You thought watching cat videos was harmless fun? Think AGAIN

It's well known that if all the cat videos and porn disappeared from the internet there would be only one site left and it would be called whereareallthecatvideosandporn.com. All the huge data centres, all the fat pipes, all the amazing new digital technologies of the global information infrastructure are only there, really, so …

[Richard J]

Feral Cats

Think of it as evolution in action.

(Penguin as they'd probably eat them too.)

[adnim]

How many creatures

do humans kill each year?

[JetSetJim]

Re: How many creatures

The USDA reckon, in 2008, and for the US alone:

Cattle: 35,507,500

Pigs: 116,558,900

Chickens (total): 9,075,261,000

--- Layer hens: 69,683,000

--- Broiler chickens: 9,005,578,000

Turkeys: 271,245,000

Then there's the fishies - will no-one think of the fishies? Well, apparently the Animal Liberation Front does think of the fishies and their finest set of unbiased numbers are as follows:

Fish: 6,500,000,000

Shellfish: 64,000,000,000

Source for both sets of stats here: http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Practical/FactoryFarm/USDAnumbers.htm (I make the assumption that they quote the USDA numbers properly, as they are attempting to further their own political agenda)

[Tom 7]

Re: How many creatures

Are you telling me that that absolutely massive US beef industry that drains resources from across America and the rest of the world barely exceeds the production numbers that buffalo managed without intervention?

[JEDIDIAH]

Re: How many creatures

Sometimes I wonder if they could cut out the middle man by just letting all of those cows graze on those fields that are now planted with corn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How many creatures do humans kill each year to feed cats ?

Add that on top bird and mammal kills.

There are very few animals that kill for fun in this world but a cat is one of them. A fully fed cat will go out and kill a bird for the fun of it.

[adnim]

Re: How many creatures do humans kill each year to feed cats ?

A fully fed human will also go out and kill almost anything for fun, including each other.

I am sure to get down voted for this, I don't care.

Just because humans have opposable thumbs, can reach the moon, create computers and can dominate and eradicate just about every other species on the planet (perhaps bacteria and virus are exceptions) does not mean this planet is ours to do with what we wish, we share this place with billions of other life forms. We are an arrogant bunch of fuckers who think this planet, its resources and all its life is here for just for the purpose of us alone to exploit or kill for fun.

I am not against killing animals for food nor exploiting resources for human use. I use electricity, I eat chicken, I wouldn't like to live in a cave. Humans have always exploited animals and the planet's resources to improve and advance, to be honest I can't really see another way to advance as a species. What does make me angry is that we do not do this in harmony with or respect for the biosphere with which we are intimately connected.

I have much respect for animals, they are not motivated by greed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How many creatures do humans kill each year to feed cats ?

"I have much respect for animals, they are not motivated by greed."

Brown bears catching salmon in abundance seem to take only a bite or two out of one - then immediately catch another. Some animals deliberately foul the uneaten remains of their kill.

Many animals will gorge themselves almost senseless on a seasonal abundance - or a fresh kill. Humans did the same thing when they were hunter gatherers. Unfortunately with the modern cornucopia that survival trait leads to constant overeating - particularly of fats and sugars.

[JEDIDIAH]

Re: How many creatures do humans kill each year to feed cats ?

Goldfish will quite literally eat themselves to death. This is why you aren't supposed to overfeed the fish in your aquarium.

[Rattus Rattus]

Re: How many creatures do humans kill each year to feed cats ?

"Brown bears catching salmon in abundance seem to take only a bite or two out of one - then immediately catch another." - This is because when salmon are in abundance the bear will eat just the most nutritious parts, such as the head, and leave the rest for scavengers. This behaviour does not show "greed" as you seem to think, it is simply the most efficient strategy for the bear in times of abundance. When salmon are fewer they will eat the entire thing.

[AceRimmer]

Re: How many creatures do humans kill each year to feed cats ?

"This is because when salmon are in abundance the bear will eat just the most nutritious parts, such as the head, and leave the rest for scavengers. This behaviour does not show "greed" as you seem to think, it is simply the most efficient strategy for the bear in times of abundance. When salmon are fewer they will eat the entire thing."

The bears don't leave the fish for the scavengers, they just leave the fish. Scavengers happen to pick them up afterwards but this is of no concern of the bears

At a fundamental level greed is energy efficiency. Grab what you can now whilst its easy and to hell with every one else.

[AceRimmer]

Re: How many creatures do humans kill each year to feed cats ?

"I have much respect for animals, they are not motivated by greed."

All animals will consume as much as they can, in the wild there are usually limiting factors outside of their control.

[Psyx]

Re: How many creatures do humans kill each year to feed cats ?

"I have much respect for animals, they are not motivated by greed."

I respect animals, but I don't see that as a particularly high reason on my list for doing so. Animals *are* greedy by their very nature. They will eat until gorged and many species will grab as many mates as possible.

[JP19]

Re: How many creatures do humans kill each year to feed cats ?

"We are an arrogant bunch of fuckers who think this planet, its resources and all its life is here for just for the purpose of us alone to exploit or kill for fun"

All life is selfish and will take whatever resource is available to sustain its continued existence. Life cares about itself and its genes.

'We' are not arrogant fuckers, a large proportion are stupid fuckers. As a social species we have developed and thrived on the basis that caring about others and their genes results in overall better care for us and our genes.

The stupid fuckers are the ones that feel this care for others ought to be applied to life forms which don't and can't provide any care for us in return.

[Natalie Gritpants]

@adnim

> ... does not mean this planet is ours to do with what we wish

OK, so who does the planet belong to and where are they? Oh, that's right - no-one and nowhere to be seen.

Unless you believe in God, in which case it is ours (at least according to the Bible). and so are the animals.

[Elmer Phud]

Re: @adnim

'won't somebody think of the planet?'

As if something as old and twitchy as a planet has some form of awareness of these incredibly short-lived recently arrived bi-peds that live on the rather active scummy bit could care less (if indeed it could in the first place).

Mother Earth will not look after people - every time 'she' farts the self-important bi-peds come off worse.

['s water music]

Re: How many creatures do humans kill each year to feed cats ?

@adnim: I have much respect for animals, they are not motivated by greed.

YA Jason Strugnell AICMFP

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How many creatures

>do humans kill each year?

I'd bet there will always be someone or something each one of us could actively do without, so the answer is one too few.

[Gunnar Wolf]

Re: How many creatures

...or breed.

Would, say, cows as a species have much future were humans mandated not to breed them for food anymore?

[Jonathan Walsh]

Purrfect

I for one welcome our new feline overlords.

[Justice]

Re: Purrfect

Absolutely!!!

Now let's get to work building some large pointy structures to house our newly reinstated Egyptian Gods.

(still makes more sense than Scientology)

[Code Monkey]

Re: Purrfect

Just leave a box next to the pyramid. The cats will use that.

[zaax]

Re: Purrfect

Why do you think the pyramid were built in the sandy desert.

[adnim]

Re: Purrfect

Quantum theory makes more sense than Scientology.

[Psyx]

Re: Purrfect

"Quantum theory makes more sense than Scientology."

That's because it's provable...

[GBE]

Re: Purrfect

> "Quantum theory makes more sense than Scientology."

>

> That's because it's provable...

True, (well I'd say verifiable or demonstrable rather than provable)

but it it still makes no sense. To parapharse Neils Bohr: anybody who

thinks quantum theory makes sense doesn't really understand it.

[C 18]

Re: Purrfect

Then it wouldn't be called a theory. A certain Mr. Feynman went to great lengths to edumucate us plebs about all this.

[Anonymous Coward]

hmmm

They based their figures on estimates from a new algorithm. ..

So nothing likely to be wrong there. .I have a new algorithm here which basing figures on estimates from that I've be able to conclude that reading El-Reg is directly responsible for several million spilt cups of coffee per year. ..

[Someone Else]

Re: hmmm

Yes, and fouled keyboards, too, I wot.

[Silverburn]

Re: hmmm

Split coffee vs fouled keyboards...

remember: causation != corrolation :-)

[heyrick]

Cat murder algorithm???

Hey, what exactly do you think happens in "the wild"? For sure, cats don't sit around bonfires popping the tops of cans of Felix.

Evidence? Well, look at any Attenborough documentary - beautiful slow motion footage of something slaughtering something else. It is only us humans that devised the microwave oven...

[M7S]

Re: Cat murder algorithm???

"It is only us humans that devised the microwave oven..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_zpdyBz3VM

[Andrew Moore]

And yet...

...when the odd snake turns the tables on one of the little furry feckers, all hell breaks loose...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And yet...

Friends in South Africa had a domestic cat, Thomas, that was half Cape Wild Cat. They had a rocky kopje on their farm - a natural home for snakes. The cat would find a cobra and patiently circle it - just out of striking range. The cobra would rear up and follow the cat with its head. There came the point where the snake could not twist its body any further - and had to do an unwind. At that instant the cat would spring in for the kill behind the snake's head.

His other party trick was to antagonise a pack of local dogs. When they started to attack it would quickly retreat into cardboard box it had earlier arranged on its side against a fence. As each dog stuck its head into the box opening then its nose was shredded by the cat's claws. The dogs never seemed to learn - and the cat actually seemed to take a sadistic delight in the encounters.

[M7S]

"Domestic cats"

Owned ones presumably have been kept inside, fed pasta and taught to play the piano.

Ha ha ha. No.

I got cats to keep the vermin down. Sometimes the shrews and mice that are now brought into the house have been vivisected across the carpet (and I find them with my bare feet as I trudge to the kettle in the dark mornings) and sometimes they are hale and hearty having been brought in physically undamaged but now the cats are bored of the toy and let them go. This has resulted in my now being a better mouser than they are (so Darwin will win out eventually....) and despite attempts to re-invigorate their interest in the live ones by putting them in a hamster ball, it hasn't worked so they are eventually released in the distant shrubbery.

I get rabbits as well, sometimes whole and hopping, sometimes just a pair of trousers with a spiny bit poking out of the top. Not many birds, the pheasant are too big and the squirrels make good use of the gravity well that applies to three dimensional combat.

The deer gives them pause for thought and I don't think they'd try to take on the vixen in the nearby field. As I'm fond of bats I don't let the cats into the loft where there's a small roost.

I do however feel a bit remoreful for all the avian destruction so I might not replace them when they expire.

Out of interest are IT people more cat or dog inclined?

[Andrew Peake]

Re: "Domestic cats"

"...and despite attempts to re-invigorate their interest in the live ones by putting them in a hamster ball"

What you put the cats in a hamster ball? Isn't that a squash? Do you have any fingers/skin/eyes left?

[Nigel 11]

Re: "Domestic cats"

Out of interest are IT people more cat or dog inclined?

Don't know, but cats definitely have hacker personalities. (Dogs are like suits).

Remember the man who was prosecuted for animal cruelty because his cat was riding on the passenger seat of his motorbike (with its claws firmly dug in)? He was able to demonstrate it was that cat's choice to be there. Indeed, the cat was extremely reluctant to be left behind and came running at the sound of the bike being started. A biker cat.

[JEDIDIAH]

Re: "Domestic cats"

In general, it is very difficult to get a cat to do anything against it's will. Unless it is in a cage, you can pretty much assume that the cat has given it's consent. Otherwise, there would likely be a pretty badly cut human.

"herding cats"

[Ketlan]

Smut alert!

'It's well known that if all the cat videos and porn disappeared from the internet there would be only one site left and it would be called whereareallthecatvideosandporn.com.'

Or wheresthepussy.com. Sorry.

Paris, of course. Though I've no idea why.

[Sloppy Crapmonster]

Re: Smut alert!

That domain is in use, and totally SFW. I'll leave the contents to someone brave enough to load it up :)

[Michael Dunn]

Re: Smut alert! @Ketlan

I understood one word on that website - resveratrol - so does it have something to do with red wine?

[Atonnis]

Birds...

Have a watch of some of the documentaries about birds in Africa. There's a species that flies around in groups of millions wiping out entire crops and slaughtering anything in their path, and they don't migrate regularly, but only move to where the food is.

Sod cats, horrible little self-adoring, vicious little allergen spreaders. Birds are the real threat.

[Filippo]

Shocker news

Predator does what predators do.

[Tony Green]

If only we were allowed to kill these bloody vermin!

In my garden, bloody cats cause far more damage than all the natural pests put together. I've had goldfish taken out of the pond and killed, any seeds I sow get dug up and EVERYTHING gets shat on by the filthy creatures.

And the sort of selfish sods who let these pests loose think I should consider it a privilege!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If only we were allowed to kill these bloody vermin!

2 ways to stop kitty-crap in your garden is...

Get a kitty yourself.

Crap/pee in your garden yourself

Best way to stop a kitty killing anything is to put 2 bells round it's neck. Little jingly ones or bloody great big church bells, either will do.

[Fibbles]

Re: If only we were allowed to kill these bloody vermin!

Most reg readers are cat owners. Colour me surprised... No wait, the other thing.

Whilst I wouldn't advocate needless cruelty to animals there seems to be a definite hypocrisy amongst you lot when it comes to your precious darlings. If I were to suggest some sort of restriction on your rights in order to 'protect the children', you would quite rightly tell me that my kids are my responsibility and nobody else's. Yet if I were to complain that I don't like your cat prowling through my garden, your replies would not be that I should build a bigger fence or something equally as fatuous.

If it is your cat, it is your responsibility. This is not some wild animal, such as a fox, that we're talking about. It's a non-native, domesticated pet that you've let loose in the neighbourhood. And to anyone that wants to use the excuse that your cat is a predator, that it needs to go out and hunt and that it would be cruel to keep it cooped up in the house, I say this; If you cannot provide the space that your cat needs on your own property then you should not own a cat.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: Fibbles

I agree with you, but downvoted anyway for the ridiculous straw cat owner you constructed.

[Fibbles]

Re: Fibbles

Downvote away but perhaps you should read the rest of the posts in this thread. My comment may seem considerably less strawman-like afterwards.

[heyrick]

Re: If only we were allowed to kill these bloody vermin!

"If it is your cat, it is your responsibility. This is not some wild animal, such as a fox, that we're talking about. It's a non-native, domesticated pet that you've let loose in the neighbourhood."

Try looking at what the law says some time. Cats are known for their prowling wandering behaviour. To that end, if a dog is killed (accidentally) it must be reported to the police, and there can be consequences. If a cat is killed, tough shit on the owner. The possible consequences would relate to animal cruelty, however a clean shot to the head would likely not be considered "cruel".

This is why in rural places, hunters frequently pick off cats. They can always use the "it looked like a stoat" excuse, but it happens (even to a tabby with a bright yellow collar with bells on - some stoat), and people just have to deal with it. Right now, as it is a Sunday, the two outdoor cats are rounded up and locked in a stable, so they don't become targets.

If a hunter was to intentionally shoot one single dog, all hell would break loose.

Likewise, the person with the cola/vinegar squirter is being cruel to the cat, but as a cat owner myself, treatment of that nature is something we have to put up with in exchange for the fact that our cats won't stay put if they get the urge to go walking. Sometime they need to learn the places that are off limits, and given the attitude of the average cat, just saying "no kitty" isn't going to cut it. The cat will need to be inconvenienced. Then it might learn. If it feels like it. Maybe.

Yes, cats are definitely hackers. Sometimes I suspect they hack reality when we aren't looking.

[Dazed and Confused]

Re: If only we were allowed to kill these bloody vermin!

You need to buy bigger fish,

I believe El'Reg's R&D (reporting & drinking?) dept can supply these with built in lasers for added effect.

[HamsterNet]

Re: If only we were allowed to kill these bloody vermin!

Cat are easy to keep out of your garden. I have rabbits and the local cats only ever enter the garden once. I see them and chase after them bellowing at the full volume and with a clear intent to kill the cat if I can. As cats are territorial they remember my garden as being off limits and do not ever come back. You cant do this half hearted, you do have to have an intention to kill the cat.

[Psyx]

Re: If only we were allowed to kill these bloody vermin!

"you do have to have an intention to kill the cat."

Holy shit, dude. Just yelling without expressly trying to kill them will work, dude!

I was recommend a super-soaker filled with a mix of vinegar and cola. The cola sticks and the vinegar tastes foul when they try to clean their coat.

But I find shouting to work well. And I got two [They were...um...close together at the time] of the yowling bastards with a snowball from my bedroom window at 4am the other night.

[Thorne]

Re: If only we were allowed to kill these bloody vermin!

"I was recommend a super-soaker filled with a mix of vinegar and cola. The cola sticks and the vinegar tastes foul when they try to clean their coat."

I'd recommend caffine free diet pepsi. It tastes truely disgusting. No additives needed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you ever seen Hitchcock?

If it wasn't for cats, the entire surface of the Earth would be covered to a depth of twelve metres in birds by now. Sure, they're all cute when they're sitting on a snow-covered bough tweeting prettily in their ones and twos, but how would you feel when half a million of them were trying to peck you to death? Eh? EH?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Haven't you ever seen Hitchcock?

Erm, The Birds was not documentary but FANTASY !

Ask the New Zealanders about the near extinction of ground dwelling birds by cats.

[JimmyPage]

And yet ...

there are at least 5 cats that prowl around my neighbourhood. So why do we still see rats ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And yet ...

Because a rat fights back

[Silverburn]

Re: And yet ...

And some rats are bigger than the cats.

[NomNomNom]

Re: And yet ...

only in the quartermaster's store

[Nigel 11]

Re: And yet ...

Because rats beed as fast as rabbits. And rats hide down holes too small for cats. And rats are astonishingly intelligent for smallish rodents. (Some of the rat stories I've heard, there must be significant intelligence overlap with humans. There again, some of the dumb human stories I've heard ...)

Cats do catch rats, but they have to hunt carefully because a rat can seriously injure a cat. So the cat has to be hungry to bother, and the rat species isn't in any danger.

If you want a lot of rats killed quickly, get someone in with ferrets and/or terriers. But a week later, you'll still have rats. Smarter rats.

[Rob]

Could be worse...

... they could develop opposable thumbs

(he says while crouched near his cat flap with a super soaker, ready to unleash hell on the neighbourhood cat who thinks he's Alpha).

[heyrick]

Re: Could be worse...

"... they could develop opposable thumbs"

http://somefun.net/fun/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Wait-I-have-thumbs.jpg

[Anonymous Coward]

It's well known that if...

"It's well known that if all the cat videos and porn disappeared from the internet there would be only one site left and it would be called..."

You don't get out much, do you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's well known that if...

Half my surfing is looking at pussies, and the other half is looking at pussies.

[Kevin Johnston]

Ah...precision guesstimates

if only you could get away with figures like that in the business world...something between 8.3billion and a number 200% bigger. Come to think of it, didn't a certain game console manufacturer have that scale of variance between predicted and actual profit, just in the wrong way?

[Tikimon]

Dogs et. al under control, why not CATS?

No other pet animals are allowed to roam about killing whatever strikes their fancy. People are rightfully horrified when dogs do it. Time to call cats the remorseless little monsters they are.

[Silverburn]

Re: Dogs et. al under control, why not CATS?

Cats don't normally maul small children to death, nor are they bred and trained to be as aggressive as possible.

No, feline domination over man is the long game and is altogether much more sinister.

[Psyx]

Re: Dogs et. al under control, why not CATS?

"Cats don't normally maul small children to death"

Not do dogs.

"nor are they bred and trained to be as aggressive as possible."

Nor are 95% of dogs.

Cats don't need much in the way of training to be aggressive little shits, though. I've never had a dog decide that not liking its dinner was grounds for trying to scratch the crap outta me!

[Daniel B.]

Easy...

that's because All Your Base are belong to CATS

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Sounds a bit too much like model data being presented as facts, not that I doubt that (feral and domestic) cats cause a lot of damage.

In my own modelling of (microbial) ecosystems I always was suspicious if my algorithm gave surprising results. Almost always I had found something new. In most cases it was a new bug in the code. In rare cases there was something interesting to report. In all those cases I went and checked the literature to corroborate my findings with observational data (or failing that, suggest how biologists could falsify my findings)

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Re: train them to target vermin?

re: Can we train them to get urban pigeons?

I think you might want hawks for that. Providing the cats don't kill them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: train them to target vermin?

There are sometimes ripped open feral pigeon carcasses in my garden - so I presume a neighbour's cat is the killer. Pigeons aren't exactly fast off the ground - and headless small birds' remains suggest the cats can strike pretty quickly. Saw the neighbour's cat stalking a squirrel on the lawn - the cat was never allowed to get in range.

[Oninoshiko]

Re: train them to target vermin?

You get a thumbs up for bringing a chuckle to my desk with Tom Lehrer.

[tirk]

Re: train them to target vermin?

My cats have bought back pigeons, frogs, assorted mice and voles, several rats, a budgie and a slow worm(!). Almost always alive. Catching the buggers at 3am is no fun (especially the rats). I can only think they see me as a crap hunter that needs more practice. Especially at 3am.

Releasing a pigeon from a box in your front garden just as a curious drunk walks past gets a great reaction though ;-)

Now one's dead and the other is elderly, so mostly I get brought leaves now (really!). I guess it's the thought that counts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cats kill a total of 1.4–3.7 billion birds and 6.9–20.7 billion mammals annually in the USA alone

Yet another reason the NRA want's to keep assault rifles in the hands of the "hunters"

[g e]

trap-neuter-return

Perhaps this could be applied to NRA members too?

[IglooDude]

Re: trap-neuter-return

Okay, no matter what side of the gun debate you're on, that was frikkin funny.

[Thorne]

Re: trap-neuter-return

"Perhaps this could be applied to NRA members too?"

The same thought occured to the NRA too hence the reason why they want to keep assault rifles....

[Tom 38]

Film at 11

The entire purpose of cats is to kill small animals - it's why we domesticated them in the first place. They should be killing anything they can get to, so that it stays out of the way of humans.

Hardly fair to suddenly turn around and say "OK, mice and rats, but not the cute ittle birdies or water voles".

[Daniel B.]

Re: Film at 11

I have a pigeon infestation problem at my apartment. One of the possible solutions is exactly that: buying a cat and unleash it against the pigeons!

[Anonymous Coward]

Possible/

Is it possible that the "model based on a new cat murder algorithm" is based on the algorithms used by MPIA to identify losses due to piracy, and feral cats actually kill only 3 birds & 5 mice between them every year?

[Mike 140]

"The scientists estimated the figures by running a model based on a new cat murder algorithm. The research authors described themselves as stunned by the scale of the bloodshed they discovered."

Discovered? Discovered??!!?? They discovered nothing. The model which they built produced the numbers which their parameters were designed to do.

[Herer]

brilliant web comic on this (theoatmeal.com)

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

a visual presentation on similar figures

[Boris the Cockroach]

I'm

glad cats kill little furry animals, because since I live in an older section of the city, we have trouble sometimes with little cute furry creatures scuttling about, and its only the re assuring sound of my cat going crunch,munch, crunch gulp burp that stops me filling the house with a lot of chemicals designed to give said furry critters a long slow lingering death.

[DF118]

This just in: carnivorous predators kill prey. News at 11.

[Piro]

New Cat Order

Sounds fine to me ..

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

Go, cats!

I would support fellow mammalians v feathered dinosaurs descendants any day!

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed

There should be solidarity amongst fellow mammalian predators. There might come a day we need the cats to crush the revolution of our prime food - these lovely pigs and cows !

[Gavin King]

Re: Indeed

And the sheep: surely you know that documentary "Black Sheep"!

[fishman]

Cat food?

If seafood is sea creatures that people eat, then what is cat food?

[Martin Budden]

Re: Cat food?

And what about baby food?

(cue Soylent Green comment)

[Michael Dunn]

Re: Cat food? @fishman

And, strangely, cat lit does not consist of books for cats!

[Rattus Rattus]

Re: Cat food?

"If seafood is sea creatures that people eat, then what is cat food?"

Chinese?

[The Grump]

The last time I checked...

cats don't care what a bunch of so-called "reporters" at the New York Slimes thinks. The cats are more intelligent than the reporters. Everyone working at the New York Times are the ones who should be in that weighted burlap sack, at the bottom of the East River. That would be doing humanity a favor. A bunch of jerks reporting what another bunch of idiots think about cats. No wonder their newspaper subscriptions are in the toilet.

[LordHighFixer]

Just ned a recipie

A proper sauce, and a butcher willing to sell them, and we could be rid of the feline problem once and for all. My wife and daughter have 12 of the cash to crap factories and I want them to all die now.

[Anonymous Coward]

And The Worst Killer Of Cows, Pigs And Chicken Is

Homo S. Meatsack.

I welcome the felines who are almost as blood-thirsty as my species is.

A fire for frying a cute little piglet.

[southpacificpom]

You thought watching cat videos was harmless fun?

I personally love getting my daily quota of online pussy...

[Galidron]

Dogs et. al under control

I wish that were true. There is at least one dog in my neighborhood that is never accompanied by a human. It seems to just spend it's days running around taking a dump in random yards.

[Paul Hovnanian]

Feral cats

My neighborhood has a solution: coyotes. Keep your pet inside or lose it.

[Katie Saucey]

Re: Feral cats

I agree coyotes manage just fine, unless your neighbours feline is an ocelot (possibly named Babou).

[Colin Brett]

Wasn't there a story like this last summer?

Oh ... here it is:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/09/kittycam_discovers_killer_cats/

This garnered 286 comments, many of which I read first time round and many of which are similar to those on this thread.

Now I have to go. I have a cat to worship in an hour.

Colin

[Esskay]

Reckon the US is bad? Wait till you see Africa

Those cats don't fuck around

[zb]

Inflation

Last August the figure was only 4 billion

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/09/kittycam_discovers_killer_cats/

Are we to conclude that El Reg is not a reliable source of information about cats?

[Dodgy Geezer]

Is this the same Marra...

...who published an appallingly bad bit of scaremongering stats on bird deaths by cats a couple of years ago? Using every trick in the stats book on a base observation of 70 fledglings?

I would like to see someone from el-reg analyse the stats in the paper critically. This lad has got form.

Oh, and, by the way, how many birds NEED to be killed each year? That's the way nature works. If it didn't, the earth would be a mass of pigeons expanding at a large fraction of the speed of light. Once we know what the appropriate predation rate is we can then decide if cats, or squirrels (which I thought killed twice as many fledglings) , or glazed windows (which kill a significant number) are doing it to excess or not...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cats for rodent control what a joke!

City dweller fantasy much?

On my farm I kept/keep cats for rodent control. Useless things said screw the mice and rats they take work and immediately ate all the frogs, lizards, rabbits and then I started seeing larger native wildlife show up dismembered including birds. All the while my house walls and roof got infested with succeeding population and mice and rats (the later would move in and eat the former) leaving me exposed to both disease and house fire (countless rats pulled from roof cavities bitten into the electric cabling of the house).

Then I got Jack Russels, they were picked on as pups by the pups but when they grew up from the more agressive cats who would swipe out or otherwise attack a pup. But they eventually got their own back. Most of the cats ended up killed or chased away.

There is no more active and enthusiastic mouser or ratter than a Jack Russel, I was amazed at how enthusiastically they hunted the vermin and my house infestations have become a rarity. The side benefit is they are also aggressively protective of the property against foxes while the farm cats would just hang back and be lazy and let the animals on the farm get kille by foxes.

And to the people who think animals are so much more holier than thou above humans on a moral scale and only kill for food, you are again misguided city people far removed from reality and plugged into you tellies as the only input into what's going on in the outside world.

I've seen foxes eat baby lambs as they are being born and during lambing season they eat the brains and leave the rest of the animal to rot while going on to the next baby lamb. You lot need to wake up and stop your fairy tale life beliefs in what is happening out here in the real world.

[Gray Ham]

Re: Cats for rodent control what a joke!

"There is no more active and enthusiastic mouser or ratter than a Jack Russel"

I've seen Yorkies that are pretty damn good too ...

[Herby]

They ARE interesting animals!

My cat (custody from my ex-) was a wonderful "lap-cat" for almost 18 years. Yes, he did his share of dispatching both birds and mice (just a few), but overall a nice animal.

As for cats in general, one theory is that the great plague ravaged Europe because cats were "unwelcome". They previously did a job of cleaning up vermin, and had a partial immunity to the Plague. Maybe that is their great purpose.

I do understand that cats have domesticated us humans quite well when we keep them as pets.

[Denarius]

Re: They ARE interesting animals!

correct. Some idiot campaign to prevent familiar spirits that cats were carriers of. Needsess to say, just in time for a new variation of plague gets loose.

[johnwerneken]

all the more reason to like cats

they are just like us, honestly intent on their own desires and to heck with any other species. Life as it should be, unless it should be entirely different from how it is lived by all Earthly living things, a hard concept for me to grant validity indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

What percentage of the bird/mammal population are they killing?

As compared to the replacement rate? I doubt they are doing any damage that matters except to crazy PETA types who like to think that no animal would "murder" another in the wild and it is somehow the fault of us nasty humans importing animals into areas where they didn't occur naturally.

The common house cat may not be native to the US, but bobcats and panthers sure as hell are, and there used to be a few orders of magnitude more of them around all over the US than exist today (for some reason ranchers don't like having their livestock killed so they shoot them) If you figure one cat is as good as another in hunting prowess, is a few million panthers and bobcats killing much larger mammals better than 50 million house cats killing small mammals? The big cats kill fewer animals because there are fewer of them, but they may win in pounds of animals killed. What if saber toothed tigers, also native to North America until 10,000 years ago or so, were still around? A few of them could supposedly kill a mammoth. That seems worse on the murder scale than a robin or squirrel, but maybe that's just me.

I wonder how many sparrows and rabbits equals one mammoth in their feline murder equations?

[Rattus Rattus]

In fact...

Nearly all animals removed from their native to somewhere they have not evolved have the potential to become an ecological blight. Humans have been spreading animals to places they should not have gone for millenia. Personally, I think if you want to keep a vicious killer like a cat as a pet you ought to need a license to do so with conditions that include not allowing it to roam freely. Feral cats and free-roaming pets cut bloody swathes through the vulnerable, unique, and endangered native animals of my country, Australia. I would like to see government appointed professional cullers whose job it is to shoot unattended cats on sight.

[Tom 38]

Re: In fact...

vulnerable … native animals of my country, Australia

I thought the only vulnerable animals in Australia were the humans - or have the sheep got less vicious?

[Stuart21551]

You're saying it's pussies or pussies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh the irony

Here we have Cat lovers that think it's animal cruelty to cull the mass murdering domestic cat. When in fact it's the cat owners that are the sick cruel perverts that think nothing of the billions of lives lost to these furry monsters, nor do they think about where the meat they feed them comes from.

Putting cats into bags and drowning them is pretty sick ... but then how sick is ripping a poor defenceless bird apart. Just because it's your pet doesn't mean that you should be allowed to ignore the suffering of others animals.

My personal bug bear is the fact that these so-called owners allow their cats to spread their toxic faeces all over the neighbourhood, so that children can be contaminated by potentially lethal Toxoplasmosis ... and of course the law perversely stops neighbours from killing the vermin when they trespass onto their land!

It's about time that the law was changed so that the cat owner has a responsibility to ensure that their monster isn't allowed outside of their property.

Cat owners are not animal lovers.

[mfritz0]

The root of the problem.

Millions of years ago, when Mars still had its atmosphere and the Martians visited Earth, (You know the Martians had wings like "Angels"?) anyway, these "Angels brought these little "Devils" along with them for entertainment and some of them got out when they got to Earth. Well, to make a long story short, evolution took over and wallah, we have Mr. Muggles and all his descendants.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00037/mcam/0037MR0162000000E1_DXXX.jpg

[cortland]

There was a plan to help migratory birds in Minnesota (IIRC) some years ago by allowing hunters seeking other game to shoot feral cats. The Fluffy lobby -- and a little logic -- shot that down. (Can I say that here?).

The logic came in when it was noted that old Man Winter kills many more times the number of feral cats than hunters could.

Fluffy? I like cats. I even talk to them. Sometimes they answer -- but I have promised not to reveal what they tell me.

Paris, because cat house is on topic.

Right?

[John Smith 19]

Cats are delicious

But with quite a strong flavor, like rabbit, which some unscrupulous butchers have been known to sell them as.