26th Feb 2013 – The Google listing for cat news is depressing for animal and cat lovers. It has been like that for a long time. Search for “domestic cat” in Google News and, normally, the usual stories are about feral cats, unwanted cats and cat abuse, that sort of thing – nearly all negative stuff.
Recently, with the notorious Smithsonian study, which painted an unjustified and misleading description of domestic cats roaming America killing billions of birds, all we have are stories about the murderous cat. It is a black, and I say, highly distorted and unfair picture.

The following are the stories on the first page of Google news today 26th February 2013:
- House cats: The destructive invasive species purring on your lap
- Don’t Just Blame Cats: Dogs Disrupt Wildlife, Too
- Domestic Cats and Billions of Birds
- ‘Stone-cold serial killers’: Domestic cats slaughter billions upon …
- Editorial: How to cope with Concord’s feral cats
- World’s Tallest Domestic Cat, the Savannah Cat, Resembles a – (comment from me: this is not news!)
- The Shocking Truth about Cats “is also one of the world’s most destructive predators, killing for kicks..”
- When cats are outlawed, what animals should replace them as pets?
- World’s longest domestic cat dies (a reference to Stewie the Maine Coon with the Guinness World Records longest body who died aged 4)
- Rabid Domestic Cat Found in Glen Ellen
What can you say? These are the top news stories from Google (the world’s biggest website) about the domestic cat. All but one is negative.
60% of the stories are about the cat as a wanton killer of wildlife. The majority of news stories on page two listings are on the same topic. These stories are all built on the back of the Smithsonian study that itself admits is based on estimates and guesswork. The online newspapers convert estimates to fact. It is so irresponsible.
The story about Stewie, the world’s longest domestic cat, is also sad because this famous Maine Coon died at 8 years of age – too young. It appears that he died of cancer behind the eye – upsetting.
The story about rabid cats pops up from time to time. I know I defend cats and I know occasionally stray cats get rabies but it is very rare. Bats and other animals are much more likely to be carriers. I just think this sort of story paints a distorted picture and gives the impression that cats are a menace to humans as well as wildlife. Not good.
Item 6 above is not a real news story and the only one that is not negative. Ironic that. All the news is bad.
Is there some sort of conspiracy going on here? Perhaps the journalists working on the mainstream online newspapers are either cat haters or at least neutral vis-à-vis the domestic cat. All I know is that they pounce on negative stories about a companion animal that provides billions of hours of pleasure and support to people across America, which is a fact, in stark contrast to the unsupported assertions by so called scientists and journalists that the cat is slaughtering billions of birds.
We need a more rational and fair approach to reporting about the cat; the most popular companion animal in the world. We also need some proper stories about how irresponsible cat owners are at the root of the “cat killer problem”. The cat is the messenger. The cat owner is the cause. The cat is behaving naturally. The cat owner is behaving irresponsibly (sometimes). There are millions of highly responsible cat owners but a small proportion are not and it only takes a small minority of people to ruin things for the responsible majority and the cat who lives in the human world.
Journalists should be applying their intelligence to ways to improve things for cat welfare and at the same time to reduce predation on wildlife, humanely and sensibly, rather than spouting out regurgitated inaccuracies from an unreliable and potentially biased source.
You are right Marc, money is many peoples God these days and they don’t care what facts they distort to get even more money.
I would never sell my soul for any amount of money even though I would love to have some, not for myself as I’ve never had much and ‘what you’ve never had you never miss’ but for doing good for needy animals and people with.
Dream on Ruth……..
Exactly Ruth and it’s almost silly having to repeat it again and again because its so incredibly obvious. It’s ironic this article – I just sent Michael a link to an article which mentions the one billion birds killed by cats a year figure in it. How utterly stupid is it to sit around spending time and money on scapegoats rather than doing something far more useful. I don’t have any faith in science when it is used incorrectly and irrationally to generate propoganda and distorted ‘facts’. I don’t suppose anyone would if they knew that either. Media plays a huge role in things like this. What is up with the media anyway. Money speaks louder than truth I guess – if there’s money in it then who cares if it’s true not. I wonder if they were paid to put those articles in their publications – it wouldn’t surprise me.
We think alike and I must say that the famous Sir David Attenborough thinks like us too. That gives me confidence.
Not many people seem to accept that the human race are at the root of any problems with cats, that is what is so wrong!
Journalists report negatively on cats and people who don’t like cats read and spread it with delight.
Such as when there’s a toxoplasmosis report, haters spread the myth that cats are to blame, they don’t think about other causes of the disease, as always it’s easier to blame cats. Declining bird life, yes blame cats, not the ever breeding polluting the world human race.
Why doesn’t everyone take responsibility, think for themselves, live and let live instead of making things worse.
Those of us who love cats and take responsibilty for our own for their entire lifetime and fight for the welfare of ALL cats are called crazy.
No we are not crazy we are caring human beings who know the animal kingdom is totally messed up because of OUR species, not any other, it’s all down to US and only we can put it right!
One day it will be too late!