A small village in New Zealand proposed banning cats entirely in order to protect wildlife (link). The idea appears to have captured the imagination of some people in a country of animal lovers: England.

I think it is quite significant because never before has it be proposed that pet cats should be entirely banned. It is an extension of the ‘war’ on domestic and feral cats by people who dislike cats and ornithologists, and also people who see wildlife, especially birds, endangered by cat predation.
I can fully understand their concern but a complete ban is not going to take off (excuse the pun).
Journalist Sally Jones appeared on ‘This Morning’ an ITV breakfast television show and said that birds ‘found cats evil’ and that humans could do something about it by asking if it is time to ban cats. If she said that she’s partly wrong. Birds don’t find cats evil but people can doing something about it.
It is unimaginable that a government would ban domestic cats nationwide. It would not happen because there are too many people among the voting public who would reject the idea out of hand. To suggest it would be political suicide.
The internet has changed the debate on domestic cat ownership. There is no longer a blind presumption that domestic cats should be adopted, fed and let out, free to roam at will. Calls to protect wildlife are growing, fuelled by social media.
There is no doubt in my mind that the British should be more open to confining their cats. There is this ‘failure’ in cat ownership and in the domestication of the cat. It is a human problem.
As humans gradually destroy wildlife (the 6th mass extinction is underway) though massive population growth and commercial activity it puts ever more pressure on cat owners to do their bit and prevent their cats killing birds and other wild species.
Humans will not tackle their profligate behaviour. They prefer to pass the buck to domestic cats.
What good does it do to overstate the influence of cats
You are not who you say you are. You are that Alaskan American turned Muslim I think. You are in breach of comment rules and are banned.
This is an example of lying by omission. What you overlook is that Felis catus constitutes egregious and highly deleterious HUMAN-ENGENDERED impact on naturally-occurring ecological systems and the fauna they comprise. Cats destroy more birds than building, window, wind-turbine and auto strikes, agricultural toxins and hunters’ takes–COMBINED.
Considering that “habitat loss/destruction” isn’t a single cause, but a suite of deleterious impacts involving such disparate but nonetheless devastating causes such as uncontrolled development, deforestation/logging, pollution and climate destabilization, unconfined cat depredation and disease proliferation currently ranks as the worst SINGLE cause of avian mortality worldwide.
Domesticated cats are opportunistic reflex-killers. They by no means restrict their destructive behavior of “unhealthy” birds. Sleeping, ground-nesting and nestling birds are particularly vulnerable, so much so that the mere presence of an invasive feline will induce brooding birds to abandon their nests.
That’s not all–thousands of marine mammals die from toxoplasmosis entering nearshore marine waters from Arctic Canada to New Zealand, and from Hawaii to the North Sea. Cats torture and slaughter tens of billions on native North American mammals annually, and 1.8 million Australian reptiles each and every DAY.
This is reprehensible–and unsustainable. And no matter how much you attempt to deflect from these horrific truths, it won’t make the consequences of proliferating and perpetuating cats any less so.
Well I’m all up on putting a ban on domestic dogs. For every argument some cat hater can conjure up I can probably come up with two why dogs need to be banned. Now the reality is while I don’t like dogs at all my suggestions usually run to keeping them on a leash, a fenced yard and reasonably quiet. I agree that our pets should not be allowed to roam at will on the neighbors lawn, their bird feeders or public spaces based on the idea that cats need to be allowed to do this. I have in fact had this argument with dog owners who felt it was cruel not to let their dogs out to run in public places where they often harass people who don’t want to be bothered. For every cat haters that says that women who rescue cats are mentally ill from brain parasites I can counter dog owners who have taken pet nuttery to new levels of insanity. I have friends and relatives I will not visit because of the dog filth in their homes.
The idea that banning one pet or the other is foolish and not going to happen. For all the talk of pets being family most are treated in a dismal way the trouble with groups like this is we become insulated from a lot of it and what we are naturally appalled at is in fact common thinking among the vast majority of pet owners.
What a load of manure. Humans do far more to the environment and species to pollution and habitat destruction than the cat ever will. Healthy songbirds can defend themselves against cats. Environment destruction, not so much. Before we even think to eliminate another species we need to curtail our own population and activities on this planet or find another one to destroy.