New Zealand says it’s going to eradicate feral cats
(www.cnn.com)
from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 24 Nov 20:49
https://lemmy.world/post/39256288
from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 24 Nov 20:49
https://lemmy.world/post/39256288
New Zealand has announced plans to eradicate feral cats by 2050, as part of efforts to protect the country’s biodiversity.
Speaking to Radio New Zealand on Thursday, conservation minister Tama Potaka said that feral cats are “stone cold killers” and would be added to the country’s Predator Free 2050 list, which aims to eradicate those animals that have a negative impact on species such as birds, bats, lizards and insects.
Cats had previously been excluded from the list, which includes species such as stoats, ferrets, weasels, rats and possums, but Potaka used the interview to announce a U-turn.
#world
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Umm feed them. Then they’re not feral, their babies.
yes but leave it to politicians to do everything in the worst possible way
Yeah, well fed house cats never bring home dead mice and birds.
🤦♂️
If the cat is a strictly indoor cat and is bringing you dead mice and birds, you may have a problem with mice and birds in your house.
Well, Polly had it coming
Well… yeah. Nowhere near the point, but you said a thing that was true.
I keep mine indoors… and our city sterilizes feral cats and lets them go again if they cannot be adopted timely
A much humane approach that limits the harm a cat could do in the wild
Harm reduction isn’t really sufficient when every single feral cat kills presumably hundreds of criticially endangered birds per year, is it?
they are not even adding them to the kill list for another 25 years… can’t be that urgent, or politicians always solve issues in the worst possible way
You misunderstand, the project aims to have them eradicated by 2050, not starting to eradicate them in 2050. The project isn’t called Predator Free 2050 for no reason.
Ah, I see… thanks for the correction
That’s not harm reduction. Letting then go is ecocide. And it isn’t even humane. Feral cats are feral, they can’t be adopted. Better to humanely put them down.
they are not even been added to the kill list for 25 more years… it’s either not that urgent or this is just virtue signaling from politicians
ps: x for doubt on any “humanely” thing proposed by politicians
Thats how you get MORE feral cats lmao
Then they start hunting for sports.
Cats are an invasive species in NZ, which has a lot more small critters living on the ground because there are no native predators to them.
Cats are invasive everywhere. Start killing every stray and then maybe cat lovers will be more responsible.
Now that’s quite a hot take. Various Felines are native to almost every part of the world, except, i.e. NZ.
The overpopulation is the issue. Not their existance.
Not talking about actual wild felines but domestic cats that are allowed to be out doors by their owners or abandoned to live out doors. Their simple existence out doors is the issue.
Depends on your location. They’re really not a problem in Europe, since we hunted everything to extinction ourself.
Well done?
more like task failed successfully
I am a big fan of cats. However, if they live outside, they are feral. And they should not be allowed to keep living outside.
My preferred solution would be for people to take them in and feed them, but you definitely should not be feeding them while they are still living outside. Outdoor cats cause a lot of destruction to the ecosystem by overhunting small animals such as songbirds, even to the point of extinction.
Profoundly disconnected from reality moment
Do us all a favor and go try to hug a feral cat.
To the people thinking “oh poor kitties”. In New Zealand, cats are like terminators (or more accurately, Predators from those movies). Pretty much everything evolved to be incredibly easy pray for cats. Sure, it sucks that cats have to die, but they’re an incredibly invasive species that hunts the native species to extinction. They should’ve never been imported in the first place.
No one in New Zealand actually wants to go around killing cats. Euthanizing them is the tool of last resort, and it’s generally prioritized for areas where urgency is high and other more humane solutions are hard to implement.
You can’t fuck around in an island ecosystem. You have to make hard choices in order to preserve the lives of the native plants and animals.
there’s a lot of really impractical, child-minded fools online, this site collects a LOT of them because Lemmy communities tend to be really shut off ecosystems.
There’s a joke in here about introducing an invasive predatory species to the closed ecosystems of Lemmy but I am too angry at the midwits and giant, fake progressives here to formulate it.
New zealand is extremely prone because its home to flightless birds and other similar species that never grew up against land predators of this nature. That’s why cats and even rats are especially dangerous. These flightless birds have no real way of protecting their young and even themselves.
It’s sad for cats because we see them as companions and pets, but new zealand holds a lot of critically endangered species that simply cannot exist anywhere else
All of Oceania is this. There’s a lot of unique land animals that evolved with no threat. European colonisation really fucked that entire region and the ecosystems within.
That’s for Australia’s 3.7M pet cats that aren’t kept indoors 24/7. So that’s approx 407M native animals killed each year by cat lovers that don’t responsibly take care of their cat—71% of cat owners. Factor in other contamination and habitat destruction, you can expect that to be closer or even over half a billion native animals killed each year.
So, yeah, Oceania countries will hunt and kill cats. And anyone that doesn’t keep their cat inside or at least bell it’s collar, is a real piece of shit. Certainly doesn’t give a fuck about animals and the environment. It’s a totally different part of the world to Eurasia where it’s fine to just have strays all over the countryside because they’re actually a part of the functioning ecosystem.
Source: …org.au/…/the-impact-of-roaming-pet-cats-on-austr…
That’s pet cats and doesn’t count the damage that feral cats do.
Here claims that Australia’s Cats Kill Two Billion Animals Annually, with feral cats killing 1.4 Billion.
I’ve personally scraped up native birds and possums that were killed by neighbours roaming pet cats. Most not eaten. And some just paralysed and left that I called WIRES wildlife rescue for. It’s heartbreaking. These poor little critters didn’t deserve an ending like that.
Cats like hunting. Please keep your kitty inside.
Time for them to catch up in evolution’s arms race or be left behind with the other failures like the dodo and the dinosaurs
Not how evolution works.
Survival of the fittest? No? Am I a slider? Did I land on a world where natural selection isn’t one of the evolutionary pressures on the ecosystem?
One of yes. Along with gene drift and flow, and genetic mutation. But our imperialist, capitalist societies really love to lean into the survival of the fittest as the end all, be all of evolution and life. There’s a whole lot more to the complexities of nature even if our “might equals right” societies don’t see it.
I wouldn’t bother. If they’re this simple and loud about whatever they think they comprehend of evolution and natural selection concepts, you know them and their cat are ironically nature’s food in the first 48 hours detached from society’s teet. Lucky for them, we keep getting better at keeping the weakest around. Mike Judge does a good film about it.
I’m sorry that your love of cute, cuddly animals has allowed you to suspend your belief in basic science. I’d hoped you were made of sterner stuff. Perhaps on your next interaction, you could dispense with the backhanded insults and argue the actual point?
Show us how the strongest and fittest do it with that esteemed advantage of “basic science”.
Fuck the ecoologists. We await you and your cat’s venture into the realm of 5d natural selection chess. May all living things not deemed cute and cuddly disappear so the strongest and fittest live on, unhindered forever more.
And you have had two scientific studies presented to you at this point, so, we’re sorry we failed in presenting arguments. Backhanded comments is all we have left now. It’s what plants need.
“We”
Brigading lol
Basic science. Numbers above 1 are more than 1. This is supposed to be your thing, oh grand fittest one.
Or the feral cats? Does humanity deciding to cull a species not perfectly fit that model as you imagine it?
Like humans aren’t?
Sure, but try proposing culling people instead and see how far you get…
lol what is this supposed to imply or perscribe?
Feral cats cause the ultimate destruction to local wildlife. They are so common, one of the worst invasive species. And New Zealand’s an island with precious endemic wildlife not found anywhere else in the world. So yeah - it’s about time! Bravo NZ for doing the right thing.
Edit: They need to do this in Hawaii too!
Absolutely. Those cats are destroying boobies. Unforgivable.
Cats are remarkably capable predators, and cat owners are remarkably irresponsible.
Letting your cat be an “outside” cat is bad enough for the environment. Not spaying/neutering said “outside cat” is how we get feral cats everywhere.
That said, I dont love the vague “eradicate feral cats” language. Would greatly prefer a broad spectrum spay/neuter/tag program to naturally reduce their population.
Predator-free NZ was always destined to ruffle some feathers though.
I mean they gotta put thiel on that list
Rats are already on it.
I adopted mine, got her spayed, and she absolutely never goes outside. Not that she would, she’s too much of a chicken shit to bother trying to get out.
I don’t think just spaying is enough. It’d have to be capture or even worst case euthanize. Leaving cats and any nonnative predator is especially harsh on local species each second they are in the wild because new zealand is one of the few places with flightless birds like the kakapo, which are critically endangered (just one step away from being extinct in the wild)
Spaying and neutering and releasing is more effective because then they still compete for the same resources, pushing reproduction down. I wonder if they can use that she other methods to get the population down to zero.
That’s when you are trying to control the population. These are invasive species, worse than that, invasive predators. Eradication and control are two different things.
Neither of those solves the problem entirely, but an eradication aims to keep the population of invasive species much lower than control. Any amount of invasive predators, especially as effective as feral cats, needs to be controlled.
Feral cats and pet cats are just two different things, like feral pigs and wild pigs. Even pet cats need to be tightly controlled, every bird a pet cat kills is multiplied in aggregate, these things we love are absolutely brutal.
Yes that’s why I said “I wonder if they can use that
sheand other methods to get the population down to zero.” Zero means eradication.I’m sorry, that’s totally fair, I don’t mean to sound dickish. They can’t hit zero. Australia is a model for how bad invasive cats can get, and the cat is already out of the bag, so to speak. They either target aggressive goals, which are primarily culling mixed with chemical and some limited physical spay/neutering programs. But when you are talking bang for buck, it’s really easy to look to culling primarily.
Spay nueter programs are much more expensive and usually donor funded. You gotta do a lot to an animal to even modestly safely remove it’s sex organs, especially females. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pop up in NZ, privately funded, in addition to the other programs. Desexing is still is the best way to deal with an active colony with a food source, you are right.
New Zealand has no native predators, and cats are extremely good predators.
These aren’t house cats that got lost, these are cats that are entirely wild and are now an invasive species. TNR would still decimate the local fauna while waiting for nature to take its course.
They also can’t be housed like you might do with a house cat turned stray.
as much as I love house cats, in New Zealand, the feral cats are an ecological apocalypse.
look up austrialian cat plague…at a certain point exterminating them is the only realistic option
As someone who donates significantly to spay/neuter efforts (in the U.S.), these irresponsible people piss me the fuck off. To the extent that I have cut people out of my social circle over the issue.
My fucking neighbors just keep letting their outdoor only cats reproduce and get mad when they meow for kibble. It’s the worst. My county has a well funded TNR and last litter program, but they don’t give a shit. I’ve done TNR of at least 8 or 9 cats and they just keep coming.
These aren’t even the completely wild and feral cats or anything (since the shitty neighbors feed them from time to time) although I’m sure their offspring has made some feral cats by now. It’s horrible.
Too bad they ain’t much good eatin.
Never had cat, but it can’t be that bad, can it? Guessing it’s tougher meat than we’re accustomed to, but I’d guess it’d still make passable stew meat. Or play up the toughness and make it into jerky.
Might as well get some usage out of them.
General rule of thumb is “don’t eat things that eat things”. Obviously, there are exceptions for survival cases, but the range of pathogens, parasites, and prions one can contract from eating a predator is much, much wider than that from eating vegetarian animals.
With fish it is the opposite. Fish that dont eat fish arent usually very good eating. And most fish that eat fish are even cannibalistic of their own species
Right, good point. I should have specified “mammals”.
Biological magnification still occurs with fish though.
Mercury, it’s what’s for dinner.
Huh. TIL. I always just assumed it was a taste/texture/difficult-livestock-to-manage kind of situation. I wonder if we could offset its potential to carry pathogens by like letting it cure up in a brine or something before cooking it.
There’s also the “each step of the food chain requires 10x more initial input energy” issue with predators. Here is mostly why we eat the animals we eat
Brings back the horrific scene I came across at 14 of a cat arm in a pot.
Had a friend from Hong Kong tell cats don’t taste good but dogs do. I took his word for it.
With everything deadlined to 2050, I think that is the new end of the world
That’s just where you put programs that sound good but no one wants to spend the money to actually accomplish them. 2050 might be the end of the world, but it’d be because all the stuff we needed to do to head it off were given “we’ll get to it eventually” deadlines.
Most people have not seen a feral cat and assume that they are just domestic cats living rough. Couldn’t be further from the truth. Savage predators loose in the bush and Australia has millions of them.
Yep, there's a wild difference between "feral" city/suburbia cats, and actual wild feral cats.
I used to live in a pretty rural area in Hungary, butt end of suburbia, backing into the endless fields of wheat and corn, interrupted only by small patches of "woodland" (really just a dozen or so trees occupying a small area, enough to block the view but not big enough to house any larger animals, it's mostly birds, rodents and feral cats).
There used to be maybe ten colonies of feral cats in my immediate area, and those fuckers would fuck you up proper. They hated humans, and would cross half a field, a four lane road, and a canal just to attack you. Many a times I had to run from the bus stop to home to avoid a trip to tetanus and rabies land...
Definitely a cautionary tale.
The terminology in Aus / NZ is pet (owned by people) vs stray (socialised around people but not owned) vs feral (not socialised to people).
Generally speaking, pets & strays like people - they’ve been handled as a kittens. Pets can become strays and vice versa. But feral cats (past being a kitten) will never become stray / pet (and vice versa) - it is only the next generation that can be raised differently.
While the article is defining feral cats as any cat that isn’t a pet, in reality the vast majority of what it is talking about are truly feral cats - nothing like a house cat.
australia aiming to be more evil than north korea
You have to go a long way to be more evil than NK
Protecting native species from an invasive predator is not evil.
Funnily enough I just got recommended to rewatch this old vid from tom scott
youtu.be/wcp1BfPUeOc
Maybe it’s the cadence or the accent but I cannot process anything he is saying
whats up with all the cat hating nazi’s here ?
Well for one they probably like kiwi and kakapo more, one are endangered and another one is critically endangered. And this applied to cat that roam outside and have no dependency on human.
Ironically if anything, house cat kill for fun and will kill everything that move and smaller than them, so kinda like nazi. And i said that as a dad of 4 cats. Cats are cute, and i wish it doesn’t come to this, but other animal deserve a chance to live too.
toxoplasma gondii spotted
Cats must only be indoor pets. We can easily separate pet mice and rats from their feral counterparts and we need to do the same to cats. And I am a cat person big time.
Same.
Love cats.
Keep them in doors.
Outdoor cats and feral cats are walking, prowling ecological disasters.
+1 for indoor only cats. Those cunts are ruthless - they can’t not murder wild animals and we’ve got a lot of native birds here so keep em indoors.
If you care about cats and/or if you care about the environment, you keep your pet cats indoors. Simple as.
A lot of reactionary, super-sensitive, chronically online children in this post wailing into the void because they’re imagining some kind of housecat Auschwitz.
You can’t claim to care about the environment and be fine with feral cats eliminating some of the most unique biodiversity on the planet. You midwit pussies out there have to make a choice.
All domestic cats should be fully indoor cats. Any domestic cats found outdoors should be killed. Nasty little disease spreading song bird killers.
Not sure why this is such a controversial take. House cats should indeed not be outside, unless they are on a leash.
Because people have an extreme case of the feels for cats and judge their morals purely based on what’s cute, and are fine with the deaths of cows and other animals but not pets. A disturbing amount of people care about the fully arbitrary distinction between pet and animal
Best summary of thread
It’s unfortunately far more than just birds. They kill billions of reptiles, fish, amphibians, and mammals each year. Not to mention their toxoplasmosis has been found in ocean otters (just an example of something far removed from the daily goings of a cat) and in the soil and ground water, as well as our foods. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7033973/
Very true.
Here is a video of some of the efforts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH_OC0q0FPw
I feel so terrible
Are you a feral cat?
Not sure if it’s a cat, but definitely feral.
No, probably just someone with empathy who recognizes the shit situation humans created and how it’s going to play out in the lives of New Zealand’s cats.
and yet inexplicably isn’t vegan
New Zealand needs its “Emu War” moment.
In that they’ll discover a task that sounds easy will be practically impossible to accomplish?
Save the kiwis!
The dairy industry is significantly more damaging to NZ’s ecology than some feral cats. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be addressed, but there are measures already in place. It’s important to keep perspective and not be distracted by media.
It’s possible to do two things at a time. Cats and dairy are not mutually exclusive.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_the_Mother
I find it kind of amazing that humans will constantly look outwardly as if everything that is happening isn’t a direct result of their own failures as nature’s caretakers. Yes, let’s kill the cats because of all the havoc they’re wreaking on our biodiversity but let’s also ignore all the havoc that we ourselves continue to wreak. Let’s applaud ourselves for caring so much about the environment by slaughtering one of man’s two best friends. Irresponsible cat owners aside, there are ways that (key phrase here) cost money that involve a well-known acronym, TNR to combat feral cat populations. They can be re-homed or put aboard ships to tackle rodent problems at sea and become resident sailor cats. There are better ways than blindly dropping poison fucking sausage and installing automatic poison spray machines around town. As if that won’t result in any accidental deaths of spayed neighborhood outdoor cats with chips, collars, and loving families. This thread has absolutely lost the plot if everyone agrees with the methods put forth in the article. I can assure you, this is some grade A bs.
There are not cheaper ways, though. It’s a monumental task and if it is done incompletely, it was pointless to even undertake.
Most feral animals can’t just be “re-homed”. Cats don’t need humans to be happy and to thrive. They don’t need a house. They don’t need a ship. The most we should do for them is give them a cat island (where they would likely turn cannibal and start consuming each other within a generation).
Have you ever met a truley feral cat they cannot be rehomed.
So because humans do bad things, we should allow bad thing to continue to happen.
I would say you should get directly involved, I am sure there are plenty of groups trying to do exactly what you say which is raise money for alternative solutions, but I kind of have the feeling you’re not going to.
We are the extinction event
Why just not eat them?
Darkness
Humanity hungers
Humanity is overrated
Honestly, cat is just pretty gross. Did not like at all, even before I knew what it was. Incredibly greasy, very unpleasantly gamey, weirdly stringy, do not recommend.
I’ve never had cat, but have heard that mountain lion is really good. Supposedly, during WWII, lots of house cat was eaten in the UK and was called roof rabbit.
What kind of cat did you have and what were the circumstances?
“Cat” (it was cooked, I assume it was a shorthair since there were ample feral shorthairs around), and it was part of a banquet-thing I was at while visiting friends - except sea cucumber (which is revolting it has the exact taste and texture of a loogie) the rest of the food was very good!
(edit: I am not sure british wartime cooking is a great metric to base “Tastes-Goodness” off of)
I’ve had raccoon, which was terrible. Never had the chance to try cat.
Sea cucumber is supposed to be a delicacy, but never had it. Sea urchin is amazing in my experience, but someone here on Lemmy said it was awful. It may be a preparation or freshness issue. I’d like to try sea cucumber.
Never had raccoon, have had opossum and it was… passable. Not something I’d seek out but not bad in a stew.
I can see not liking sea urchin, personally I’m not big on it but it’s not, like, bad bad. Just not my thing.
I’ve had sea cucumber several times and no, man, I encourage you to try it just so that you can share my pain. Cat was deeply eeh, don’t recommend, but sea cucumber is “I have dreams about how bad it is” levels of bad - and whats worse, people really do claim it’s a delicacy! So you can’t just duck under the table and hoark it all out onto your shoes without being rude.
I’d rather snort lines of raw durian than eat sea cucumber again. Seriously if you ever get a chance go for it, it’s spectacularly horrible. You gotta try it.
That sounds terrible. I’ll definitely give it a try.
My grandma use to sell cat meat saying it was rabbit and people liked it back then
Do these people actually KNOW any cats? You can’t eradicate them. It’s impossible, they are WAY smarter than we are.
More likely, they’ll get angry at the eradication measures, and eliminate the humans instead.
Don’t say I didn’t tell you so.
These are feral cats, they’re not domestic tabby’s and even if they were, they’re wiping out native species that are unique to the island, they are unnatural to the area and causing harm. Do you have a better idea? Do you want wild cats over unique, irreplaceable species?
You don’t have to like the plan, but you have to make a goddamn choice.
Maybe humans should quit playing god and trying to enforce the ecology they deem correct.
Fuck it, if they’re so well adapted, let cats wipe out everything they get their claws on and have them be the new evolutionary starting point. Maybe in a few hundred thousand years we’ll have entirely new winged or underwater feline subspecies, perfectly adapted to every remaining ecological niche.
It would certainly be funnier than this constant battle against windmills of our own making.
But we caused the problem. Cats would not be there without stupid people. There are a lot of irresponsible cat owners. Oh my cat has to go outside oh blah blah blah.
This entire plan is an effort to undo unnatural human intervention that is causing the extinction of unique species.
I for one want unique species to continue to live as a greater priority than feral cats. But I guess I just care more about biodiversity.
I’m sorry, I read this headline like a Dr. Doofenschmirtz plan, ahahahahahaha
Perry the Catypus on his way to throw some paws
Do cats in new Zealand have a lower than average literacy rate?
Is this gonna be like Australia’s war against the Emus? That they lost.
NZ is quite a bit smaller!
But cats are smaller too which either makes it easier for the Kiwis or more like the Australia/emu situation.
You know, I can think of one species that’s a lot more harmful to the environment. Maybe the cats of NZ should start hunting non-native members of that species.
Are… are you talking about humans?
Yes, but I think we need to distinguish between the native population, which has proven capable of co-existing with the local ecosystem, and the settlers, who’ll need to be culled.
Maybe we can be a little animale and let the aborigines adopt the more tame settlers. Find them nice, loving homes, you know? The rest will unfortunately need to be euthanised.
Aborigines is Australia, the first people of NZ are the Maori and they’ve only been there since the 1300s
So? Please finish that thought.
That means they have only been their a few centuries, so their is still massive potential harm to the environment that has been their much longer.
The ecological impact of an pre-industrial community is generally much smaller than that of an industrial one.
The Maori brought pigs and had farms. The “noble savage” trope is racist.
So who’s native in New Zealand? How long have they been there. Or the fact that they are not white gives them special privileges.
You know what, YES! It does! Now go cry about it.
Given Australia and New Zealand’s proximity to one another on the map, it makes sense to assume that the latter was originally settled by explorers from the former; and, indeed, Aboriginal Australian people can be credibly dated back more than 50,000 years, when they were able to walk to the continent from what is now New Guinea.
But no! There’s no real archaeological sign of Aboriginal Australians (or anyone else) settling on the island that would become New Zealand until the Maori arrived from Polynesia, around 800 years ago.
I didn’t leave out a zero; human habitation on New Zealand has a history of less than a thousand years. In fact, the Maori only beat Europeans to New Zealand (which they called “Aotearoa”) by about 300 years, and archaeological records indicate that they brought invasive species with them, too. They also caused the extinction of at least two bird species before European colonization even began.
Maori are great, great people. But I don’t think that they’ve “proven [themselves] capable of co-existing with the local ecosystem” any more than the European descendants have.
(As a side note, the word “aborigines” in that part of the world carries a potentially problematic connotation. Some Aboriginal Australians see it as a holdover from that country’s colonial era.)
I know. My point is that cats (or the Maori) have a minuscule impact on the environment when compared to settlers.
I see. What would be a more respectful alternative?
Most of the birds on New Zealand are flightless, because they evolved without natural ground-based predators (they only had threats from birds of prey). Cats’ impact on the avian population is actually pretty dramatic.
Meanwhile, a significant percentage of the islands remains undeveloped. The population of the entire country is only five million, on a landmass larger than the British Isles (population 65m+). Human settlement in NZ is actually pretty light-touch, which is why a ton of movies that need lush outdoor sets are shot there.
As I understand it, most of that group prefer “Aboriginal Australian.”
Humans are the species that brought cats to the island which are destroying the local ecosystem. So yeah, getting rid of people would help but that ain’t fucking happening so we have to correct our mistakes where we can.
Remember when Europe burned all the cats and that caused the plague to get a lot more out of control? I’m sure it will work out this time though
Cats are causing lots of harm to the native wildlife there. You know since they didn’t evolve with things similar to cats.
I was kidding
Very, very different situation, I wouldn’t make the comparison unless:
You’re ready to get fucking educated on ecology and biology.
You’re a troll trying to make people react.
It’s called a joke settle down
The amount of reactionary bullshit in this post is overflowing, the “joke” just reads like more of it.
Has sanitation, pest control, and medicine have advanced since the 13th century?
No … we still need cats to do all the heavy lifting.
I was really just joking but people really melted down
Ten years from now, NZ in chaos as rats swarm the country
Lol yeah
The Department of Conservation is very good at controlling rats, possums and stoats. It’s harder to control cats (and dogs) because of irresponsible owners.
I wish “middlebrow dismissal” had become a more common term. It basically means a knee-jerk rejection of an idea without seriously engaging or investigating it. A “cache dump of prejudices” rather than argument.
This thread is absolutely filled with people who think they know better than kiwi conservationists that have studied and discussed this topic in depth.
Most people didn’t read the story, and don’t actually care, they are just feeling emotions and need to vomit it out. Even if they did read the story, most people don’t really understand things like ecology anyway so it’s unlikely to change their emotional reactions.
It’s still weird to dismiss the insane destructive power of the domestic shorthair. Killing is practically their only pastime
The “baby-fication” of pets is an incredibly damaging culture. People don’t see dogs and cats for what they are and it causes problems in the lives of animals and humans alike.
@MicroWave@lemmy.world @world@lemmy.world
Unfortunately the aforementioned list will never contain the most "stone cold killer", most dangerous predator species of 'em all, because it's a list kept by that very species themselves.nods knowingly
Wallabies…
Not even ACT are foolish enough to challenge the might of the feral wallaby population
Cats have the exact same right to bring extinction to this world as we do.
The indigenous species have priority to exist.
Meow, meo meow meow mao meow, meow meow mrrp meow. Meow meow meow meow meow… 😿
TWEET!! Tweet tweet tweet! Tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweeeeeet! 🐥
Are they going to introduce a bigger possum?
Lol! Eradicate feral cats by introducing a bigger possum? Classic NZ humor
Big fan of removing cats from my country in general, they are blight on the native wildlife.
It is not personal but they should all be gone. Boom in mice and rats for a bit after
As somebody who (1) loves the beauty of the natural world and (2) lives in the USA, I’m hearing that NZ might be a most excellent place to retire, or even move to earlier.