I think the ecological niche is occupied mainly by wood pigeons and collared pigeons, plus another kind I don't know (kinda dun coloured like a partridge, but with a pigeon's body). Member of the Anti-Fabulousness League since 1987.
He raised pigeons and we had cats, so we put a little bell on the cat's collar which saved many birds and small rodents' lives.
The cat just does it out of reflex; it wasn't hungry or anything. So why get little animals killed for no reason? Especially since the neighbour seemed to enjoy the pigeons.
Then, everyone was happy - the cat, the pigeons, the neighbour, and us.
my grand-mother raised rabbits which we would eat
and my father's partner was a farmer who raised cattle which he loved dearly but knew they would be slaughtered for meat.
a whole, didn't think that an animal that was killed and wasn't eaten was a terrible tragedy
and we got along with all the neighbours, most of which were recent immigrants to Canada
And anyone who has lived in a large town like london knows that pigeons are winged rats and anything that reduces their numbers is definitely a good thing. keep to the Fen Causeway
pigeons aren't just winged rats. In fact, prior to bird flu, pigeons were not known to transport any disease communicable to man, if that's what you mean. And chickens are much more responsible for that than any pigeon.
Pigeons have as much right to exist as cats do.
Senseless killing for absolutely no reason is always to be avoided, I thought was the mantra of the true progressive.
And putting a little bell on one's cat doesn't constitute a hardship.
Geez...
maybe but my money's still on the cats. The pigeons do have a defence, they can fly away. Its not entireley senseless, its keeping their skills honed. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
but to say you're cheering the cat on to kill pigeons is something entirely different
maybe it's because all the neighbours had lived in war-torn Europe prior to living in Canada, but nobody, and I mean nobody, thought that animals should be killing other animals if it could be prevented. And it can. Very easily.
thought that animals should be killing other animals if it could be prevented. ;And it can. ;Very easily.
How? supergluing their paws to the ground is about the only way I can think of stopping them from hunting. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
(a very good idea with all the feline leukemia going around, which cannot be prevented by vaccination)
FLV vaccination is about 75-85% effective, which is reasonably good as animal vaccinations go.
Bell collars are laughably innefective, and keeping cats in a closed area, is a big cause of feline obesity and so would be equally cruel Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Bell collars are laughably innefective,...
Citation?
(Jus' kidding.) Member of the Anti-Fabulousness League since 1987.
and you know this how?
Birmin(g)am Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
You stud. Member of the Anti-Fabulousness League since 1987.
of course, you have to take it off at night if you expect to get any sleep.
I am seriously surprised by the reaction of the people here - like talking to people 20 years ago about paper recycling or something. really, really backwards!
I have a wildlife-friendly garden. It's taken years of neglect work to get it that way. I've got hedges, trees, nestboxes, a wildlife pond and buy local organic birdseed in 30kg sacks.
I like the birds in my garden. Really.
But bells don't work, because cats don't hunt by running after birds. I used to have two bells on the collar of one of my cats, and, as ceebs said, it was an exercise in assuaging guilt. A tabby, he was invisible when lurking under a bush, and all he had to do was wait for a bird to come within range and pounce.
What the bells did do was irritate him. And with hindsight, I think it may have been rather cruel as well as pointless to attach an annoying noisy thing to the neck of a creature with far more sensitive ears than ours.
Or did you mean domestic animals?
same with cats - unless you don't feed them, they have no need to kill birds
look at the audubon sites where they BEG people to keep their cats indoors so they don't kill ANY birds. or to put a bell on the cats' collars so the birds can hear them.
Cats are destroying the bird population which is already at risk.
The Effects of Cat Predation on Wildlife from the USFWS Migratory Bird Mangement Office Americans keep an estimated 60 million cats as pets. Let's say each cat kills only one bird a year. That would mean that cats kill over 60 million birds (minimum) each year - more wildlife than any oil spill. Scientific studies actually show that each year, cats kill hundreds of millions of migratory songbirds. In 1990, researchers estimated that "outdoor" house cats and feral cats were responsible for killing nearly 78 million small mammals and birds annually in the United Kingdom. University of Wisconsin ornithologist, Dr. Santley Temple estimates that 20-150 million songbirds are killed each year by rural cats in Wisconsin alone. Feline predation is not "natural." Cats were domesticated by the ancient Egyptians and taken throughout the world by the Romans. Cats were brought to North America in the 1800's to control rats. The "tabby" that sits curled up on your couch is not a natural predator and has never been in the natural food chain in the Western Hemisphere.
from the USFWS Migratory Bird Mangement Office
Americans keep an estimated 60 million cats as pets. Let's say each cat kills only one bird a year. That would mean that cats kill over 60 million birds (minimum) each year - more wildlife than any oil spill.
Scientific studies actually show that each year, cats kill hundreds of millions of migratory songbirds. In 1990, researchers estimated that "outdoor" house cats and feral cats were responsible for killing nearly 78 million small mammals and birds annually in the United Kingdom.
University of Wisconsin ornithologist, Dr. Santley Temple estimates that 20-150 million songbirds are killed each year by rural cats in Wisconsin alone.
Feline predation is not "natural." Cats were domesticated by the ancient Egyptians and taken throughout the world by the Romans. Cats were brought to North America in the 1800's to control rats. The "tabby" that sits curled up on your couch is not a natural predator and has never been in the natural food chain in the Western Hemisphere.
if you feed your pet spider, then it has no need to kill flies
I don't get it. Is this some kind of joke on me?
Why don't people want to help the bird population because cats don't only kill pigeons, you know. They kill any bird they can get their paws on.
And the number of these birds is dwindling every year.
And you guys are worried about your cats not playing enough?
This has got to be a joke...
Having to walk under a bridge looking up to ensure that a pigeon doesn't shit on you. How many bridges do you think you walk under in a large city ?
I'm not disputing the pigeon's right to an existence as a species, but like the common or garden rattus norwegicus, in concentrations as you find in london and other cities they are a pest, a nuisance and a genuine health hazard.
Or are you saying that, as progressives, we should cuddle rats too ? Cos, I'd say that was going into areas I cannot follow keep to the Fen Causeway
And as progressives, I thought we all agreed that humans are not the only ones who share the planet and that killing animals for our esthetic reasons seems to me to be very old fashioned thinking.
I guess your country doesn't do a good job of cleaning up after pigeons, but mine does
And, if we were to follow your reasoning, we should also kill dogs and cats, because I've stepped in their poo plenty of times
That's it, folks! Since Stop Blair! was such a success, I think our next campaign should aim to Stop the senseless killing! No, not in Iraq. The senseless killing of pigeons by cats! We've let this go on far too long! Killers are roaming our streets at night, playing with our children, sleeping in our beds! The kittycat reign of terror must end! Stop the violence!
"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
I could have made fun of your crush on Putin and your hope that he cheats on his wife but I didn't.
I could have said plenty of things about someone who roots for cats to kill birds but I didn't.
And I am the one who wants to make absolutely sure that Blair doesn't get in the EU executive, and you're making fun of that.
That is extremely trollish behaviour.
(Seriously, though, I apologize for not shutting up earlier.) "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
(And, uh, no apology necessary, I think we were just talking past each other.)
"Zoe", you have been warned once already in the past week about ratings abuse, and have continued to abuse the ratings system in this thread. For the record, you used 6 Mega-troll ratings (0) which are totally out of proportion in this context. In accordance with ET's stated policy, your ratings have been wiped and your ability to rate other users has been suspended for a week.
There's no need to make fun of people.
Like I said, I could have done the same about poemless' crush on Putin and her diary today justifying her belief that he cheats on his wife to keep her hopes alive. But I didn't.
I have been well behaved and wanted to work on the stop Blair campaign and to make sure it hit the 100,000 mark by going out into the streets of the major cities of Europe, at my expense, and handing out leaflets.
And, when I heard he was going to try to make a run as Foreign Affairs Minister, offered to start a campaign for that, and also to do a lot of leg work.
It's a very accepted principle in the circles that I travel in that cats have decimated the bird population so I thought this would be a good time to make the issue known.
And to be made fun of like this is just trollish and immature.
Whenever one finds oneself at a disadvantage in an argument, make fun of one's adversary, is just a great way to run a blog.
Thanks for being so thoughtful. Sniff. And for the e-mail about people being born on Oct 7 being tyrrants. Which was really sweet. It's terrible what's happened here to you today. Just, sniff, horrible.
(*If I'm going to get "0"s I should at least deserve them, right?) "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
you are a very different person from what I thought you were
we don't share the same values at all. I like life, respect for others, and for every other form of life.
you don't.
I don't think we could ever be friends.
What a minute.
zoe:
So why get little animals killed for no reason? Especially since the neighbour seemed to enjoy the pigeons.
This seems a perfectly reasonable perspective to me. I live in a town with pigeons, too, and I don't have any great desire to send cats out to kill them all. And, having lived in Britain with plenty of pigeons around town, my first inclination if I didn't want to be near them was to, you know, move.
Poemless's comment and picture weren't worthy of a troll rating, but, at the same time, there's some real inconsistency here. I seem to recall poemless's issues with the term "broad church" leading to many (who were clearly in the right on the term's meaning) getting chewed out for continuing to push the issue. There, Jerome said to us, "Hey, poemless says it's hurts her, so stop," and people obliged.
Well, here I think the issue clearly bothers zoe, and not for an unforgivable reason. But, rather than disagreeing with some reasoned response or dropping it, poemless (always clever) mocks zoe. Not worthy of a troll-rating, but still obnoxious and insensitive.
Personally, even if killing animals were necessary in a given case, I wouldn't get excited about it, certainly not to the extent that I'd cheer the cats on, and certainly not given the neighbor's response. (Honestly, that strikes me as cruel and a bit disturbed.) Not really a "team" sport in my book, but, silly asshole that I am, I would tend to associate that kind of perspective with being just a few steps above the likes of Michael Vick.
Just a thought. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
So why get little animals killed for no reason? Especially since the neighbour seemed to enjoy the pigeons. This seems a perfectly reasonable perspective to me. I live in a town with pigeons, too, and I don't have any great desire to send cats out to kill them all. And, having lived in Britain with plenty of pigeons around town, my first inclination if I didn't want to be near them was to, you know, move.
Humans should move if the habitat they have created for themselves gets coopted by other species which they find harmful.
We are so unbelievably schizophrenic about nature!
Also note that in this storyline these were not pigeons that were bred, but that rather they were wild or feral pigeons being fed by someone who liked their presence.
All of these things are objectable from some angle. Domestic cats kept for sentimental purposes can become a problem for bird populations that are already under stress, but the sentiment 'aww poor little birds' also shows a rather odd relation to nature.
I want to tell people to get less sentimental and conflicted about these things, but that puts me against 95% of the human population, even on ET.
Which then escaped, flew around the kitchen, with the cat knocking all kinds of shit off the counter while chasing it. The bird saw the doorway and went for it, smacked the door frame, left a nice spot of blood, managed to stay aloft, and escaped outside for a brief few extra hours of life.
you are the media you consume.
pigeons aren't just winged rats. In fact, prior to bird flu, pigeons were not known to transport any disease communicable to man, if that's what you mean.
And even if I had been, I wouldn't want to kill the pigeon.
Isn't that how the buffalo almost made it to extinction?
And the dodo bird did?
Pigeons don't harm anyone. They have a right to exist as well. Or did I somehow step into 1808 instead of 2008?
I know very well why cats "have fun killing". It's because their neurons and their optical system are adapted to react to movement so they are hyperalert to that. You might think it's enjoyment of killing, but it's just reflexes that allow them to thrive as predators. That doesn't mean one has to let them kill things. They can get just as much exercise in trying to run down birds who know they are coming because the cat has a bell on its collar. In fact, they get a lot more exercise this way and no birds get killed.
Millions of birds are killed unnecessarily every year because of domestic cats. And, because of other problems such as insecticides, pollution, etc, the number of birds is dwindling already...
