Cat of the Day 2021

Dr_Milker · April 23, 2021, 6:37am

To lighten things up a little.

urodacus · April 23, 2021, 8:00am

Apologies to the other cat lovers out there. Feel free to move to science and nature forum

Dr_Milker · April 23, 2021, 8:03am

No apologies necessary. It’s all cat-related.

TT · April 23, 2021, 11:44am

I’m a cat lover, but even well-fed house cats engage in murder for the sheer joy of the kill.

Taiwan_Luthiers · April 23, 2021, 12:54pm

urodacus · April 23, 2021, 2:30pm

I’m not so sure that fun is the thing. That’s a pretty abstract concept for cats, think.

They are programmed to hunt, so they do. Even if well fed.

Of course, feral cats need to hunt to eat. It’s amazing how many cats can survive in one area. As long as they have a lick of water within 10 kilometers. And they tend to diversify in what they hunt. So some just take birds, some lizards, some frogs, some mice. Or dunnarts.

So by stratifying what they eat they reduce competition and have more population and thus more impact on naive ecologies

Icon · April 23, 2021, 3:11pm

IMHO:

Cats are domestic animals. Just as you should not have feral cows or chickens, there should not be feral cats or dogs. They should be taken care by humans. Any problem with feral population is responsibility of humans because humans abandoned them and put them in that position.

As to domestic cats indoors, they are safe from disease, dogs, other cats and most importantly, evil people.

yyy · April 23, 2021, 11:21pm

Yeah, I don’t recall where I read it, but there was an article to the effect of the only species on Earth that kills for pleasure is Homo sapiens, explaining the cat thing as pure instinct, not so much hungry must kill but see moving thing must kill.