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Comment by rjsw | Hacker News Reader

I would guess that cats don't really help nomadic societies, dogs can.

I guess cats hunt pests, so they could be useful for many early societies

While cats are a certified plague on wildlife, they actually suck as pest control. [1]. Mostly because they tend to go after easier prey. And animals like rats merely get more careful about showing themselves in the open, which may have led to the erroneous belief that cats lower their population.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327915473_Temporal_...

Tom and Jerry's friendship makes more sense now.

That's about the effects of feral cat populations on large urban rats. Farm mousing cats take a little training but they do hunt differently because of it. Cats are also good pest control on small-medium boats.

A good mouser will spend hours, all day if it has to, haunting a specific spot where it knows there's an animal that doesn't have another path out. It's impressive to watch.

Anecdata but feral cats can help in the sense that the rats go elsewhere. I live in an area with a thriving rat population. There used to be a feral cat colony next door to us. In those days we almost never saw signs of rat activity, but our friends at the other end of the street were inundated with them. Construction happened, the cats were removed, and now both ends of the street have roughly the same level of activity.

The article literally explains this. The rats were never gone, they just didn't show themselves in a careless way as long as cats were around.

If it takes your cat all day to catch one animal I have bad news for you as well if you want to use it for pest control.

Indeed, dogs are useful. IIRC humans domesticated dogs before plants and other mammals.

I read that in “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond. It’s a good read if anyone is interested in how Eurasia got so dominant.

In germany there is a kid book about Fridolin the little mouse.

He doesn't work and doesn't prepare for the winter and his friends do and complain to him.

After a while in their winter dominicil, Fridolin starts to talk about the sun and sky.

You know were i'm going right?

No.

Companionship.

Happy people live better/longer.

I thought it was an oblique critique of renewable energy.

Fridolin the mouse talks about the warm sun rays and the mice imagine this and becoming happy.

He also talks about smells and the blue sky etc.

He lifts the mood and does his part in the community with this.

Wow I very much did NOT know where you were going with that. I thought he was tricking the prepared mice into being eaten by cats so he could take their resources.

Me too haha I thought this was one of those creepy old books.

That people need more than food and drink, they also need entertainment? And working for that is no less valuable than farming? But how is that related to cats?

I guess cats can provide companionship, which is valuable to a nomadic society. But so can dogs, and dogs have a bunch of other benefits. Cats are more useful when mice and rats start eating your food stores, and happily that's also when humans become useful to cats

Yes companionship.

But your answer with mice and rats add clear benefit to it too.

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