• deweydecibel@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Realistically, outdoor cats don’t travel much. They just hang out in their neighborhood, chill in their favorite spots, etc.

    Cats have their territory and that’s where they spend their time, doing cat things. It’s just that an outdoor cat’s territory isn’t limited by walls.

    • thehatfox@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There was a BBC documentary a few years ago where they gave GPS tracking collars to a bunch of cats in a neighbourhood and tracked where they went. Each of the cats had their own territory and favourite locations.

      • jpeps@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I loved that doc! It was fascinating seeing the vast differences in territory. I remember one cat who travelled something like a mile back and forth every day on a really narrow area. There was also a pair of cats that had worked out a little territory share amongst themselves, patrolling the same area but always 12 hours apart from each other.

    • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Murder local wildlife, cause property damage to neighbors, kill neighbors pets, spread disease. Roaming cats suck, and so do their entitled owners who think that everyone’s property belongs to their pet

      • Umbraveil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        While we’re at it, let’s get rid of birds that shit on everything, deer that eat our gardens, raccoons that get in our trash, skunks that dig up our grass …

        • thoughtorgan@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          These people are fucking insane. Like they don’t go outside ever.

          Can you believe an ANIMAL killed another ANIMAL? 😱😱😱😱

          • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I have a pet parrot, a neighbors cat almost got through my window screen to attack my pet. That cat would not have survived, and then you can go “OMG A HUMAN KILLED A PEST” and we’ll see if you’re fair about it

      • BirdyBoogleBop@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        I guess some cats love to piss on doors but I don’t think much if any property damage is being done by pet cats. I don’t think I have ever heard of a cat kiling a pet either.

        Cats should be indoor only because they are murder hobos when it comes to wild birds and small animals.

        Spreading diesease I can’t comment on. What diesease do cats kept as pets spread?

        • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          My neighbors cats used to wreck my herb garden and such. One of them once tried to rip through my window screen to get inside my house and get my pet parrot. I would have made that cat disappear if he had gotten in, and his owner would have never known what happened, and that would be their own fault

          Can you imagine if dog owners just opened the door at night, and let their dogs fuck off to do whatever? They’d rightly be charged and have their pets taken away

      • rektdeckard@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s entitled of YOU too think that the land, plants, wildlife, and ecology these creatures have lived off of for millennia belong to you. We all share a planet, it’s not up to humans to be the arbiters of who can have what and how much and at what time etc etc .

        Cats may not be sapient animals, but they are sentient.

        • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          No, sorry. We’ve unintentionally thrown so much of the world off balance by importing creatures that were never in certain places, that we must bear responsibility to bring things back to the balance they were at before we got there, particularly now that we know better.

          If that’s not possible, we’ll do our best to get there. Where are the dodos, buddy? Keep your stupid cats indoors, and stop bothering the local ecosystem more than we already have.

          • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            we must bear responsibility to bring things back to the balance they were at before we got there

            The idea that nature was in some sort of balance before humans came along is a common misconception. Most ecosystems are dynamic, and change over time. What we are doing is accelerating that change to a dangerous level.

            This might seem like an academic distinction, but many conservationists have caused more harm than good by trying to ‘freeze’ ecosystems at a state that existed at some fixed point in the past. I believe it was George Monbiot who pointed out that the margins of many British roads had higher plant and insect diversity than many ‘protected’ areas.

            • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Friend, cool it with the pedagogy. If one understands the idea of ecosystems at multiple scales, it follows implicitly that one understands the systems are inherently dynamic.

              The point still stands: we’ve got to understand the environs we’ve rapidly destabilized and do something to limit our negative influence. Ergo: keeping stupid cats indoors helps the stressed systems by reducing the load caused by a bored apex predator.

              • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                Oops I forgot my point in saying all that, which was that if cats have become naturalised to your local ecosystem, then removing them could make things worse. (And by the way, cats are not apex predators.)

                • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  By the way, actually, an apex is also known as the summit or peak of a curve, which domestic cats can generally be considered as they are rarely (though not never) predated upon. Wasn’t clear that you understood that, but now you do!

                  • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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                    1 year ago

                    Cats are not apex predators. They have predators in both their natural range and some of their introduced ranges. Cats bury their poop (probably) so they don’t broadcast their presence to any nearby predators.

        • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Blah blah blah, legally your cat is your PROPERTY. And if your pet becomes my pest on MY property, it will be dealt with as such. I don’t live in the wild, I live in my home on my property, keep your shit bag cat off of mine.