Are Cats Domesticated? | Hacker News Reader

Are Cats Domesticated?

newyorker.com

54 pointsingve58 comments

“I don’t think it makes sense to talk about animals as semi- or fully domesticated,” Greger Larson, a paleogeneticist and archeologist at Oxford University and an expert on domestication, said. “Any threshold you try to define will necessarily be arbitrary.”

I agree with that idea- to consider dogs as "fully domesticated" and cats as "semi-domesticated" is to make assumptions about how animals ought to behave. I don't think docility and domestication are synonymous.

Are we even cognizant of the daily assumptions we make over how animals behave?

Look at how humans have interpreted cat food: Felines should be eating a sufficiently varied diet of bird and rodent. Full animals are best. Meanwhile, we (by way of Ralston-Purina's suggestions) feed them a bunch of Taurine in a can of meat-flavored sawdust, and wonder why our cats constantly meow at us for more food. Or even better, feed them nothing but dry food, and watch the urine crystals build up until they pee, then be mad at them for not drinking enough water (cats get water from their food).

Cats feel extraordinarily unsafe on ground level. But humans angrily shoo them off tables or dressers, and wonder why they act all jittery and spooked all the time.

We cut off the tips of their fingers so that they don't scratch up the furniture, then we restrict their freedom of movement by forcing them to be indoor pets only, for "their own safety" because we just crippled them. if that isn't an indication of how disconnected we are from how cats are supposed to behave, I don't know what is.

"Somewhere along the line, people shifted from tolerating cats to welcoming them, providing extra food and a warm place to sleep. Why?"

Anyone who lives near fields knows why - they eat the mice. If you have cats, your farm stays rodent-free. And snake-free, with my cats. They are an important part of the ecosystem around here.

As anyone who'd read the full paragraph you're quoting knows, that's what they mean by "tolerating" cats. I.e. a non-friendly symbiotic relationship where they eat your mice and you don't kill them.

The question they're posing is why were they eventually fully domesticated, which is not the same thing, nor was necessarily required to get the practical benefits of domestic cats.

To add, domestication may've been counter-productive, diminishing the utility of cats as "mousers." [1]

[1] http://cattime.com/cat-facts/lifestyle/1916-10-facts-about-c... (admittedly not a great source)

In agricultural areas, there's typically a "barn cat" variety that's less domesticated.

Sure. I think this thread's pointing out the nuance in the article -- i.e. if you don't need to domesticate a "barncat" to get its "mousing" benefits, then why domesticate at all?

Clear as mud, right? ;-)

In my experience, there's a major familial component to domestication of cats. I've adopted feral kittens. If you get them young enough, they tolerate people. But they aren't as friendly as typical house cats. However, their kittens tend to be friendlier.

but likely suffering from massive birth defects due to inbreeding.

Maybe. But cat mills do that too.

The answer is: Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. http://thepetbooklady.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8347a49a469e2017c3...

I'm more inclined to say that cats have domesticated humans than the other way around, though...

My take too. Even if snakes made breakfast for me I don't think I'd be into them. Felines with their high degree of fluffiness and babyishness are magnets. Even with dangerous allergies I couldn't keep my hands off of them as a kid.

Spoiler alert: this represents a huge upside for wolf spiders.

Every time I see a big wolf spider running around my house, I pause for a moment, shoe in hand, and wonder whether I'm better off adopting a live and let live approach and letting it live as a domesticated exterminator, or just offing it due to the instinctual spider aversion I possess. The verdict: as long as they stay away from my sleeping quarters and clothes, they have carte blanche.

I also wonder in a century or two, in the suburbs of America, if Hogna aspersa will be as common and as beloved as the house cat.

The way I see it, spiders in and around the house are alive and well because they're eating something, and that something is probably way less desirable than the spider.

The mammal dislike of arthropods goes pretty deep. Most people enjoying seeing live hawks, cats, or other predators, but the percentage of people whose reaction to spiders can only be described as 'visceral' is substantial.

If you just let it be won't it eventually have hundreds of children?

Are they cannibalistic? If so, problem solved. If not, their progeny die because they've solved the silverfish problem and there's no other food.

Kind of a cats and mice thing, was my point.

I thought Toxoplasmosis was an accepted cause for the acceptance of cats.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/do-cats-co...

They also slaughter songbirds and other natural wildlife. Living in the country I'm torn. I like that they kill mice, but the fact they murder anything they stumble upon is pretty disappointing. It's unfortunate they aren't more "programmed" to kill pests vs. anything they see that appears to be weaker than they are.

The important thing from a purely economic perspective is that they kill a lot of things that eat crops, but don't eat crops themselves.

Why are mice unter-animals and songbirds are uber-animals that deserve protection?

It's mostly that songbirds are more interesting, I think. But there's also the fact that mice, for the most part, are non-native species. Most songbirds, on the other hand, are native. And there are numerous species.

Bird watching is a popular hobby. I've never heard of mouse watching.

OK, that's a thoroughly human-centric view. (Which might be fine, as long as we are admitting it.)

Oh yes, I was coming from a human-centric view as to why people value one species over another.

That's some next level anthropomorphism right there. "Slaughter"? "Murder"? Why don't you just call them "Feline Nazi Stormtroopers Baby Killers" and take the hyperbole to 11?

Cat's don't "murder" anything; murder requires cognition and premeditation. They aren't "programmed" in a way that the programming can be changed; they're apex predators and they kill things that are smaller than they are and have for hundreds of thousands of years. It's going to be deeply disturbing to you, I'm sure, but nature, far beyond cats, doesn't really work according to your apparent understanding of "the rules".

Whatever the nomenclature, if a pet repeatedly kills wild animals that's just not acceptable

A dog that uncontrollably kills wildlife would not be allowed outside unleashed, and where I live can (legally) be shot by the next hunter that sees it.

Yes, nature can be brutal. But pets are not part of nature, they are part of civilisation.

A dog shitting on the sidewalk could also be called "natural". But it creates a problem, so we try to prevent it. Cats and every other pet has to be held to the same standard. The owner has to prevent the pet from creating a problem.

If a pet can not be held in any way that doesn't harm the pet but is also compatible with other humans, other pets, other peoples property or wildlife: please don't get that pet.

(As I see it indoor cats can be very happy animals and exercise their hunting instincts with toys just fine, and I'm not arguing about cats, just about pets in general)

Cats aren't really apex predators though. Dogs kill them, foxes kill them, coyotes kill them, I've watched a hawk kill a cat in my neighborhood when I was a child...

I don't know of many predators that seem to kill just to kill like cats seem to? I'm certainly not claiming to be an expert in this regard but all my dogs that have killed animals appeared to do it as an instinct to "provide" for the social group while I've known cats that appeared to kill not due to hunger or any inherent interest in bringing a "present" to anyone like they sometimes do.

I guess I wonder what your response would be to these thoughts, as you might provide clarity to someone with my imperfect understanding. This is sincere as well: I know that what I've written could be construed as sarcastic but I'm not interested in anything other than sincerity.

Apex predator doesn't mean nothing else kills them, especially when you're mixing domains. An animal that's unmatched in one domain might be distinctly disadvantaged in another (e.g. polar bears in a vanishing ice cap). But quibbling over that definition is willfully obfuscating the point.

> I don't know of many predators that seem to kill just to kill like cats seem to?

I've seen a dog kill another dog and walk away. I've seen crows kill a squirrel and only pick out it's eyes. Hell, I've seen a squirrel kill all the baby birds in a nest and only eat one, in case you didn't think squirrels ate meat. Does that mean dogs, crows and squirrels are murderers or do it for fun?

The problem with cats is they live in close proximity to us, so we see first hand what they're up to, and they have a set of routine behaviors that don't exactly match our human perception of how predators are "suppose" to behave. But instead of trying to understand them in context, some people anthropomorphise them and make the cat "evil", a "murderer" or whatever.

I think you're assuming the poster is naive or stupid based on a few very evocative verbs. That doesn't seem fair and gives your post a harsh tone.

I imagine their distress is not that their cat is an evil murderer, but that their "murder" of small animals is destructive to the ecosystem.

I think the nativity is clear, and while I don't assume stupidity I don't rule it out. The posters entire screed is lifted from any number of anti-feline polemics that have come out after a study in Nature found in a relatively small sample group cats killed things. Shocker. And the study pointed out that it was mostly "free-range" cats, not your house cat doing the killing.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n1/full/ncomms2380.h...

I like cats for their independence. Mine walk in and out as they please, they do their stuff, I see them a couple of blocks away sometimes, but they always come back. I don't have to babysit them. I don't have to walk them. I don't have to worry if they are bored. Cat food is cheap enough not to bankrupt us. They are not a second child.

> Mine walk in and out as they please, they do their stuff

...on other people's property.

In the UK cats enjoy a unique status of protection. They are not classified as vermin ( so cannot be eliminated as pests ) but are considered "free spirits" under the law, so their owners are not held responsible for their actions.

Basically they can do whatever they like wherever they like and we have to tolerate it. In fact it goes beyond that, as a property owner I have to ensure the safety of any cats which come on my property e.g. I can be charged for cruelty if I salted their paths with something nasty even if I was targeting rats.

This status is completely unlike foxes ( vermin ) or dogs ( owner responsible ). Little wonder cats are so polarizing of opinion.

Well yeah, cat's are not known to hunt humans in packs, or murder children, or severely damage adults. You really need to provoke a cat into defending itself, whereas dogs tried to attack me even when on a leash with the owner attached.

Cats do public good - they are killing your vermin, entertaining your children.

And when they 'do their stuff' on your property, they do it discreetly and bury it. One dog makes a more public mess than a week of 10 cats.

I guess the polarization depends upon the individual perception of the value/weight of those activities.

And, presumably, you don't have to worry if they send many species of other animals to extinction[1][2].

"Outdoor cats" are an environmental disaster. If you feed cats, keep them inside. Anything else is deeply irresponsible (and, no, I don't care how many other people do it).

1. https://news.vice.com/article/one-of-the-worlds-biggest-exti...

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/outdo...

"By contrast, researchers estimate that the United States is home at least 15 billion adult land birds. Cats kill about 10 percent of them each year, according to the analysis."

Does that sound right? Cats kill 10% of all adult land birds? It seems high and my skepticism rises as the Washington Post article discusses the extrapolation done by the researchers.

Also unmentioned in the Washington Post is the mix between outdoor cats are feral cats. The Vice article exclusively talks about feral cats. Feral cats are a bigger problem due to feral cats being unneutered (their litters can grow up to kill more birds).

I dunno I guess I need more research to feel really passionately about this one way or another.

I like doing 50-state math on this. 1.5 billion land birds killed each year. 50 states. That means in a middle of the road state, like Iowa where I grew up, 30,000,000 birds are killed. But I grew up in a middle of the road county in Iowa, which has 99 counties. So in my county, that's around 300,000 birds killed per year. 365 days in a year. I'd have to believe that 821 birds per day were killed in my home county. That's insane.

(Adjusting: 900 square miles in my home county. Even distribution of cats, each feral or roaming cat is covering a square mile and eating about a bird per day. But the cat distribution is not even, and there aren't cats roaming corn and soybean squares. So I suspect the estimate is off by a MINIMUM of an order of magnitude, more likely by two orders, at least.)

Sincerely, Fermi Problem Lover

Edit: math and commas

I'm not concerned with whether a single pet cat kills 10 or 1,000 birds a year. Either way, it's too much of a price to pay. There's no reason for a family pet to hunt potentially endangered animals for fun.

It's the same issue with voting and recycling: there's not much impact if a single person does the right thing. You have to do it anyway, especially because it doesn't cost you much. The collective benefit is amplified if many people do the right thing.

The costs of recycling or voting are well known. What's the cost of keeping a cat indoors?

It's called evolution. Species killing other species has been going on for hundreds of millions of years.

Cats have successfully domesticated humans.

I realize it's a bit of a nitpick, but I kind of like the "heavy metal umlaut" in "reëvaluating" in the first paragraph. In context:

> [...]cats seem to be constantly reëvaluating the merits of our relationship, as well as their role in domestic life

It sort of emphasizes that cats evaluate things differently than we do :)

The diaeresis isn't any kind of umlaut, even a heavy metal one; it shares notation with the German Umlaut, but it's used to indicate that the vowel is not part of a digraph or diphthong and should be pronounced separately from the vowel preceding it. Its use is somewhat archaic -- the more "modern" way to do that is to use a hyphen, like "re-evaluate" -- but some publications, like the New Yorker, include it in their style guide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)

Thanks for that!

Must be archaic indeed because I cannot remember ever having seen reëvaluate before.

I appreciate the correction. If I had a cat, I'm pretty sure it would give me one of those "see I told you so" looks right about now.

The New Yorker is the only place I can ever remember seeing this usage.

The other common places are in names like Brontë, Zoë, and so on and in the word naïve. See the the English subsection of the Wikipedia linked to above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_%28diacritic%29#Engl....

Chloë is also a common name as well.

The New Yorker itself published an article on its use of the diaeresis: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-t...

Basically, we have three options for these kinds of words: “cooperate,” “co-operate,” and “coöperate.” Back when the magazine was just getting started, someone decided that the first misread and the second was ridiculous, and adopted the diaeresis as the most elegant solution with the broadest application. The diaeresis is the single thing that readers of the letter-writing variety complain about most.

We do change our style from time to time. My predecessor (and the former keeper of the comma shaker) told me that she used to pester the style editor, Hobie Weekes, who had been at the magazine since 1928, to get rid of the diaeresis. She found it fussy. She said that once, in the elevator, he told her he was on the verge of changing that style and would be sending out a memo soon. And then he died.

This was in 1978. No one has had the nerve to raise the subject since.

[The first issue of The New Yorker was February 21, 1925 for reference]

The other place you'll see it commonly used is French ;)

For instance, Noël.

David Gay

I meant that I commonly see it in English.

An editor was going to change it long ago, but he died before sending out the memo. At least that's the story.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-t...

> the more "modern" way to do that is to use a hyphen, like "re-evaluate"

The modern (at least, American) way is mostly not to do it, like "reevaluate".

Only in the comments on a New Yorker article. Upvotes for everyone!

> Many dog, horse, and cattle breeds are more than five hundred years old, but the first documented cat fanciers’ show didn’t take place until 1871, at the Crystal Palace, in London, and the most modern cat breeds emerged only within the past fifty years.

Chartreux (at least) have been around as a breed a lot longer than that.

The video at the bottom, though not directly related to the article, is well worth a watch too.

Cats are lovely.

Yep, they are cute and adorable and a good friend to have. That's all that's necessary to explain.

Interestingly, Betteridge's Law of Headlines fails us here.

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