this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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"I hate birds and small mammals and I want my little prince to be able to murder as much indigenous wildlife as he wants because otherwise I'll have to provide adequate stimulation like for a fucking dog or something else that requires responsibility"
Thank you. I knew my comment would piss off the smug holier-than-thou types that don't even realise there exists a world outside of North America 😊
Wild birds and mammals don't get pet food and warm houses to sleep in. You have elevated a predator above the natural order.
When his range is over hunted, your cat should starve or leave. However now he won't. He'll go home,get food and go back out to murder everything he can find. Imagine every single other cat owner around you giving their pets the same competitive advantage and you should be able to see the problem even in areas where cats are "native".
Next time I'm walking my dog's I'm going to let them shit in your garden seeing as you have no problem with your cats shitting in mine. Maybe I'll let them hunt your cat too. I don't want my precious babies being bored.
Except I won't. Because I'm responsible and empathetic. You're being incredibly selfish.
Pet cats hunt a tiny fraction of what feral cats (and other animals that rely on hunting) do, precisely because they don't need to hunt to survive. Even then, statistically the vast majority of animals they do manage to hunt are injured/ill/incompetive and unlikely to make it to the next breeding system even if they weren't hunted, which can actually be beneficial to local ecosystems and animal populations as those animals won't take up resources from members of the species that are likely to make it to breed.
This is backed by evidence of pet cats ownership increasing while simultaneously the populations of their most preyed upon species are actually increasing too.
The only real danger cats pose to local ecosystems is feral cats, which is (one of) the reason I'm an active part of a local trap, neuter, release program where I've helped neuter dozens of cats, so I've done way more to help the issue than I would be depriving my cat of going outside, and likely more than you've done.
Plus windows kill as many birds as cats, both domestic and feral do, but I'm willing to bet you live in a building that has windows right? For the sake of your own quality of life, so are you not being as selfish as you accuse me of being???
But I'm guessing by your, Franky borderline psychotic response, that you will barely even read anything I've said, disregard it entirely and double down on being houlier-than-thou and threatening a random person on the internet. Because that's how these things always gom
I'm glad you're aware of the issue and I think it's great that you're involved in spay and release programs.
However literally everything else you wrote is at odds with research that has been conducted. The British Ecological Society (one of the "non-american" countries you referenced above) has a great article on the horrific impact domestic cats have. I suggest you read it:
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pan3.10073
To address some other problematic statements:
Every time you let your pet cat outside, there's no guarantee it comes back. Feral cats aren't a self sustaining ecosystem of felines that spring from the earth.
Aside from that, you're also impacting other humans. My neighbour's cat shits in my garden every night, cat shit carries pathogens like toxoplasmosis that can cause pregnant women to miscarry and can literally make children go blind. The only reason I don't sit out waiting with a pellet gun like I would for other pests is because I like the mangy bugger.
My younger sister was also attacked as a child while she was playing outside in our back garden by one of the neighbours cats. She still has the scar on her lip to prove it.
Do you not give a shit about what your cat might be doing when you're not being responsible for it? Imagine if I just let my dogs roam around the streets unsupervised.
I think you should really check yourself here. It's too easy to make fun of crazy cat people for this to descend into petty name calling.
The BES article you linked is more about conservation law than actual impacts and the studies it uses as example are primarily from places like north America and Australia where cats are invasive.
In places like the UK cats have been here for literally thousands of years and used to be far more independent and reliant on hunting, so any damage they would have done to our ecosystem would have been done a thousand years ago.
They mostly are self sustaining, which is why TNR is so important.
And so do foxes and birds and rats and voles and every other kind of animal that passes through your garden.
And I really want you to take a moment to appreciate you just come straight from arguing that outdoor cats are bad because they kill animals to talking about killing animals yourself. Once again, you're a hypocrite and you don't actually care about these animals you're simply looking for an excuse to hate other people and feel morally superior to them.
Cool and I was attacked by a dog that came off its lead as a kid. But if I tried to tell you that people shouldn't take there dogs for a walk, even on a lead and you were a selfish person that doesn't give a shit about other people because you take your dog on walks, you would just (rightly) think I'm crazy.
Yes I do, I worry about him getting injured or doing something stupid, but it's the same with kids, but we still let them play outside, because keeping them inside their entire lives would be incredibly cruel.
Nah I'm good. I'm not the one making threats of violence over the internet. Also you literally started this with petty name calling, so it's pretty rich of you to start clutching your pearls now lil guy.
Right.... Well when you get a chance to actually read the article rather than pretend you did, let me know...
And these don't get canned food when prey animals have been over hunted. So they'll starve and their population will be balanced against their prey. I'm starting to think I gave you too much credit saying you understood this issue...
I'm interested in protecting biodiversity, sometimes that involves killing.... Or you know... simply supervising your pets when they're outside. But clearly you don't have the capacity for responsibility.
You're comparing someone who tried and failed to control their animal. Which is bad. To yourself, who refuses to control their animal, which is easily 100x worse.
How fulfilling do you think the lives of all the birds precious Mittens has killed have been?
You're the one actually committing violence by releasing a violent predator unsupervised. How do you know it hasn't attacked a child?
I know you're very worked up right now. But take a breathe and try to calm down.