The stricture! My vet-friend G. keeps scolding me about letting Lucky run free in purely natural environments. When I tell her that Lucky is a sniffer and pointer and doesn't care about hunting and killing game (he does run after game, with little persistence, however, for the fun of the sprint and devoid of any concept of predation), she comes up with all sorts of horror scenarios of Lucky potentially belying my conviction - including the shocking notion that game may have to undergo stress of the type they have evolved to cope with (i.e. hiding from or running away from a seeming or real predator). Today, Lucky and I chanced on a dead deer. Predictably, Lucky wasn't interested.
At any rate, being owned by someone is a good way to have a protecting lobby. In America, Buffaloes became nearly exterminated, cattle thrived.The former had no owners, the latter did. Most birds, unlike cats, aren't owned by anyone, so they are, as we say in German, literally "vogelfrei" (bird-free), free as birds, meaning: outlawed, not protected by the law.
My dear vet-friend, who is running a practice for small animals, is devoting a large percentage of her working time to the opposite of what she considers herself to be doing: she nurtures a vicious mass killer, our sweet predacious pet, the cat.
The house cat -- that cute, furry feline beloved the world over -- is also one of the world's most destructive predators, killing for kicks and hunting rare species into extinction. Cats thrive because people protect them -- but should they?
The full article.
PS
In the interest of full disclosure: I'm a dog-type; I like cats only if I have to, under social pressure. Instinctively and only as an observer (for I do not ever attack cats or treat them badly), I'm rather sympathetic to the reactions usually shown by dogs to cats. Though, of course, I'm careful to avoid conflictual encounters between dogs and cats. It might hurt the dog.
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