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Comment by soulofmischief | Hacker News Reader

Were they indoor cats?

one was, but liked to sit in the front patio, where the coyote literally grabbed it right in front of my mother, just a foot from the door. The other two were younger and outdoor cats. The dogs I know of having been killed were no more outdoor dogs than any dog is while being walked, sometimes briefly off-leash, in a park or wood, by its owner.

Implying blame on the owners of these pets for a plague of predators way outside the scope of any natural population they would have in an area is also just off the rocker. We live in a modified environment largely of our creation, where many wild animal populations have long since slid from whatever would have in some distant past been natural. Culling coyotes in urban areas, where they can be a real danger to both pets and kids, is not some sort of grotesque ecological sin.

There have been less than 10 (Wikipedia says 2) fatal coyote attacks in recorded history. A conservative estimate of the number of native birds and small mammals killed by feral cats since unix time began counting on 1/1/1970 is 1 trillion. Literally 20 billion a year. That’s a grotesque ecological sin against the ecosystems which keep us alive. Artificially supporting an invasive species which eats your petsmart kibble and then ravages (often as play) whatever vestige of the native wonder that existed in North America before we turned it into lawns is an ecological sin. Not caring for it and trying to leave it a better place than we found it for the next generation is an ecological sin.

>> a plague of predators way outside the scope of any natural population

You're talking about humans, right?

And are you proposing that culling coyotes is just the same as killing off humans who overpopulate?

Also, in our case, whatever our sustainable population in a place is, that's our natural population. Seeing as how we're completely a product of nature too, the numbers we can keep alive are natural.

An exaggerated coyote population in an urban landscape on the other hand, isn't natural because it depends on our presence to stay that way.

Any perceived implication is a result of your own projection. I asked a simple, neutral question. I've had an entire litter of labs get eaten by coyotes and was literally just curious about your own predicament.

And in that case, sorry for misunderstanding.

At a certain point if you keep getting outdoor cats you’re making a conscious choice to keep feeding coyotes.

I’m sorry but if you let your cat outside then don’t be surprised when it’s snatched by a predator higher up the food chain. Your cat isn’t native to the area either and it’s certainly preying on animals lower down the chain.

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