Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they are the same thing. Nothing changes. And so it seems, judging by this letter to the editor of the New York Times dated 1914 from a person living in New Jersey. It could have been written yesterday. The Audubon Society still campaigns against the domestic and stray cat. It would seem that their campaigning has achieved little although it may have caused more people to irrationally hate the domestic cat.
Is the letter writer a man or woman? She or he is sexist as well as a cat hater. The letter hints at the conventional viewpoint that women like cats and men like dogs. The writer is almost certainly a man.
Apparently the letter had an effect and cats were temporarily eradicated from New York City in 1914. If this is true – and I doubt it – the rat population must have made a step rise.
I think it is time for the war of words – about whether you love cats or hate them – to be put to rest. It is time to at least accept them as part of the ecosystem and our lives.
Feral cats are by now fully integrated into the ecosystem in New York and across America. If you eradicated cats in New York there would probably be unforeseen and unwelcome consequences, putting aside the fact that it would be immoral and inhumane to attempt it.
Related article: i hate cats.
I was one of the first people here to publish serious critiques of Australian surveys (I collaborated with some Australian groups back in the 90s). I also used to write articles for an Aussie cat magazine back in the pre-domestic-internet days.
I didn’t know you agreed with me about dodgy Aussie cat “studies”. There are dodgy ornithological US studies too as I am sure you know. It is amazing how biased scientists can be. No, on second thoughts it is not amazing. And the classic “extrapolations” and “estimates” are legendary when in comes to trying to work out how many birds and precious “native species” cats kill.
My alternative cat predation study at http://www.messybeast.com/moggycat/affy_16.html demonstrates the shortcomings of extrapolating from a small set of statistics.