Pets
Related: About this forumCats to be put on leashes to protect wildlife? EU says No
Source: Associated Press
November 28, 2019
BRUSSELS (AP) Put domestic cats on a leash to better protect threatened birds and the environment? The European Union says that would deny mankinds furry friend its unalienable right to roam.
The EUs executive said Thursday that it is a strong defender of free movement rights including of cats and categorically denied it would ever force cats to be kept indoors or on a leash, as one scientific study suggests.
Tilburg University scientists wrote in Oxfords Journal of Environmental Law that free-ranging domestic cats impact biodiversity through predation, disturbance, competition, disease and hybridization, and added that the predatory impact is worse than often assumed.
They argued that EU laws and directives could effectively force owners to keep them indoors or on a leash outdoors.
https://apnews.com/2ea2d3edea304defa0375a7dbedc35ae
Jewls2
(218 posts)PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,848 posts)I'm speaking as someone who has had cats. They really aren't that successful at hunting.
As for dogs, too many of them attack humans. So yeah, they do need to be on leashes. An unleashed cat almost never attacks a human. After all how many stories do we read about a cat killing its owner, as compared to similar stories about dogs.
mopinko
(70,078 posts)healthy ecosystems need predators. till i see a study that takes that into account, i aint gonna get bent.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,848 posts)domestic cats murder a billion birds a year, and I wonder how they come up with those numbers. My cats, even when they spent time outdoors, nailed on average a bird a year. They did better with mice, and got perhaps two rabbits a year. And we're talking when I had three cats. So maybe my felines were singularly incompetent.
mopinko
(70,078 posts)chicago is having a lot of success w feral colonies to deal w rats.
the colonies are cared for, in some cases by the whole block. it beats introducing poisons into the environment.
if there weren't a niche for urban predators, coyotes wouldnt be moving in all over the country.
as long as i see rats all the freakin time, there are not enough cats.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,848 posts)household cats, allowed to roam outside, are vicious predators responsible for the killing of vast numbers of birds. Not feral cats. Household cats.
And yeah, we need cats to keep certain vermin under control.
I understand that one reason the bubonic plague was so terrible in the 14th century was that there was some kind of vendetta against cats, and vast number of them were killed. So no cats left to keep the rats under control. Hmmm.
mopinko
(70,078 posts)the thing that made me suspicious of the study was remembering that wolves were stripped from yellowstone to benefit the deer and elk. didnt work out that way.