What would be great is if cats could be controlled to only kill pests like rats that are taking over America. It sounds absurd, but hold on…
AI +camera + collar + speaker.
We’d need an AI that could recognize the animals that a cat began to stalk and sound a warning; or administer a shock if it determined the animal was defenceless or immobile ( Like baby birds in a nest. )
The AI would need to be programmed to recognize a few kinds of pest animals so it would turn off the warning when say, the cat found a rat.
Viruses have learned to mutate their protien coat, to expand their habitat. Up to this point, humans have generally not felt it necessary to change how we live according to our environment, preferring instead to make massive, unsustainable changes in that environment to avoid almost certain inconvenience.
All of a sudden, we are goi g from zero to sixty with this whole “mutate the protein coat” idea, just in response to this one single germ. But… as long as we are accidentally gaining clean air and walkable streets and reduced violent crime… what about choosing a few more things to modulate?
I think the next couple of years will find more things on the table than we could have imagined before. Who knows, deciding to change the way we own companion animals migjt make it to that list!
I don’t think it’s ok to keep a cat indoors, even though they are “domesticated”, virtually the natural habitat is nature, that’s where they thrive. Denying that to any creature is cruel. If the consequence is we can’t have cats, so be it. But keeping them indoors is just a crazy idea.
I’d be surprised if a housecat killed a squirrel, it’d be big game for them. My niece’s new dog (lab/GSD cross) killed one, we said “don’t do that” and she hasn’t since. The local corvids who witnessed this were pretty happy, though. I think they thought they had a recruit . The feral cats around here mostly get mice, which are abundant here. They leave enough for the owl, though I accept expert opinion that says not to let cats run free at the expense of wildlife, but I wonder how firmly grounded this is and how general it is.
No. Just no. AI programmed to kill anything cannot come to pass. Stop thinking like this. Killing rats is easy. Take a break and read the robot/foundation novels, wherein the pros/cons/rules of AI are weighed in a fictional setting.
The impact of domesticated predators can be even more damaging than native/feral predators.
If a wild/feral cat has to hunt for its food for survival, it will hunt an area only until there aren’t enough prey species to sustain it and then it will either starve to death or move on to another area that can.
As long a domesticated cat has a stable food source at home, it can continue hunting an area until every last native bird/small creature has been exterminated from its territory.
History provides analogs for this behavior in human populations as well. For example, indigenous tribes that sustained themselves for centuries by hunting American Bison vs. white hunters who had other sources of food to fall back to once all the bison were gone.
Mine are inside, mostly because of the dangers to them from going out: mainly cars, but also other unfriendly cats, plus racoons and other critters they might encounter. But people are weird about this. Some people don’t even think twice about their cat being outdoors, and some are positively convinced that they have to go out, and even that it’s cruel to not let them.
Thing is, I love cats, but I havent owned a cat in years because I can’t stand having him/her locked up all day in a small apartment. I live in the city so I dont really mind whatever wildlife they kill, since a lot of the time it will be rats, but I worry about their safety, the way people drive around here.
Also, this doesn’t seem to factor in population densities. In populated areas the population of feral/outdoor cats can be factors higher than what a natural wild cat population would ever be.
They’re cats, so even if well fed, they’re still going to hunt/kill even if they don’t need to do it for food. I’m not at all surprised that the kill count is higher, just based on population density.
Cats thrive wherever they are accustomed to. Sure, a feral cat who grew up in the wild isn’t necessarily going to enjoy living inside, but cats who have lived inside their whole lives often fear the outdoors. If there’s one thing cats hate it is change to their established routine.
Our cat has adapted well to our garage, and we let him in the house and outside during the day. I feel sad for the lizards, man, who are no match for the Mittens. Yes, but the spiders are thriving now…
I accept expert opinion that says not to let cats run free at the expense of wildlife, but I wonder how firmly grounded this is and how general it is.
