rockspider
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Joined: 9/26/2009
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I have no cats in my house as my sct bernard has a very dim view of them just like me. However my property seem to atract feral cats as a magnet. In front of my house i got a garden my daugther refers to as dads jungle. It has trees i guess was planted anno 1860 and lots of different things, as bushes and all that kind of things. I am an avid birdlover and get great delight in watching them as this kind of garden atracts them no end. Lots of lovely nesting places. Lots of fruits and berries to eat and for winter a well replenished birdfeeder with an always frostfree birdbath, seems to supply me with an endless supply of visitors. Sadly enough, many of the hapless wannabe parents do try and build nest in low bushes and the success rate is absolute minimal due to the feral cats. Every year i find empty nest long before they should be ready to fly and what had chick in just a day earlier. The trees, suitable for it, is fitted with catproofing, stopping them climbing up in them. I love watching the chick when they stand there testing the new wings prior to the big leap in to the big world. However, often the flight ends on the ground, and that is the signal for some cat to appear out of nowhere and getting them. Cats is natural predators and even the sweet little housecat often seem to lead a double life as psychopatic serialkillers when they vanish out of sight. Quite a few well known wildlife photographers has dokumentet this many times. I refuse to use poison for solving the problem, as that more often than not, hits things like birds of prey, foxes and even the neighboors friendly dogs. The cat traps was useless. Did catch a few but then they got wise to them. And one day i even got a baby fox which which i set free imidiately. Well i didn't find it dead so i hope it got back to mommy. Besides phoning the local SPCA or their equivalent here is hopeless as they are far away and very snooty about putting them as if it is a domestic cat that cost money. Ferals is for free but they like talking as you just somebody wanting your pet destroyed for nothing. Well the method i use now, is my friend the hunter. But they are clever bastards and he seldom manages to shoot more than one, as the others vanish of the earth the moment that happens. Besides you don't really want your house and other property looking like it suffered a boring worm attack, so the shooting is not easy. Well i do have one allay in the fight. One day i heard a rucchus in the garden and looking out i did see Old Mikkel the fox saunter of with one in the mouth. Hell if i just could make a deal with him, he would have an endless supply of food served on as silverplatter. One free chicken from the supermarket for every cat nailed. But i suspect it was a one off.
To illustrate the damage cats can do i will mention another incidense. I lived in South Africa for many years. We did have an island somewhere situated in roughly equal distance to South Africa, Australia and Antarktia. A few square miles of windblown rock, about as inaccessible and remote as can be. In the days before satelites and all that they established, a weather station down there manned year around by a few scientists. Some really bright one among them did bring a few cats as pets in their solitude. Well the usual happened and they had kittens, where some escaped. Within a few years the population of these now feral cats exploded. The island was also the breeding grounds for millions of migrating seabirds who always had been totally safe her as no predators was evident. Eggs was layed directly on the rock and the parents sat on them to they hatched. The parents would leave them and fourage food in the rich waters there. The chicks of course was sitting ducks for the cats. Within a few years, when they actually realised the disaster they har caused the birdpopulation was more than halved. The did dispatch professionel hunters to the island to solve it, but due to the landsacape there it proved a tough nut to crack. However they did manage adventuyally, but it took a long time and a lot longer, something like a decade to actually get the birdpopulation back to a nice level. When i left in 1994 the birdpopulation was up to about 75 % and the cats reduced to a few hundred. Cats is a menace when released in to vulnerable ecosystem with easy food resources and no natural enemies. I am sure specially Aussies and Kiwies can supply horror story after horror story as those two countries is prime examples of those kind of ecosystems.
I dislike cats unless they are much bigger, yellow, or yellow with spots or stripes but i am not really in to have one of those as a pet. However i did once try and play with a 9 month old leopard which had been hand reared. Wow that something else.
Another thing. Have you ever watched a cat play with a mouse. It is the actions off a sadistic killer not a predator like a lion who attacks, kills and proceed to eat. Thereafter it rests until hungry again. The housecat seldom eats its prey. Just kills for fun. Nasty devils
< Message edited by rockspider -- 11/22/2009 7:25:38 PM >
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RE: Cats - indoor/outdoor? - 
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