be easy either, but it'd be a hell of a lot more ethical.
that it is morally defensible in any way to create an intelligent creature and then force it into a state of utter lifelong dependency just so that you can exploit its biological processes
Interestingly, I don't have issue with people who hunt for meat (provided they follow generally accepted responsible hunting practices), but I have a big fucking issue with animal agriculture.
The quoted section is the distinguishing factor. Creating sentient life for the explicit purpose of exploiting it really rubs me the wrong way.
it is morally defensible ... to ... exploit ...biological processes
and I won't pretend it's not
Humans are part of nature too, and we have our animal instincts same as any other animal. Only thing that differs is our capacity to self-reflect and exercise agency over our place in the ecosystem. What matters is that we have respect for life and don't take it for granted. I agree that factory farms, hunting for sport or luxury goods like furs, etc. is wrong, but I don't see a problem with a small farm raising some animals as long as they're treated with respect and given a comfortable life. All animals - including us - are dependent on others for survival.
You kidding me? I only eat meat because it is cooked, and is what is available. I tried to secretly go vegan.
I mean you grew up believing that it's healthier to eat meat rather than just more profitable to sell it
Seriously I've read this about 10 times and I still have no idea what you're going on about. It's healthier to eat meat than sell it, what?
it is morally defensible in any way to create an intelligent creature
What absolute grammar hellhole is this? What animal are you thinking of?
There’s a time and a place and a manner for that, and I rather suspect you think perpetuating trauma makes you cool.
It doesn’t. It makes you an asshole.
Also Disney was the one tossing lemmings off a cliff for a documentary. so… not the best way to express that thought.
I rather suspect you think perpetuating trauma makes you cool.
o_O ... Where did you pick up that suspicion from???
Strikingly the wrong end of the stick grabbed there. Or, even, a completely other stick.
Also Disney was the one tossing lemmings off a cliff for a documentary. so… not the best way to express that thought.
Completely still corroborates what I was saying. It seems you did not get what I was saying, at all.
You think vegans are more likely to be surprised that predators eat other animals? I don't see the relationship there.
We have a really small wolf population here in Sweden, so small that we've had to fortify it on multiple occasions. Even so, you have these useless careless animal keepers that get really up in arms when a wolf (or a fox, even) goes and kills some of their animals, even though they often don't even have proper fencing set up.
It's ridiculous, because there are organisations that will help you fence your animals, there's monetary aid to be had for it too. Not keeping your animals safe is a choice, and I don't think it's fair to put the blame on the wild animals.
Even so, there will be animals lost to predators, and that's just part of the business. If you don't want to lose animals, don't get them.
I think they were saying that it's more baffling to them when non-vegans are shocked by predators predating, which scans with my own experience.
My ex's mum used to regularly eat meat, but would become very upset (even bursting into tears occasionally) if you ever reminded her that the animals she was eating were...well, animals. I can't fathom the amount of effort it must take to maintain that level of cognitive dissonance.
I wish I were a vegetarian, but my circumstances are such that it's not feasible for me to fully make that change right now. I do feel uncomfortable with the ethical implications of eating meat, but I'd rather feel uncomfortable about it than to shove it out of my mind as some people prefer to.
No. Like let’s say one is watching a nature documentary, and they get to the hunting part.
I get why a vegan wouldn’t like watching that, or is shocked. I find it more baffling though when non-vegans are.
Like. Carnivores do it because they have to. It might be brutal, but for them necessary. On the other hand if you eat meat… well. The food comes from somewhere and that might seem sanitized but it’s just as brutal or more so, because of the efficiency.
saying so in front of the daughter is low key savage.
Why?
Don't play stupid. You can disagree with their opinion without pretending you don't comprehend why they'd have that opinion.
Making children cry isn't big or clever?
It was her father who made her cry with his actions, not the stranger saying them out loud.
..but then why did she cry in response to the stranger's comment? Logic doesn't seem to be adding up.
Because he revealed these actions to her? Your point is?
Assume there is a murderer who runs around killing people by skinning and burning them alive. You watch the TV news and feel sick. Is it TV news fault now? That's a flawed logic.
I hate that passive aggression is seen as more acceptable than simple, more honest insults on most Lemmy instances. Just feeds the bullshit asymmetry principle.
I wouldn’t let my nephew see that news segment either. Just because it exists in the world doesn’t mean they have to be exposed to it before they’re ready.
Don’t be an ass.
Because the consequences were instant for the guy feeding cats to coyotes, and saying so in front of his daughter wasn't really necessary?
Oh, a classic. Haven't seen this one in a while.
Showed this to my family, the missus remarked that maybe the dude should keep coyotes instead of cats.

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