Plague: the urgent need to have cats roaming our streets
By Gina Shahbandar
Intro by Michael. Gina makes the point that community cats (managed outdoor cats living in harmony with people) can provide an essential but underappreciated service to humankind in keeping down rat populations and therefore diseases such as the plague. For example the bubonic plague is spread through flea bites and rats. The bacteria responsible is yersinia pestis.
Manchurian Plague 1910 Unknown photographer
I understand the reasons many governments want to keep the numbers of plague cases confidential, but to continue the systematic killing of street cats rather than helping them spread out in a difficult-to-escape-areas is wrong.
In Orange county Florida, there is only one brochure about cats in the animal services that deals with how to keep your neighbor’s cat off your yard rather than educating people about the importance of roaming free cats for the public health and man’s survival.
The World Health Organization had several conferences on the plague, I was lucky to find info from a relatively old one (over 8 yrs old). I am sure the numbers have tremendously increased since. This is the link and below is an extract concerning China.
Since the 1990s, the incidence of plague in China has been increasing rapidly, with fewer than 10 human cases per year in the 1980s, nearly 100 cases in 1996 and 254 cases in 2000. A total of 631 human cases were reported between 1995 and 2004, with a fatality rate of 6.67%.
No numbers are reported from Australia and US although we know from media that they exist.
Here is another indication of the urgent need to have cats roaming our streets. Bill Gates funds a study at UCF to find an affordable vaccine for the plague. Dr. Daniell presented his research to the Gates Foundation on developing genetically modified plants to create low-cost vaccines against the plague.
“Should Dr. Daniell’s vaccine receive FDA approval, it would open the door for the production of a variety of cheaper, more effective vaccines around the world….”
We have not heard yet if this vaccine has got FDA approval, but note it is made of genetically modified substances!
It took Dr. Danielle 11 years of study and research which indicates the disease has been spread enough to alert the governments of great nations for the need of vaccine. Here we are in the 2014 and Australia and US East and West coasts are flagged red on the plague map around the world, yet animal services continue to kill the cats rather than protect them and educate people about the importance of their existence for man’s survival.
I sometimes wish I lived in Old Egypt where the knowledgeable old Egyptians and Great Greek philosophers understood the importance of the cat; they treated it with utmost respect. Cats saved Egypt from over population of rodents, spiders, locust, reptiles including crocodiles and alligators..etc..These are the same problems we face in the world nowadays, and selling poison manufactured by corporations to the public is not the answer.
Our water is so polluted, potable water has became as expensive as milk if not more. I am not calling for people to start worshiping the cat like the Egyptians once did, but we need to understand that with man comes rodents and rodents can’t be stopped by poison, the only effective predator is the cat which contrary to man, doesn’t kill to extinction but controls the over-population.
Another “gift” for Mr. Sanderson.
Unfortunately the cats are to be blamed when the rodents invade, people should realize that cats should be allowed to control the rodents population before it goes out of hand not after fact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpLU0899514
Apocalyptic! GIANT RAT PLAGUE: 25 000 000 Swarm IRAN CAPITAL — TEHRAN… Mar. 7, 2013.
Thanks Gina. I’ll have a look at that. I did a page some time ago about the unseen benefits of feral and stray cats and if we eliminate (impossible) from the ecosystem there is quite likely be a plague of rats.
https://pictures-of-cats.org/Feral-Cats-Help-Control-Rat-Populations.html
You’re absolutely right, and the history gives many example that prove the cat is the only way to control rodents without harming the environment and man.
People don’t realise the benefits of feral and stray cats. We should learn to live with them and improve cat ownership to minimise or control feral cat populations.
Thanks for your comment, believe me there is no feral cats over population, the problem is the cats are trapped in many ways and can’t escape to spread out as they do indistinctly when the colony over grow the food available in one area. Cats eat to control never to extinct.
Thanks for allowing me to share my knowledge and love for animals on this valuable space.
Wish you and your readers a wonderful day.
Gina
I’m glad you bring up the Egyptians.
Cats weren’t native animals to Egypt either. They were imported from other regions, brought in from Turkey and surrounding areas. Most all of them were young. Only a small number were kept as temple animals and pets. Then to “worship” them properly; they were all killed at a young age, mummified, then offered as animal sacrifices to their Goddess Bastet. This is why they found 300,000 young mummified cats buried there for a population of only 100,000 to 150,000 people. EACH PERSON killed and sacrificed at least 2 YOUNG cats as a cultural custom and duty. They couldn’t worship their offerings to Bastet while the cats were alive, they needed non-corporeal cats for that.
[Aside: I often wonder if this isn’t what, in part, led to their eventual downfall. So many exorbitant resources devoted to killing exponentially-over-breeding cats, along with all the diseases cats spread. Someone was at least smart enough to make it a religious-custom to kill them at high rates. Cats’ Toxoplasma gondii brain-hijacking parasite might have even caused mental problems in their leaders and general population (as it does today; causing autism, schizophrenia, and brain tumors in humans).]
It is also interesting to note that people who want to worship cats today, claiming that’s what Egyptians did, aren’t doing it right. They must kill them while young, mummify them, then leave them at the altar of their nearest place of worship.
The North African wildcat (ancestor to the domestic cat) was native to Egypt. I don’t understand what you’re saying Woody.
I have no idea where you’re getting your information from.
The old Egyptians had two cats goddess, Ibis and Bastet, the hunting active Ibis, and the domicile resting Bastet. Cats were NOT scarified and offered to the Cats goddess! The information you provided has no root nor logic.
I understand that you hate cats, but that should not stop be from seeking truth and knowledge about this animal.
Hi Gina. HeyMorons(Redux) is the well-known troll Woodsman AKA Jim Sanderson. He is quite insane. Thanks for commenting.
https://pictures-of-cats.org/jim-stevenson-aka-woodsman001.html
It is sad that a man of deep knowledge and “love” for birds can have such a hatred for another animal .. I wish he would direct his knowledge and energy to fight the vast use of pesticide, and unwise urban development that destroyed most of birds habitats around the world, beside the trade of exotic birds that is destroying the tropical forests, beside exhausting the lakes and natural water resources for cosmetic landscaping that deprive the wild life from the water and return it to the lakes and creeks saturated with pesticide and chemical fertilizer, all these elements are major facts in the diseases and killing of birds population, I seldom see cats climbing trees after birds, cats are mostly interested in what crawl on the ground meanwhile rodents do go after the birds eggs as do snakes and other wild life species. I think Mr. Sanderson hate for cats has nothing to do with his love for birds, it is an inherited phobia that needs to be treated to help him direct his energy toward positive thinkin.
here is a link to open his eyes to the birds real enemy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKoTgY5HM68
Great comment Gina. Well said. Spot on.
Thanks Michael,
Here is another one, watch how the rats are being fought, tons of powder of poison are sprayed by air and land, killing all creatures that comes in contact with the poison, including birds. This poison will eventually end in our lungs food, and water.
Mr. Sanderson should understand that without free roaming cats that control rodents population, our streets and fields are under the mercy of rodents, locust and reptiles, and the use of poison is not the answer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm2Weeot4MI
Gina, I wrote about this. I connected the habit of the Chinese living in the south of eating cats to the rat plague in China.
http://cat-chitchat.pictures-of-cats.org/2014/06/china-eating-cats-leads-to-rat-problems.html
Pure speculation on my part but it does seem possible.
Michael,
Chinese eat cats and use their fur in the stuffed toys industry.
Unfortunately they are paying high price, the world eventually will be effected by this … we are all connected in a way or another.
Love
g
Yes I have ranted against the Chinese for years on cat meat and fur. Disgusting attitude. Here is one page I wrote years ago.
http://cat-chitchat.pictures-of-cats.org/2008/03/cat-meat-name-shame.html
Sigh. I pray for the day that ANY of you astoundingly stupid XXXX get more than a grammar-schooler’s 3rd grade level of knowledge and comprehension. I won’t hold my breath for that. Born XXXX…(rest deleted because it contains many insults…Admin)
Woody if you stop insulting people and provide hard facts I’ll publish your comment but I won’t tolerate insults. You are very stupid to believe I will publish insults. Wake up Woody.
This is delusional..
Orange County Florida is no different than any other county. They have no tolerance for any free roaming cat. The animal services is much more about how to keep a cat out of your garden. It’s more about ridding your property of nuisance cats ie. trapping and being killed at the shelter.
There will never be a need for free-roaming cats in the U.S. as long as the ordinances stay as they are.
I’m sure that Gina is at every city council and county commissioner meeting to fight for cats. Please tell us the outcome.
It’s a sad state of affairs when people leap om the hate cats band wagon so quickly and invent all kinds of excuses and reasons to persecute, and kill them, whether free-born or pets. It is obvious they are missing something. Their irrational hatred of cats will get them in trouble as it did Medieval Europeans. They refuse to see the error of their ways which smacks of brainwashing or mental problems. This is an important matter that the center for Disease Control and Prevention CDC should be concerned about but I don’t see anything from them at all.
I agree with Gina that people in authority should start to look at the benefits of community cats rather than constantly fretting about how to exterminate them. This is where Turkey is ahead. In Turkey people don’t seem to have the same hatred for street cats. The same goes for Israel.