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Comment by Tiktaalik | Hacker News Reader

> "The big concern is where we have an overlap of people and cats with native species that are small and vulnerable," Kays said.

Kind of the key question here. Does your local jurisdiction have native species that live in towns and cities that are vulnerable? Some places are different than others. In some places the typical small city bird may even be an introduced species.

In New Zealand for example yes absolutely. Other places maybe not so much...

It is absolutely wild to me how laissez faire Kiwis are about the right to have their cats roam while at the same time being so militant against other mammals (including dogs!).

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> Other places maybe not so much...

You probably don't notice them, all little birds, insects, lizards, hedgehogs (I saw a cat mauling one once, same with lizards and birds),..

Actually, in my city, near woods, there's a small outdoor refuge for "wild cats" as the woman I talked to call them. She was feeding them, so I wonder how wild they are and how much they harm the local ecosystem, on top of all the other pets

I think there's an unhealthy addiction and love for pets. If you like animals, you could let them live normally in their natural habitat, and observe them once in a while. I hope this mentality will change

Domestic cats have a natural habitat in households. Owners who keep their cats indoors or on leash outside don't impact wildlife. Cultural education of not letting cats roam is likely to have more progress than arguing for banning pets. Besides, staying indoors is healthier for cats anyways

it's kind of weird to talk about the "natural habitat" of an animal that has been domesticated over thousands of years. it doesn't seem obvious that the modern cat (or especially dog) would be better off in the "wild" than living with humans.

Humans are better off with household cats than with rodent infestations.

What I mean is like, if your cat kills a house finch that means something different depending on where you live. In you're in Western NA your cat killed a native bird, but if you're in Eastern NA or Hawaii, it killed an introduced bird which competes with native birds.

In the worst cases (ie. NZ) your cat may be killing literally endangered birds.

As someone else mentioned, dogs can harm a human quite easily while cats couldn't care less about us.

https://xkcd.com/1775/

"How easy it is to grow up without learning [that cat bites are really serious and if bitten you need to wash the bite and call a doctor immediately]"

Getting bitten by a cat is possible but extremely unlikely, unless you choose to handle one. Also, they cannot really kill you.

Dogs do sometimes get aggressive towards random passers by and they do kill people.

I've been bitten badly by a cat -- he gets angry when he's hungry. When I got up to pee at 4am, he was all friendly -- when I went back to bed, he lunged at my foot and chomp. That was like the first or second time I spent the night; only my gf can actually touch him without getting slashed up. I got lucky, but cat mouths are nasty and bites typically get very badly infected.

True, most cats are very prudent about human interaction -- most strays will avoid you. But if a stray has been taught to expect food, or gets cornered, they can do a surprising amount of damage

"cat mouths are nasty and bites typically get very badly infected."

What are you basing this on? Are you implying a cat bite is worse than, say, a dog bite?

https://www.amcny.org/blog/2014/05/14/is-a-cat-bite-worse-th...

Cat bites are more likely to cause infection. Dog bites usually cause more physical damage.

"Cat bites are more likely to introduce bacteria deep into the wound, causing serious infection and damage to tendons and ligaments."

They don't cite a statistical source for this. It sounds like it's based on the preceding fact that cat fangs are sharper and can reach deeper.

The study they link to cover statistics of patients treated for cat bites, but I wonder what percentage of overall cat bites get infected. Most cases that don't probably never reach an emergency room, I would assume.

that's a socialization problem - your cat needs more social training. it's harder (longer, more time, more effort) when they're older but still possible.

you can find training regimens and videos online, but basically, you need to find a motivating factor for the cat (food, play, grooming, etc.) and train out from that.

i volunteered at a kitten nursery for a while helping socialize rescues. i've seen cats go from completely vicious to humans to being pettable and loving. not all cats can make that much progress though.

> that's a socialization problem

Understatement of the century. As I said, it's not my cat, but anyway, he was rescued from a very abusive situation as an adult, has diabetes and a voracious appetite.

I wasn't posting here to get cat advice: I've lived with them my whole life and have nurtured several stray kittens into pleasant companions. I was responding to the notion that cats are ambivalent to human existence and wouldn't bother to harm us.

> not all cats can make that much progress though

Yes

I live in a city that has a large wild rabbit population. It surprised me when I first moved here. They are very cute and pose no threat to anything besides weeds/grass.

The city also has a large variety of songbirds, which people generally like.

On a low level, I don't mind when I see cats patrolling the block. They're little human friends. They sometimes sit with me on the porch. However, I do think it's a bad practice to have an outdoor cat. I adopted a cat very recently and I will be keeping it indoors (against its wishes). It will have to be content killing virtual prey.

Yes. Here's a concrete example:

Google has (or had) a stray cat feeding station at the Plex. When birders complained, the security threatened the birders if "anything happened to the cats." The Plex is located next door to wetlands containing two endangered species that are at risk of predation.

Something I haven't seen data on is how much domestic cat predation compares with population change from habitat loss/modification. The population density of some bird species increases in suburban areas where domestic cats are likely to be present. I suspect the impact of outdoor cats (at least on North American songbirds) is overstated.

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