And the cat was treating it as a cat toy.

Well, really, cats treat cat toys as birds. Or mice.

Yeah, I know the cat was only doing What Cats Do but I really didn't want to start my morning that way, ya know?

Sorry to derail, but this reminds me...

TheDude and I were rental-house-hunting this weekend. One of the houses we looked at was nice, except that it was covered in dead flies (they looked like CSI-style dead-body flies to me). Also, in the laundry nook, we found a dead bird that had flown in through the exhaust hose while they were poisoning off the flies.

And that was the best house we toured...

Why hate nature?

FALLEN nature, Hugh, fallen nature.

Kill and eat, that's fine. Torture leisurely?

Nope, Do Not Want.

Cats should all be eating cheeseburgers, anyway.

Reminds me of the time at an outdoor BBQ, as we all ate our grilled chicken, and somewhere in a nearby woods a fox (presumably) was eating a goose alive, and for about an hour we endured the tortured squawking accompanied by the delicious aroma of roasted bird.

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law-
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed-
There is no good, Monroe,
There is no evil,
Only flesh.

The only way to get cats to stop playing with/killing the birds is to pay good money for the birds. Then the cats won't touch it or go near it.

If you don't like the way domestic cats "play" with prey, blame humans. Apparently feral cats don't do this.

People say domestic cats are cruel because they play with and torment the mice and birds they catch. However, cats are not actually playing with their prey. They enjoy or have an intense desire to catch prey and are simply continuing to hunt them.

Part of a hunt is searching for prey by travelling long distances and getting tired, cold and wet, or hot and thirsty. This part of a hunt is a chore and no fun for a cat. What cats really like about a hunt is the bit when they locate a prey animal and can pounce, chase and catch it. So once a well fed house cat captures a mouse or bird, he indulges his passion by catching his prey again and again.

Only house cats, cats who live with people and are sufficiently and regularly fed, tend to play with prey. They have the time, energy and inclination to do so. Feral or wild cats do not generally play with prey; they must hunt in earnest to feed themselves. If they 'played' with their prey like a house cat the chances are their prey would escape and the cats would lose an invaluable meal. House cats are not alone in their prey-playing behaviour. Other animals do the same, such as orcas with the seals they catch in the sea. Perhaps when orcas are sufficiently well fed like house cats they also permit themselves the enjoyment of the catch.

So cats do not play with their prey, and neither are they cruel, wishing deliberately to abuse their prey by inflicting pain on them. Cruelty is a human character that people (being anthropomorphic) are too quick to see in other animals. Cruelty is not part of a cat's behavioural repertoire. Cats do not think one way or another about what they are doing to their prey; they just do what they do and delight in the action of the catch.

A better name than 'play' is sham or simulated hunting: engaging in hunting behaviour but not for the purpose of getting a meal. Playing is a misleading description as it suggests cats are cruel and it gives them a bad reputation. Sham hunting is not the same as bringing back live prey for the developing young, which may be a means of providing them with hunting experience in preparation for adult life.

The idea that cats enjoy catching prey is based on the following assumptions consistent with evolutionary theory. Cats evolved to enjoy catching prey because cats who enjoy it go hunting more frequently and catch more prey than cats who do not enjoy it and consequently catch fewer prey. Cats who enjoy catching prey raise more offspring successfully because they can feed their kittens more. Enjoying the catch is an inherited trait, likely to be passed on from parent to offspring. Therefore enjoying the catch will spread throughout the cat population as the cats who carry the trait increase in number.

So next time you see a cat 'playing' with prey, do not be too critical of the cat. He is someone's well fed pet and simply indulging his inherited nature.

http://www.animalethics.org.uk/aec-c-entries.html

What about somebody who lets their well-fed pet, which gets regular meals and medical care and a warm place to sleep, go outside to hunt animals? Can I be critical of that person?

The Heaven of Animals

Here they are. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.

Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing.
Their instincts wholly bloom
And they rise.
The soft eyes open.

To match them, the landscape flowers,
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
Thr richest wood,
The deepest field.

For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey

May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk

Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain

At the cycles center,
They tremble, they walk
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torn,
They rise, they walk again.

James Dickey, 1961

Sounds like Valhalla.

How can you hate a creature that is hardwired for survival instincts (including the insticnt to "play" with its food, which helps hone its hunting ability) ?

Humans eat meat depite having the perfect choice not to, and nearly every bit of meat consumed is an animal that went through literal torture to become a corpse.

If you're going to hate animals for the instincts they can't help, you should condemn people to hell for inflicting the agony they do when they could choose not to.

Sorry, just sayin'.

I think you believe in God, too, no? Then you believe God created that cat.

Sorry for the harshness. Truth just sucks.

I sincerely hope that comment doesn't start any nastiness in the normally peaceful MeCha.

I'm with you, bunnyfire, cats give me the creeps.

nearly every bit of meat consumed is an animal that went through literal torture to become a corpse.

That is categorically false.

If cats do this to you, you don't wanna know about the parasitic wasps that lay their eggs to hatch inside of live caterpillars and other insects. House cats are furry little Franciscans in comparison. Fallen nature, indeed.

That is categorically false.

God, I wish it were. Ever seen slaughterhouse video? Know how many animals are still alive when they go to skinning and evisceration? How they lived before they went to slaughter? Even dairy: Dairy cows are kept constantly pregnant for three years (till they're used up at which point they're killed) and their babies are immediately taken away from them to the veal industry. Think veal is cruel? Better give up milk.

I'm sorry. Truly sorry. But there's nothing the least bit false about what I said, and in fact the opposite is true: it's only the tip of the iceberg. The more you learn, the worse it gets and the more you're led on to learn. It's like the first step you take on a mountainside that turns out to be covered in ice. People just hate to see the truth. Often I don't blame them.

I don't feel I said anything wrong and once in a while I can't help but blurt out the truth, but I literally feel sorry anytime I'm compelled to tell the truth. The world we think we live in is so much prettier than the real world and I hate to take away people's illusions.

The real "civilized" world pales in comparison to parasitic wasps.

I'm going to bow out of this thread completely here. Say anything you want or contradict me in any way.

I sincerely hope that comment doesn't start any nastiness in the normally peaceful MeCha.

I don't think you know what "literal torture" is. And I don't think you know that accusing almost everyone else of encouraging torture is nastiness itself. Your attempts to turn my stomach are stomach-turning. Thanks. I felt shitty this morning; if I swallowed your line and realized how horrible all us rapacious animal-torturing carnivores are, I'd be a suicide by nightfall. Nice work.

Humans, omnivorous, eat meat. That way we grow strong. The leisure afforded by modern society, in which we really don't require strength to survive, allows us to get by without eating meat. This allows us to preach fire and brimstone to those who do eat meat. Great work, Elmer Gantry, but you owe your leisurely veganism to the sweat of meat-eaters over millenia.

I'm going to bow out of this thread completely here.

So, after dropping a contentious turd here, you're leaving; anyone who disagrees is the real pooper? I don't mind a little heat, and I like you quite a bit; can't we get on without this sly underhandedness? I hate myself for many things, and eating meat is certainly part of it, but torture? That's beyond hyperbolic, and if it isn't intentionally insulting, I don't know what to think.

I think your reaction is a little strong, Hugh. So what's your definition of literal torture?

My two cents:

The way that meat is produced in the country is abominable, and I try not to contribute to the industry. However, I have no problem with someone who raises and slaughters their own animals in a contentious fashion.

Vegetarianism is not always a "leisure of modern society". Many cultures that lack land for raising livestock (either because of geography or through abject poverty) are vegetarian or near to it.

In this country, sure, it can be looked at as a "leisurely veganism". But I see it the other way: modern society allows for the luxury of meat. And if you choose to support the industry despite the fact that you can meet all your nutritional needs without doing so... *shrugs*

Yeah, you're right, forget it. I'm just getting my dick tickled here.

I understand why people are vegetarian; as a matter of fact, I've been one before and I'll probably be one again, expense be damned. But I also understand why people eat meat, and I don't consider slaughter to be torture, any more than I consider human death by gunshot, blunt trauma, gas chamber, or guillotine to be torture, either.

I read Fast Food Nation, I've watched the videos, I worked in the chicken industry; I know how unpleasant it is to feed the world. It must suck to be a slaughterhouse worker, just as it must suck to be a steer, living just to be harvested like so many ears of corn.

But the fact is that I'm not yet part of the generation that rejects the diet of my parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparents, and all the way back to Olduvai gorge; eating meat is a human tradition far older than any religion, and taking a swipe at everyone who eats meat (that there exists a "perfect choice" not to support "literal torture" by eating meat) under the pretense of commentary on natural predation (isn't this a thread about cats and birds?) quite frankly gets my goat.

It's not about whether eating meat is right or wrong, really. It's about whether dropping an insult into a thread along with a caveat saying, "if you're insulted by my insult, and you say so, you're the one bringing nastiness to this peaceful place," is quite cricket. I don't think it is.

Nice use of the word cricket there, Hugh Janus. I had never seen it used that way, I had to look it up.

Oh yea, and I agree.

Well, for what it's worth, The Duke of Chirpingham is not too terribly fond of felines either.
≡ Click to see image ≡

...and Sir Chirpsalot concurs
≡ Click to see image ≡

The other day we passed a slaughterhouse. My daughter asked what it was and I told her. That made her sad, she said, since she didn't like when animals got hurt. So we had a talk about vegetarianism and veganism and I told her that if eating meat bothered her, I would be happy to prepare meals for her that did not contain it. She thought for awhile then said, resolutely, "Lions eat zebras. People eat pigs. It's the circle of life."

That said, my cat ate the chipmunks. I miss the chipmunks. Especially the one who was fond of hula-hoops.

It doesn't bother me that cats kill birds and rodents. What does bother me is PEOPLE POISONING RODENTS. Don't do that, anyone, please. Get traps or a cat.

Also I agree with Hugh above.

Ugh, when I moved into my place in Washington, the city was in the midst of one of its completely ineffective rodent-control campaigns, and had left big poisoned traps all over the alley and my backyard. And when I called, they refused to come pick them up and dispose of them.

I can't imagine they should have gone into landfill, but I also didn't want them going into my cat, so into the trash they went.

Stupid stupid stupid.

Somebody here locally lost their dogs to the poison that the city put into their back yard to kill rats-AFTER reassuring her it wouldn't hurt her pets.


As to the cat that started this thread, I'd have been more mellow about it if it wasn't one of the little fuzzy demons that want to use my front flower bed as a pooper, or for that matter my lawn in general, hiding their little mushy bombs in grass so I don't see it till too late while I am mowing the lawn.

And whatever the cats are eating is not agreeing with their system, which makes it worse.


Anyway, I spent most of today at my parents. Who own two of the sweetest kitties that exist, one of whom is too fat to hunt and the other who stays inside and only has one eye anyway, so it's too clumsy to hunt much.

Ugh, sorry bunnyfire. I can't stand watching that, and have wrung the necks of more cat catches than I like to think about.

The bird issue is why I'm unable to be rational about the people around here who feed the feral cats. There are hundreds of these cats, which are mostly sickly, malnourished, matted, and prey for racoons and others, and now the whole area is bereft of birds.

Everytime I run into someone one walking with a huge bag of some shitty, commercial, bad-for-cats catfood, who tells me with a self-congratulatory simper that they're here to feed the cats, I have to walk away to keep from kicking them.

We also have dozens of skunks who show up for the cat food.

I grew up thinking it was cruel to keep cats indoors, but now.. too bad. It's more cruel to the rest of the world to let them out. Hard choice, though.

/rant

hellbient, that's a really interesting article.