“Cats are the only true sadists of the animal world”, so says a person who is highly educated (he has a PhD) and who is one of New Zealand’s top economists. I think he should stick to economics. He has let his dislike of cats colour his judgment rather badly. He is Dr. Gareth Morgan. He is referring to New Zealand’s domestic and stray cats. He wants them all eradicated.
The word “sadist” means “someone who obtains pleasure from inflicting pain on others”. We should note that the definition includes the word “someone” meaning a person, homo sapiens, not felis silvestris catus, the domestic cat. Cats have no conception of the meaning of the word. When a cat kills prey it is an expression of an instinctive drive to survive and pleasure has nothing to do with it. It is only people who have the unenviable ability to be sadists. It is uniquely a form of human behavior.
New Zealand Cat. Photo by Sids1 I adore this photograph. You can feel the wind and light and Smudge is charming. Great composition too.
It appears that Dr Morgan has anthropomorphized cats in his hatred of them. Intelligence in a person does not necessarily translate to sensible and coherent thoughts especially on subjects with which the person is unfamiliar. It can make a person arrogant, though, and look foolish.
Dr Morgan wants to remove all cats from New Zealand because he says they “destroy our native wildlife”. It is strange that he makes such sweeping, wild and inaccurate statements. It would be nice if he had the common sense to recognize the horrendous damage done to the earth’s resources and wildlife by the human. Human population growth and increased destructive activity has had a far greater effect on wildlife than cats. Human activity is in a different league in respect of destruction.
The much respected, Sir David Attenborough says that this about humankind:
“We are a plague on the Earth…..Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a co-ordinated view about the planet it’s going to get worse and worse”.
For me, there is no chance of a co-ordinated view within the next 50 years, if ever. Humankind is radically disjointed and dysfunctional.
Dr Morgan spews out the usual cat hating sounds bites. He jumps on the bird conservation bandwagon by saying “Birds bond for life … until your cat kills one.”. A lot of domestic cats don’t even hunt and when they do it is usually mice or other rodents. Birds are more difficult to catch.
Please Dr Morgan, try and keep a balanced perspective. I agree that cat ownership needs to be responsible and improvements can be made in that area. There are too many people who are not good at cat caretaking. For example, they don’t neuter their cats at all or until after a litter has been born. See, for example: 3207 Reasons To Relinquish Your Cat.
The sensible and humane thing is not to try and eradicate the domestic cat. The straying domestic cat is the victim of careless human behavior. The better and fairer way is to tackle people; to educate people; to make people more responsible and aware.
Any problem with the domestic cat is people generated. Look to people for the answers, Dr Morgan.
One last point; what do the people of New Zealand think about Dr Morgan? Well, the New Zealand Herald, an newspaper with a website is running a poll. In the hope that it has been used by New Zealanders this is the current position:
New Zealand poll about cats
For me it is not a great response. Almost a quarter agree that cats in New Zealand should be eradicated. Let’s reflect on that.
Kylee, why should stray and feral cats be killed? They have as much right to live as domestic cats, it’s not their fault fate decreed they are homeless!
What good is putting bells on your cats? Would you like to walk around with something clanging on your neck? People like Dr Morgan don’t care if a cat belongs to someone, bells won’t save them, they hate ALL cats and if you truly love cats then you should be standing up against him, not agreeing that innocent cats should be killed because they don’t have an ‘owner’
I’m with you Michael in that the irresponsible cat owners should be euthanised instead, they caused the problems in the first place, the world would be much better off without ignorant, uncaring, cruel people like them.
im from New Zealand and thts excatly whats happening its been very distressing as this been happening for the past week. i have 5 cats all been fixed and vaccinated and reguarly have flea treatment i couldnt imagine a world without them. My Cats mosstly stay close to home and am thinking of getting bells but not sure. Alot of people in nzl are against this. i do agree stray animals should be human euthanisa
i think stray and cats that are dumped in areas where there is native birds should be blocked off but leave domestic cats alone and responsible owners shouldnt be punished
Thanks for commenting. Interesting that you agree that stray cats should be euthanised. I guess you mean all stray and feral cats. That implies you agree with Dr Morgan. Why don’t we euthanise the irresponsible cat owners instead? There are too many people in the world anyway. They are the ones who cause the problem. The cats are innocent victims of careless human behavior.
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Man/woman is the only true sadist of the animal world,yes we are all animals,it’s only that we learned to walk upright and called ourselves human and thought ourselves above those on four legs.
Animals don’t plot and plan to kill like people do,they only follow their survival instincts,kill or be killed.
Dr Morgan is an ignorant cat hater who tries to force others to share his hatred,he must be rotten to the core.
Thanks Rose. We think alike.
A cat it running on instinct. Sadism suggests an awareness of causing pain to another. Since when does anybody think a cat is conciously gaining pleasure from inflicting pain on another creature. No. Infact only a human can be a sadist. Sadism is yet another human thing – invented and done by humans. What is ironic here is that we might think a cat is sadistic in the first place. The fact that we see a cat causing another animal pain and damage and immediatly associate it with potential sadism just goes to show how warped we humans are. Why should it spring to mind? …? Well? Sounds like Dr Morgan is a bit of sadist himself in my opinion, if thats the first thing that springs to his mind when he thinks of cats. The old addage ‘we see ourselves in other’ rings true here I have no doubt. Infact I would be willing to put a bet on the fact that this Dr gets some kind of pleasure out of some kind of mistreatment of others – perhaps he is mean to his wife or perhaps he creates some kind of difficulty for others and gets off on it. I honestly believew only a person capable of that sort of thing could make such a comment in the context of totally erradicating a species of animal no less true to this earth (more true actually!) than his own species.
The quarter of people who agree are probably those big white men with lots of toys and offspring. Chances are they just dont like cats so would, in all ignorance and stupidity, quite happily not have them around to poop on their stupid front lawns. At least they aren’t walking around with assault rifles. I’d love to turn him into a mouse with his mind still intact, in a room full of cats. Talking about erradication is childish and arrogant and stupid. Even if we are to take him as a person who is anti cats, how can we take him seriously if he is going to talk like an angry 8 year old about them. ITs better for us in a way because it makes him look stupid. At least people will contradict however with the poll we can safely say he’s weeded out the other angry 8 year olds. ‘Erradication’ is the single word in this whole debacle that brings it on to a stupid level of stupid.
Great comment. Amusing as well as serious. You make a good point about people disclosing their inner thoughts in what they say. The idea of sadism wouldn’t enter your head unless it was already there lurking in the dark recesses of the mind.
Bigoted Dr Morgan!
I wonder if he enjoys blasting birds from the sky in his leisure time as do many cat haters who are hypocritical enough to think it’s OK for themselves to kill birds for fun, but wrong for cats to follow their deepest instincts?
I wonder if he sits down to roast bird for his dinner?
I expect he drives a car that pollutes the atmosphere.
He would get a huge shock if he managed to get cats eradicated as the bird population would still decline thanks to the selfish human race taking their habitat and polluting the air they breathe.
Ignorant man, yes how I would love to eradicate him too Barbara.
What a bitter and hateful man, imagine a country without cats, what a horrible place to live. I’m surprised at the poll, can’t believe more people aren’t sticking up for cats against this arrogant man, and can’t believe he wants to kill cats. I’d really like to eradicate him and his ego!
Thanks Babz. There are a surprising number of people like him. It is a bit disturbing. I believe that a lot of “cat hating” is generated by the fact that too many cat owners don’t act responsibly and neuter their cats for example. There are too many stray cats due to poor cat ownership and this is very bad publicity for the cat.