This is an interesting video of a feral cat preying on garden wildlife, in America, which highlights some of the conflicting attitudes people have in respect of the feral cat. However, it is a video in which the maker demonstrates his love of nature.
This sensitive and aware American video maker says he loves the wildlife in his garden but can’t abide seeing a feral cat hunt this wildlife despite admitting that the cat is a wild animal as well. So why doesn’t he love the feral cat as much as the other wild animals and let him do what nature intended? I wonder if he dislikes seeing tigers attacking prey in Asia?
Well, this man can’t let this impressive feral cat hunt in his backyard and so he decides to find a win-win solution which is to socialise the cat by feeding him and eventually making contact. At the end of the video the cat accepts him and they have a respectful relationship; the beginnings of socialisation.
The cat was eventually trapped and luckily adopted by a family (lucky because the cat was not completely socialised). The solution was to turn this handsome tabby feral cat into the sort of cat he was meant to be: a domestic cat. I suspect he was adopted because he is large and handsome.
Well done to the video maker. However, this ending isn’t really the ending because we know that domestic cats prey on wildlife too because it is entirely natural, so quite possibly this cat is still hunting wildlife but in someone else’s garden.
Early in the video this nature lover says he can’t abide seeing a feral cat attack wildlife. I can understand that, I really can but why does he think like this? Like millions of other people he prefers birds to cats. I think he is an amateur ornithologist. This is speciesism. A form of animal racism if you like.
However, it has to be said that he overcomes his bias to respect the cat and find, as mentioned, a decent solution.
If we are true animal lovers do we have the right to prefer one animal over another or should we like and respect them all equally because they are all part of nature and “God’s creatures” as are we?
Some people will answer that question by saying that feral cats are pests and shouldn’t exist. Therefore they should be eliminated and don’t deserve our respect. I say we created the feral cat and therefore we have an obvious obligation to interact with them respectfully.
My thanks to Dee for telling me about the video.
Cats will often leave home with the rise of a new toddler in the home intent on menacing the cat constantly. The process of being menaced (tail pulled, hit over the head with whatever’s handy) also caused them to develop a skittish character. Your ‘feral’ was too keep on human contact and seemed well versed in how to deal with it…how to interact with you, although with reservations. This combined with the “saddlebags” it carries at its hind quarters are indicators of a stray rather than a feral. I once spent 9 weeks trying to gentle a Siamese that was a self-imposed exile….and I still carry the scares to prove it!