urbpan: (I LOVE DOGS)
urbpan ([personal profile] urbpan) wrote2007-09-03 09:13 am

Catseroles and kitten mittens.

Domestic cats are some of the worst invasive species when allowed to roam free and breed. They kill native prey species and compete with native predators. (They also spread diseases like rabies and toxoplasmosis.) In Australia, a place free of placental mammalian predators for millions of years, they are especially bad. That's why they can get away with a feral cat recipe contest while in America we couldn't get a simple hunting season going, on the grounds that it was "cruel and inhumane" (As if somehow hunting feral cats is more cruel than hunting feral pigs, or for that matter, any animal.) Unfortunately for those who would eat cats to extinction in Australia, it turns out they aren't especially good eatin'. Their fur could be a good product to motivate a cat hunt, but you couldn't import it into Europe. Fur, useful as it may be, has fallen out of favor in recent decades, anyway.

What do you think? Any good way to control feral cats that you can think of? Capture/Sterilize/Release is one solution, but still puts cats out in the wild, to kill birds and spread disease. Part of my new job is dealing with feral cats, and not all of them are saved. It seems like a waste to toss a carcass in the trash, or incinerate it, when it's made of useful meat and fur. Or is pragmatism uncalled for with the sensitive issues surrounding beloved species? Do all cats (and horses) deserve decent burials? What to do with the glut of unwanted and pest animals?

[identity profile] urbpan.livejournal.com 2007-09-03 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
The pigeon taboo is informal, but strong. They were originally associated with humans as food animals, but ask your average person if they'd eat one. I saw some at my local Asian grocer and was sorely tempted.

The reptile taboo is in Leviticus 11:29-31.

In India there are the cows (which are at least milked, so they're not entirely freeloading) not to mention the rats and monkeys. (Out of respect for Ganesh and Hanuman)

I can't think of any other example off the top of my head, though I am amazed that pigeons and Canada geese are not eaten in the cities of the world. In North America all native songbirds are protected by the migratory bird act treaty, so control of pest geese and other pest birds is complicated (but doable).

Then there's the case of locust plagues in the southwest--the settlers were starving when the locusts ate their crops, while the Indians simply ate the locusts. Likewise, in Jered Diamond's Collapse, he tells the story of the collapse of European colonies in Greenland, since they refused to live on fish and seals, as the native Greenlanders had.

[identity profile] meryddian.livejournal.com 2007-09-04 02:53 am (UTC)(link)
I honestly never heard of the reptile taboo. :) And if it's Biblical, well, I've never had my pastor talk about it. But we're Lutheran, so there ya go. ;)