Did the chickens take them out?
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I wonder how does this hold up? Explosion or combustion to expel a projectile is part of the definition at certainly the federal level, and at least six States that I know of. I can’t imagine that would last long if contested.
-thanks Google! Looks like they’re not considered firearms but rather imitation firearms.
Hey, ammo ain’t cheap. /s
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If nothing else, an indoor cat lives a lot longer than an outdoor cat.
Take that, women’s suffrage!
Seriously though, even less than a century ago, people had a lot of really fucked up ideas about human, much less animal, welfare. That’s not remotely an argument. People let their dogs roam free, too. We rightly recognize this is not acceptable. The reality is that cats are hugely environmentally damaging, spread diseases to humans, and don’t live very long when allowed to be outdoors - rarely more than a quarter of their potential lifespan.
Wouldn’t surprise me. I was watching my soft domesticated chickens hunt and kill some mice that got into their pen this weekend. All I can say is, if you have a mouse problem, get chickens, not cats.
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I’m feeling rather virtuous now for keeping my cat inside! I’m giving her a longer life and stopping a bird apocalypse outside! Also, we have coyotes here…
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Well, the Puma and Bobcat beg to differ, to give two examples.
But I have no desire to argue. If you believe that being a human means you have the right to do anything you want to any animal, you are no different than this Florida man, morally or ethically. If you believe that you need to take pragmatic measures to prevent your pets from making the massive, constant harm you are doing to the environment we share even worse than it already is, then I applaud you for that, and I wish more people were like you.
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Pumas and bobcats are not domestic cats 
they are quite different. As I said a few times earlier, the way this guy handled the situation was wrong. I 100% do not believe in cruelty to animals. My point was much more in line with your secondary description.
If the owner had been doing the right thing, the situation would never have occured. That was my only point.
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Yes, they are different, we’ve eliminated them from most of their former range where they’d be preying on the same birds. Bobcats are only slightly larger than house cats, with males averaging 21 lb, I had a cat that topped that. I’ve heard the “think of the birdies!” argument a zillion times, most of the birds my cats ever caught were starlings, an even more destructive invasive species introduced by a numskull who thought America needed to have all the species mentioned in the Bible.
As for 1/4 the longevity, that ridiculous and is maybe true for ferals but not pets. We had a to put down a cat last summer who we rescued as an adult and lived 11 very happy years with us, that cat LOVED the outdoors, and having us idiots who provided a warm house and food. He barely came inside in summer, even when he was circling the bowl he scored a squirrel, and no I’m not worried for the squirrel population.
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I’ve seen bobcats in the wild in the US. They are twice the size a housecat should be, but I’ve seen bobcat sized obese housecats.
I’ve seen bigass housecats that topped 20 without being fat. I have a 7 month old female kitten who’s over 9 lb and well on her way, but she’s a little tubby. She was quite a bit bigger than her littermates though, so some of it is genetic.
I have a break-barrel pellet gun that scares me a little.
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My brother’s cat was an outdoor cat turned indoor cat because of the same coyote problem.
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If you’re ever in Northern Cal I know a place
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Breeds like ragdolls and Maine Coons can easily get into the 20+ lb range without being obese. That said most house cats are in the ~10 lb range.
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A bobcat looks nothing like a Maine Coon, and the last one I saw was an honest 30 pounds. Still bigger than a Maine Coon, yet leaner looking.
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Yeah, coyote packs will kill dogs the same size they are - cats are like snacks for them. Having an outdoors cat in coyote territory is a sure way to hugely decrease life expectancy… and your local small wildlife thanks you (not just birds but lizards, snakes, amphibians, etc.).
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It depends on where you live. Here, it is necessary to have barn cats. It is probably different in the suburbs.
Cat story- I once lived on an island, which was mostly abandoned, but had once been populated and farmed. There were lots of chickens and cats left over, and roaming the jungle and the plantation ruins. An ecological study was commissioned, it was decided that the cats were inhibiting the native bird population, and the solution was to trap and kill the cats. This was accomplished expensively. The unsurprising result was that the rat population exploded. Rats were another species that had been introduced, but had not been previously considered a danger to the birds, because there had never been very many of them. The rats turned out to be much more of a threat to the birds than the cats ever were. And for the people on the island as well. The cats would purr at you and beg for scraps when you were eating BBQ on the beach. The rats, on the other hand, attacked people in their sleep.
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Love it, nature is never as simple as we’d like. I live in the city, there is no “nature”, only survivors. No coyotes, but amazingly, the top of the food chain here is the Red Tail Hawk, all the rats, squirrels and pigeons they can eat. I wouldn’t be surprised if they took a small cat now and then.
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Yup. Can’t do actual numbers without doing a literature search which I’m honestly not inclined to do at this time of night.
But I think the last time I heard the numbers, it was about a 4yr projected increased lifespan by being an indoors cat. Less to no exposure to communicable diseases like FELV and FIV, no cars to get run over by, generally fewer incidences of cat fights resulting in abscesses/potential sepsis, and depending on area, no dangerous wildlife (in my area it’s coyotes, in others it’s mtn. lions etc…). And there’s always the a-hole human factor to consider as well.
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