As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul | Hacker News Reader

As Google Feeds Cats, Owl Lovers Cry Foul

nytimes.com

79 pointshooloovoo_zoo52 comments

Clearly they need some Coyotes out there too.

When I was at Sun, the 'main' campus early on was at 2550 Garcia ave, (now Intuit) and we would walk around shoreline at Lunch. There were lots of signs to be aware of and not to disturb the burrowing owls (which once was misspelled the borrowing owls and so we had a lot of pan handling owl jokes for a while).

When I worked at Google (on Amphitheatre way) there was a cat there that had a badge. But I think that one stayed indoors.

If Google has chipped the cats as they say in the article, then an RFID reading station in the owl territory would allow them to identify and eliminate those cats predating on the owls I expect.

> If Google has chipped the cats as they say in the article, then an RFID reading station in the owl territory would allow them to identify and eliminate those cats predating on the owls I expect.

That's a good idea. But still probably unacceptable to cat lovers. Maybe there are middle options. Google could build a very large cage, and release non-adopted cats there. Or if that's not feasible, it could declaw and/or defang them. And yes, I know that those are horrible things to do to cats (or anyone, for that matter). But maybe it's better than death.

I expect a defanged/declawed cat would not be able to fend for itself and would die through starvation or predation.

Cat lovers and bird lovers have been fighting over the restored wetlands on the south side of the bay since the late 70's as far as I can ascertain.

Agreed. That's why I said that it was horrible. But death would be better?

Also:

> “Google understands the cats are not supposed to cross the line into the park,” a spokeswoman for the Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority said.

But in the photo, we see a cat heading for a picket fence. So why not build a real fence, which cats can penetrate? Or build a ~1 ha cage?

Wait, what? "Eliminate" cats? They're trying to save cats, not kill them.

It's nice they want to save cats ... it's not nice they're doing it at the expense of other species.

Google has lots of money; around $26 Billion in annual profits. So, INSTEAD of tagging them with RFID chips, building cat-huts, setting out cat food, and all that nonsense.

HOW ABOUT AN OFF-SITE CAT SHELTER sponsored (paid for) by Google?? Employees could even sign-up to give pre-tax charitable contributions to the Google shelter. A shelter would save their cats along with the neighborhood fauna. Right? Everybody happy?

Are the most trivial of topics publishable if they say something negative about a big tech company? I think NYT would not have gone with this if say, John Deere employees were feeding cats outside their headquarters.

People who work at John Deere don't make journalists feel that they've badly failed at career planning.

I’ve often heard how Silicon Valley tech bros aren’t capable of empathy. But here you are, perceptively realizing how everyone who doesn’t work at Google is constantly aware of and jealous of those who do.

It's not a lack of empathy. It's a recognition of the fact that a lot of journalists see Facebook, Google, etc. as rivals negatively affecting their own livelihoods, and that it's human nature to by hyper-aware of a rival's failings. They seize on tech-industry missteps the same way a Democrat would seize on a Republican's or vice versa.

Gosh, it's almost like Google is a company 10x the size of John Deere, one used by billions of people (and the great bulk of the NYT's readers).

And you might note that this is in the section specifically devoted to covering the technology industry. Do you also object to the Times having that and not an agriculture section?

Why would it be in the tech category? Nature, ecology, sure. Tech? Only if indeed it’s more about sensationalizing a buzzy tech company would a story about cats and owls be in a tech category.

Because reporters are assigned to beats. If you had bothered to click on the author's name, you'd learn that he's been writing about tech for the NYT for 11 years.

I'd guess that he heard about this through one of his many Silicon Valley sources. I'd further guess that he pitched the story to his editor, who then ran it their section, which it is their job to fill. Rather than the Nature or Ecology sections, neither of which appears to be an actual NY Times section: http://spiderbites.nytimes.com/sections/00000.html

John Deere has about 66K employees and Google has about 85K. Also, the former literally makes money by altering the environment whereas the latter is generally web-based.

I think this is the exact point the OP is talking about: Google seems big because it's bigger by profits. Also, not unrelated, some people here and elsewhere feel more emotional about Google. So take some otherwise small-town public-interest story and push it for views.

>Also, the former literally makes money by altering the environment whereas the latter is generally web-based.

Do you think the web is some magical place outside of the environment? Google has more servers running than any other company in the world consuming significant amounts of energy.

Out of all the organizations that do bad for public policy, you're going after Google. And out of all the things you can get Google for, you're going after the latent heat of their servers?

Nobody is "going after" Google here. It was an interesting article about unintended consequences. That it involved Google made it a bit more interesting, as people are understandably curious about a company that touches most Americans daily -- for many, dozens of times a day.

Latent heat isn't the issue. It's the environmental impact of the electricity production and manufacturing processes for all of their servers.

The 10x is by market cap, which is a better measure of its economic importance.

the only part more confusing is that this was upvoted to the front page of HN

In other news, Australia just finished building the world largest cat-proof fence:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-44235185

Maybe that owl park could be fenced?

yes, and Google can pay for that.

Nope. Australia is building a fence to keep the cats out and the cats are going to pay for it.

Maybe they could use an "invisible fence".[0] They're already capturing, neutering and chipping. So they could fit warning collars. But perhaps battery life is too short.

0) https://www.catological.com/best-invisible-fences-cats-revie...

Outdoor cats kill billions of birds annually.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife

Obligatory: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

I wonder if it offsets the surplus birds created by bird feeding. According to USA WILD BIRD FEEDING INDUSTRY YEARLY RESEARCH 2015 [1] US consumers spend about $6B on bird seed annually. I pay about $1/lb (or a pound per kilogram ;-) for seed. A house finch weighs about 20 grams and will eat about 10 grams of seed a day. Say 100 days of winter feeding and that is 1kg of seed per bird. So something like 3 billion songbirds don’t die in the winter and nicely make up for the cat cull.

———

[1] http://www.ectownusa.net/wbfi/docs/2015_WBFI__judy_final.pdf

Relatedly: Anna's Hummingbirds' winter range has changed (likely) because of home feeders and urbanization.

[1] http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royprsb/284/1...

Humans kill 58 billion animals each year.

I do not see anyone suggesting that we stop feeding humans.

Feral cats aren't people?

or are they ...

Humans are more important than feral cats.

That could be debatable.

Feeding feral cats is easy, instant gratification. They should adopt an endangered owl instead, or make a goal to measure and increase the population.

If they get rid of the owls, then maybe they'll finally be able to build on the lot next to the park. (There are tons of ground squirrels and then the owls follow...)

I know, I know, they aren't doing this on purpose, but these things have a funny way of "just working out"...

It’s dawning on me that news beat on what Google employees is similar to the one that seems to ask what Ivy League students think of current trends.

I am torn by stories like this. I share my house with 6 indoor only cats, but when i had cats that were inside/outside, they definitely did their fair share of hunting. On the other hand, I do worry about threatened species, and on top of it all, my alma mater's mascot is the "fighting burrowing owl" Go Hootie!!!

Cats, especially feral cats, commonly carriers of Toxoplasma gondii, are a public health hazard to humans. The city could potentially employ this fact as a consideration.

Owls, and birds in general, also carry lots of disease. Psittacosis for example. So I don't see why that should be a consideration (unless you advocate something crazy like a complete sterilization of all non-human life?).

Presumably, the relative risk of infection from owls to people who don't seek them out is much lower than it is from cats. My point is only that the health risks could conceivably be used as a pretext to take action against the cat "rescue" operation.

You pretty much have to directly interact with cat shit to catch toxo, and cats instinctively shit in out-of-the-way places, so your odds of actually getting it from a feral cat are pretty slim.

Out of the way places like kid’s sandboxes.

Google employees (and anyone else) who have to interact with GCat participants, or happen to touch the same surfaces that they do, are also put at risk.

I've been around baylands and remember seeing a large group of feral cats a few years ago under the bayshore freeway underpass. Could explain why they are gone.

TL;DR: Six owls that burrow underground (how's that for an adaptation?) used to live in a Mountain View park. Over the past three years, three of these have been killed or gone missing. Environmental activists have traced these deaths and disappearances to cats nurtured by a Google employee group that feeds feral cats, along with spaying or neutering them. Google has devoted significant resources to helping these birds survive in other places, but environmentalists feel that Google is not doing enough about the feral cat population; in particular, activists worry that the large number of feral cats represents a slippery slope toward destroying biodiversity in this particular park.

Destroying biodiversity is a stretch, it's only three owls...

Also, burrowing owls are Least Concern on IUCN red list. (Least Concern is their terminology, not mine, I don't agree with it)

So it's not like there's really any merit to the claim that a few cars they fed, who then killed three owls, is "destroying biodiversity"

It's not that slippery a slope. It's just cats. If they were teaching them and hunting these owls, obviously thatd be different, but they're not.

Gosh, I hate Google too but it's like they literally can't even feed stray cats without some sort of controversy from the media or online pseudoactivists.

You can't take on cat lovers and expect to win. If there's one thing humans enjoy, it's a subservient apex predator who curls up on your lap and purrs.

My cat looks at me with "If only you were smaller" eyes. Should I be concerned?

You shouldn't anthropomorphise. Animals don't like it.

If a cat looks at you through narrowed eyes, it generally means they're pretty chill with you and like having you around.

this article and this comment section are rather terrible. I am really opposed to Googles business model and the pervasive lack of privacy they inflict on the world-- but this is such a weird thing to write an article about. I personally, and this is my own opinion, find the need to save every niche endangered animal to be both fruitless and silly. Humans have a significant impact on the environment and should certainly strive to limit the negative effects as much as possible, but on balance cats eating owls doesn't rank particularly high on the priority list of high-impact adjustments we need to make. It's not really Google corporations fault and while feeding animals is sort of dumb, these feral cats are presumably living in the wild after escaping from random peoples houses, overbreeding pets and irresponsible pet ownership is to blame

Why do you want to overpopulate the world with cats? They are a nuisance.

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