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Keeping pet cats indoors would save millions of native animals and billions of dollars. So what's stopping us? (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by trk@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone

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Broader adoption of keeping cats safe at home would have large benefits for cat welfare, human health, local wildlife and even the economy. So, should cat owners be required to keep their pets contained to their property?

The answer to the question is obviously "yes".

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[-] TassieTosser@aussie.zone 76 points 2 months ago

Selfishness

[-] trk@aussie.zone 15 points 2 months ago

The factual answer

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[-] Outsider9042@aussie.zone 3 points 2 months ago

Don’t forget laziness.

[-] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Benefits for cats: No FIV infections, no car injuries, safe temperatures, no fights, no parasites.

Benefits for wildlife: no murder, fewer vectors, no loss of habitat to cats

Benefits for community: no roaming cats triggering sensor lights/setting off other pets/damaging property with claws, no toxo transmission, no digging up poo while gardening/losing plants to cat piss

Cons to cats: Keepers must provide entertainment

Cons to keepers: Exercise the level of basic responsibility every other keeper of pets is expected to, or parent with children.

Issue: Controversial??????????

[-] nyctre@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Super controversial. I know plenty of people that are against pets indoors altogether.

Went to a vet specialised in behaviour to help with one of my cats. She insisted that I should let them out.

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[-] Baku@aussie.zone 12 points 2 months ago

I think this is the the thread with the highest ratio of downvoted top level comments to upvotes ones I've ever seen on Lemmy

[-] Ilandar@aussie.zone 9 points 2 months ago

It's always a controversial topic and rarely has any level of insightful or genuine discussion. Best to avoid unless your idea of living is engaging in meaningless social media pile-ons or rage-baiting.

[-] Baku@aussie.zone 7 points 2 months ago

Ah I'm just here for the drama, so it suits me just fine

Jokes aside, it did surprise me a bit. Considering Lemmy tends to be quite left leaning and big into climate activism and stuff of that nature, I really didn't expect there to be this many people who disagree with the OP. I've never really seen more than 1 comment per thread that goes against the common opinion

[-] Ilandar@aussie.zone 7 points 2 months ago

Also I wasn't going to say this before, but the extremely aggressive and toxic nature of the indoor cat crowd usually doesn't help sway neutrals to their side, either. Like in this thread you have someone sharing a link to a study and trying to expand on their counterargument and the OP just called them a "selfish piece of shit" and didn't attempt to engage in a discussion at all. If you think the study is being misrepresented or has flaws, you have the option of explaining that in more detail. Alternatively, if you think the argument is being put forward in bad faith you can just ignore it. Instead people always seem to get mad and start calling each other names, regardless of the social media platform. It feels like a lot of conversations online these days are just one misunderstanding or disagreement away from devolving into full monkey brain tribal warfare.

[-] Ilandar@aussie.zone 5 points 2 months ago

The internet loves cats. People also only care about the environment for as long as it has nothing to do with their personal life. That's why everyone gets very upset when it's suggested that they need to drive less or reduce their meat consumption. I have frequently seen fatalist comments here suggesting we shouldn't change our lifestyles at all because anthropogenic global warming is primarily being driven by big companies and we are therefore freed of any responsibility as individuals.

[-] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 5 points 2 months ago

People also only care about the environment for as long as it has nothing to do with their personal life

Plane travel i think is Australian's biggest problem on this. I once had a friend spitting daggers at me for suggesting the amount of waste caused by travelling to a place like Europe every year needs to be stopped (read: trips spaced out further) until we access a different less carbon intensive transport.

I thought the point i's making was really, really moderate considering the impacts, but my friend turned on me like i'd just insulted their mothers favourite budgie.

It was a surreal moment.

[-] Ilandar@aussie.zone 4 points 2 months ago

Must be nice to have the means to travel to Europe every year lol

[-] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 2 points 2 months ago

Haha, i might have been embellished that a bit.

[-] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 6 points 2 months ago

I didn't realise this was so controversial. All we need now is some hexbear user to stumble across this thread and instigate a mass pile-on (luckily they've decided not to federate with us anymore so we should be safe).

If anyone does notice the conversation get a bit out of hand please report it and we'll deal with it accordingly

[-] Baku@aussie.zone 4 points 2 months ago

Oh, it's only now that you mention it I realise I haven't seen any hexbears in a while.

I'd probably have locked this thread by now if I were a mod tbh. Although I don't really like threads being locked, it doesn't look like there's much actual discussion happening. To me, it looks more like everybody on both sides is screaming their opinions as loud as they possibly can and trying to 1 up the other side

[-] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 1 points 2 months ago

That is definitely a fair call, locking it now.

[-] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 3 points 2 months ago

The discussion here has gone a bit off the rails, and it's reached the point where discussion is no longer meaningful. As such I am locking this thread. If you believe you have something meaningful to contribute to the broader discussion create a new post.

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