Feral Cats
Think of it as evolution in action.
(Penguin as they'd probably eat them too.)
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 …
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 14:36 GMT 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)
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 15:40 GMT 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.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 16:07 GMT 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.
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Thursday 31st January 2013 08:31 GMT 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.
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Thursday 31st January 2013 13:17 GMT 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.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 16:59 GMT 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.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 19:35 GMT 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.
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Thursday 31st January 2013 12:56 GMT 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.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 17:20 GMT 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.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 14:22 GMT 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. ..
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 14:22 GMT 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...
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 16:17 GMT 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.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 14:26 GMT 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?
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 18:28 GMT 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.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 14:32 GMT 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.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 14:36 GMT 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!
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 15:13 GMT 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.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 20:01 GMT 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.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
