Anonymous said: Is it bad that I kinda have mixed feelings about the Tiger Temple cats being taken? As much as I think it's awesome they're finally being shut down, I'm pretty iffy on it until we hear more about where they're going. Like there have been mentions in a few articles about breeding facilities and releasing cats into the wild, neither of which sound great? Idk, I'm hoping for the best, but not expecting much.
Not bad at all, because I’m right there with you. I’m less than happy that they are planning on breeding these likely inbred and genetically impure animals, because they aren’t going to serve any conservation purpose. And they certainly can’t be released. However, the cages I’ve seen a few pictures of are definitely better than where they were. The cages aren’t awesome or ideal by any stretch but it’s better than being harassed by tourists and then crammed into tiny cages. I would also hope that if the new facility they’re going to is going to have so many “specialists” that they will know to feed the cats more than just boiled chicken.
But I’m with you, I am keeping an eye out for new details as they emerge to get a better idea of how good this is going to really be, but I think for now we can say that it is definitely going to be an improvement.
Anonymous said: i don't really understand why you would be pro-zoo. like i understand nature reserves and sanctuaries where people can observe from afar, but it doesn't seem right to me when they're locked up in generally small confined areas for people to watch them do nothing all day. idk maybe i'm getting this wrong, and i still really respect you, i just don't understand this. like i interned at a zoo and felt uncomfortable with how small their living areas were and how they had no stimulation
Good zoos do not keep their animals in “tiny spaces” with no enrichment. I’m not pro-roadside zoo. I’m pro-accredited zoo. Zoos are incredibly important for conservation and education.
Friday, around 3:30 p.m., a young farmer in Glenville, N.Y. named Joshua Rockwood wrote a new chapter in the debate over the future of animals in our world. In less than a week he shocked the animal world; he achieved his goal to raise $50,000 online for legal and bond fees to defend himself against charges that he failed to give his cows and pigs and dogs and horses adequate food, water and shelter on a bitter day in one of the coldest winters in American history. Rockwood’s lightning crowdsourcing campaign – it drew support from every part of the country – has enormous implications for the movement to keep animals in our world, from the New York Carriage horses to the circuses and for almost everyone who lives or works with an animal. It could be a wake-up call for feckless politicians, and may set a new precedent for farmers. It could inspire them and others seeking to curb the runaway and increasingly abusive tactics of the movement that claims to represent the rights of animals.
“The tragedy of the modern animal rights movement – for animals and people both – is that it has pitted itself against the very people who live with and love animals “
Really, you have absolutely no clue how they’d damage wildlife population? *sighs*
Well, first and foremost - and a little fact I sure as hell hope you know: cats are hunters, and rather indiscriminate hunters at that. You might hope that your cat is just going after mice and rats, but they’re attacking other animals and I can promise you that, including endangered animals.
I have volunteered at a wildlife shelter for 8 years, go ahead and guess what the number one reason animals are brought in for. In fact, I’ll just save you the trouble: they’re caught by cats. The kicker? Cats have a bacteria in their saliva that will KILL small mammals within 3 days if they aren’t given IMMEDIATE treatment within 24 hours. The sooner the animal is given antibiotics the better, but even if you get them treated soon after the attack they still might die on you.
If that’s not the worst part, it’s that they will torture their prey. Your average cat is more than likely not hunting for food, unlike wild cats that need to hunt for food - they’re hunting for fun. The animal that they caught is just a toy to them that they’re going to mangle and torture until the kindest thing you can do for them is put them down humanely… and that’s if the animal is caught in time.
Seriously, I have seen more animals mangled and killed by cats than I care to admit because it’s my fucking job to help my supervisors take care of these animals. It’s my job to pick up the robin that had it’s leg chewed off by a cat and it’s wing so severely broken that it had to be put down immediately. It’s my job to take care of the baby animals that were caught and injured by cats - wondering if that lethargic bird is actually going to survive til the end of the day or if that baby squirrel can survive the internal injuries along with the bacteria that is threatening to take their life. Most of them don’t live, too many times I’ve had to tell my supervisor that the lethargic little baby is now dead.
I don’t even blame the cats for this. They’re hunters, that’s what they do - it’s the humans that let their DOMESTIC cats outside to wreak havoc on the local wildlife that I blame.
No fucking shit cats have been around for thousands of years, in fact they’ve been around for longer than that. But a wild Serval in Africa hunting to survive is not the same thing as some dumbass letting their well-fed cat outside without supervision “because it’s in their nature.” Bull fucking shit it’s in their nature. They are domestic animals have been bred over those thousands of years to be companion animals to humans and they don’t need to go outside. They don’t need to wander around outside as much as a domestic dog needs to wander around outside. Furthermore, the domestic feline is not a native species to any continent as much as a Labrador is a native species and they directly compete with native predators (such as owls, foxes, opossums, hawks, minxes, etc).
Not to mention, when you let your cat outside you’re also putting them at risk. They will be hit by cars, they will be killed by coyotes or bears, they will run into asshole humans that will hurt them, they will be taken by eagles (yes, an eagle will take a cat). One day they will never come home and that all could have been prevented if you kept your cat indoors.
But hey, if you’re not going to take my word for it, google “cats are destroying wildlife.” Just do it, you’re going to get no shortage of sources that will explain the same time I’m saying. Here,letmemakeiteasy.
If I sound harsh right now it’s because I am losing my patience with people and I’ve seen way too many animals die or have their lives negatively affected by cats. It’s because cats are my favourite animals and I am tired of people thinking it’s okay to put them in situations that are harmful for the local ecosystem, wildlife and the cats themselves. It’s also because I’ve lost too many cats because my parents thought it was okay that they were indoor/outdoor cats (this was when I was too young to make decisions and thankfully, after loosing 3 animals to being hit by cars, my parents decided to keep them strictly indoor).
If you want your cats to go outside, fine. Leash train them, keep a close eye on them and scare away any wildlife that they’re trying to hunt, get a nice outdoor enclosure if you don’t want to put in the effort to leash train them or sit outside with them.
I do all three with my kitties - no wildlife harmed and my cats get to enjoy the outside.
Anonymous said: hey! i just saw your post tagged "animal welfare" "not animal rights"....i don't think i fully understand the difference between the two. why do you support animal welfare but not animal rights? thanks for any information!
What a wonderful question!! This is a very complicated issue, that can sound like picking hairs for people who aren’t intimately familiar with the animal care industry.
For the sake of simplicity, I’ll use one example for each side of the argument. AZA will represent the side of animal welfare, and PETA will represent the side of animal rights, because both are very visible members of each ideology. I will also try to tag anything that is my personal interpretation, and keep most of this discussion balanced.
To start off, try to imagine all human interaction with animals on a scale from 0 to 10. At the 10 end, we have no regard for animal health or care, hurting and killing animals with complete disregard. At the 0 end, we have no interaction with animals, not killing them or even using byproducts. If the 0 end sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the ideal of most vegans. I’ll try to use this as a reference when describing where each group lies.
Another thing I want to point out is that both groups have a common interest, which is treating animals fairly and humanely, and trying to achieve the most optimum standard of living for each.
Animal rights groups like PETA look to aim for that “0” end of the scale. The ultimate goal of animal rights groups is a complete dissolution of any industry that interacts with animals, from rodeos, and circuses, to zoos, farms, and even pets. From the Animal Welfare Council’s website:
Animal Rights is a philosophical view that animals have rights similar or the same as humans. True animal rights proponents believe that humans do not have the right to use animals at all. Animal rights proponents wish to ban all use of animals by humans.
Animal rights proponents support laws and regulations that would prohibit rodeos, horse racing, circuses, hunting, life-saving medical research using animals, raising of livestock for food, petting zoos, marine parks , breeding of purebred pets and any use of animals for industry, entertainment, sport or recreation.
Now, again, I totally understand why people support animal rights groups. It is true that animals can and do get abused for the profit of humans, and some of the treatment they get would never be allowed on another human. This is the linchpin of the Animal Rights argument. Animals should have the same rights as humans and treated accordingly. Now, let’s look at Animal Welfare.
Groups that focus on Animal Welfare, such as AZA, define welfare thusly:
Animal Welfare refers to an animal’s collective physical, mental, and emotional states over a period of time, and is measured on a continuum from good to poor.
Explanation: An animal typically experiences good welfare when healthy, comfortable, well-nourished, safe, able to develop and express species-typical relationships, behaviors, and cognitive abilities, and not suffering from unpleasant states such as pain, fear, or distress. Because physical, mental, and emotional states may be dependent on one another and can vary from day to day, it is important to consider these states in combination with one another over time to provide an assessment of an animal’s overall welfare status.
To use my straight line measurement from above, Animal Welfare falls closer to the “5” area of the spectrum. Animal Welfare groups do not make a blanket statement that all human interaction with animals is bad, but they do maintain standards to ensure that animals are not being abused or taken advantage of for the profit of a human. Welfare groups like AZA support zoos and animal research, among other things, but only in that they are held to high standards created to ensure optimal animal welfare.
They also use measurements that are as scientific as possible to assess the status of an animal. This can be done by measuring hormones like cortisol, testosterone, and dopamine through blood tests, by observing and comparing animal behavior, monitoring eating amounts and patterns, or even the presence of breeding activity and successful childrearing behavior. More unscientific methods depend on the regular keepers of the animals, and when they notice that something feels ‘off’ in an animal’s routine.
I hope that comes off as non-biased as I meant it to. I do understand the heart of most people behind the Animal Rights groups. And it really is hard to say no when you’re asked if you’re against the mistreatment of animals.
(Here begins my opinion) That being said, I truly believe that Animal Rights does more harm than good. Very regularly, groups like PETA and the Animal Liberation Front use violence, threats, and other terroristic tactics to achieve their ends (thejunglenook can back me up on this.). If you do research on PETA, you will find that many of the animals they “rescue” from shelters are killed. They prefer animals to be dead than be in human care.
I support animal welfare for two main reasons. One, we cannot be naive and think that we can unentwine our human lives with those of the animals we share the world with. Two, I believe that keeping animals in captivity is helpful both for the science we can learn from keeping them (normal ranges of size, food, hormone ranges, gestations, etc), and for their educational use. I and others have written extensively about the impact of seeing animals in person to help the general public gain a connection to an animal they would otherwise care little about.
I have also found that many times, decisions made by animal rights groups are selfish, human decisions. These are decisions that feel good for us to make, like “let the animal be free in the wild!” or “don’t let these poor animals get poked and prodded, look how sad they are”. A focus on animal welfare means that we look past that. Animals may not be released because there is no wild for them to return to, because the animal has been raised by humans and is unequipped to handle the wild, or because it is part of an essential breeding program. Seeing an animal be handled by vets, or even euthanized, is truly for the benefit of the animal. Just like you don’t like going to the doctor, animals don’t, either, but it is for their own good. Short term pain for long term benefit. And euthanasia is used when an animal’s quality of life has dropped below welfare standards, and there is no other option except to let the animal die a drawn-out death.
So when I post #animal welfare #not animal rights, that’s what I mean. I support the scientific support of the good health of the animal, not what my gut tells me “feels good”.
dragonsexcalendar said: Hi there! I know you've probably gotten asks like this a thousand times- so forgive me. All my life, the cats I've owned have been indoor/outdoor cats- they come in to eat and usually sleep, though sometimes they stay outside. We bring them in during rain/holidays. I live near a busy street, but they stay away from it... and they can't get out of the yard if the gate is kept close. I'm just wondering why outdoors cats are bad? All my cats are happy and healthy, and 1 prefers outdoors.
The problem with (indoor/)outdoor cats can be broken down into two parts - Bad for the cat, Bad for the environment. Note that this doesn’t include outdoor time on a harness + leash or in an outdoor enclosure, both of which are totally cool!
Bad for the Cat
No-one is under the impression that we can eliminate all risks to our kitties, but we should do what we can to minimize them. Some risks cats are exposed to when granted unrestricted time outdoors which they do not need to worry about indoors are cars, predators, and cruel humans.
Even if your cats usually shy away from the street there is no guarantee that they will continue to do so, they may be startled by something and run off into the street or maybe they’ll see something on the other side which is more appealing than the street is scary?
Another thing to worry about is cruel neighbors. I’ve seen young boys shooting at an outdoor cat with a BB gun, before, for shits n’ gigs. Some people genuinely do kill and hurt cats just because they find it amusing… there’s also the potential issue of disgruntled neighbors who may, say, not like being kept up at night by yowling or having their garden shit in. Even if your cats aren’t the culprit they may be blamed for it and punished either way, I’ve heard stories of people deliberately leaving anti-freeze out for cats or even sneaking into backyards to deal with the issue themselves.
On the subject of cruel humans, theft is another risk. If your cats have collars / chips they probably won’t be outright adopted by another family, but cats do sometimes get picked up to be used for experimentation purposes or other not-so-savory reasons.
Then there’s the risk of predators. I don’t know where you live but there’s always a risk, it can be from birds of prey (I live in a suburb and we still get kestrels, ospreys, and the occasional hawk) or urban canids (namely ‘yotes and red foxes). Other potential predators, depending on where you live, include bears, cougars, crocodilians, lynxes, mustelids, raccoons, skunks, and snakes. Even if there isn’t any of those where you live there’s a definitive risk of altercations with other outdoor cats or loose neighborhood dogs.
On average, cats granted unrestricted outdoor access live significantly shorter lives than those kept indoors. Most all of these risks can be eliminated by bringing the cat inside, getting a catio, or supervising outdoor time on a leash.
Bad for the Environment
Cats are a domesticated species which have no natural place in any ecosystem, thus when permitted to interact with native environment’s they do so as an invasive species. As a human introduced invasive species domestic cats have caused massive damage to ecosystems world wide, hunting some species to near extinction and preventing breeding in others due to stress.
Even if you don’t see your cat hunting, chances are they do. Cats kill a lot more than their owners are aware of, and even if you think you have no significant species in your area… well, all native fauna is essential to already delicate ecosystems and do you know the status of every species and subspecies of every living being in your area?
Numerous sources for all this information, and then some more, can be found on our outdoor cat page. This page includes links to testimonials from conservation groups, veterinarians, and cat behaviorists alike.
