Cute stray cats are actually one of the “Top 100 Invasive Alien Species in the World”, causing serious harm to birds around the world. The stray cat problem has become an issue that tears public opinion like abortion problems and gun problems.
A new coronavirus was detected in stray cats, should it be scientifically killed?
Not long ago, researchers from Huazhong Agricultural University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered that there is a new coronavirus antibody in stray cats in Wuhan. In the survey sample, 14.7% of cats detected the new coronavirus.
What’s more worrying is that researchers have also found a large number of lesions in the nasal cavity and tracheal mucosa of stray cats, which may mean that the new coronavirus can be transmitted by respiratory droplets between cats and cats.
If this study is not overturned, people ’s attitude towards stray cats may be greatly reversed.
Isolation of stray cats is inevitable, close contact behaviors such as feeding and feeding cats will also be prohibited, and there may also be behaviors of slaughtering stray cats in the public.
At the beginning of the outbreak of the New Crown epidemic, it was rumored that cats and dogs could spread the new crown virus, and many people abandoned their pet cats and dogs at home, not to mention these unowned wild cats?
A more radical plan was also put on the table-killing stray cats.
At least two cats found positive in the coronavirus test in the United States.
This is not a proposal of a cat-mobster, and ecologists have such a claim, such as Pete Marra, former director of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Research Center.
A few years ago, Pete Mara proposed in Cat Wars that it ’s time to eliminate systematically due to the bad influence of stray cats on the natural ecology stray cat. In Australia, the scientific plan to kill stray cats has been implemented for many years.
There is no other reason: stray cats are thoroughly invasive species, and are one of the “100 Most Invasive Alien Species of the World” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
A wild domestic cat has killed a bird. / Brisbane City Council
The stray cat you feed is the most dangerous animal killer
The first thing to explain is that the “wild cat” that people often say is not a real wild cat, but an abandoned, free-range stray domestic cat, or their offspring born in the wild-wild Domesticated cat.
Real wild cats, such as Chinese native leopard cats, desert cats, rabbits and cloud cats, are not seen in cities except for zoos.
In other words, stray cats and free range cats are “invasive species”, they originally had no niche in the ecosystem, and later spread to every corner of the world with human activities, invading the local ecological environment.
In the impression of many people, stray cats just lie lazily in the sun and sleep, a new look of harmless animals and animals, often rolling on the spot and spreading a spoil, how is it harmful to the environment?
The cat’s “cuteness” and “soft cuteness” undoubtedly make people ignore the other side of it-a ruthless, efficient and terrible animal killer.
In 1916, a stray cat killed an American robin. / Internet Archive Book Images
Weibo popular science blogger @ 鹤 九 Tsuruku encountered a tragic incident in March this year:
She took the two-year-old cockatoo (one of the legally-breeding parrots) downstairs to walk the bird. The parrot was tied with a flying rope and fell on the flowers. The stray cat in the community rushed out, The parrot was caught in a second.
“It ’s just useless to pull away, and it ’s useless to rush. Wildcats are not afraid at all, the safety rope is useless, and the legs of the bird are all torn off … The body of the bird ca n’t be found, only One bird leg. “
This cockatiel is just one of the tens of billions of birds that die under the paws of cats every year.
Blogger @ 鹤 九 Tsuruku ’s parrot was bitten by a cat.
According to a 2013 study in Nature Communications, stray cats have become the largest natural enemies of birds and small mammals in the United States:
Cats in the United States kill at least 1.3 billion to 4 billion birds each year, of which 69% are caused by stray cats; 6.3 billion to 22.3 billion mammals are killed each year, of which 89% are caused by stray cats. 30 million to 800 in the United States0 million stray cats, it can be seen that its high killing efficiency.
Note that this is only a general data, covering urban, suburban, wilderness and other habitats. In an environment far away from the crowd, the stray cat’s killing rate for birds and mammals is much higher.
Stray cats have become the biggest killers of small birds. / Graph insect ideas
In Australia, 377 million birds die under the paws of cats every year. On average, more than 1 million birds are killed by cats every day. Among them, wild domestic cats living in natural environments eat 272 million birds each year, 99% of which are Australian native bird species.
Scientists have also found that stray cats on islands are 10 times more likely to kill birds than stray cats on the mainland. On 179,000 islands worldwide, invading cats have devastated the local ecology.
According to a study published in the 2011 “Global Change Biology” ( Global Change Biology ), there are 33 species of modern extinct modern birds, mammals and reptiles worldwide (14%) was caused by island stray cats. In addition, 8% of endangered species were greatly threatened by island stray cats.
For example, the Black Island flycatcher (Black Robin, also known as the black robin), which only lives in the Chatham Islands on the east coast of New Zealand, has been extinct on the main island of Cha Island due to the influence of invasive species such as cats and mice , Currently only survived on a few small islands nearby, the number is only about 250.
According to Hawaiian zoologists, the survival rate of chicks is only 13% in islands with a large number of wild cats, while the survival rate of chicks is 83% in islands without stray cats.
Cha Island Flycatcher currently has a small number of wild individuals on Mangel Island. / Dave Houston
The presence of a cat is enough to destroy a bird sanctuary.
Atlantic Weekly reported last year that a spotted tern reserve in Mandurah, Australia, due to the invasion of a white stray cat, 6 adult birds and 40 young birds died within a few weeks. Missing.
Finally, the stray cat caused panic among the entire bird colony. They abandoned the habitat, 111 nests were abandoned, and all young birds were left in place and all died.
In 1894, a pregnant domestic cat named Tibbles arrived with his owner on the last habitat of an uninhabited island in southern New Zealand, Stephen Island ’s Wren, which caused the flightless bird to become extinct just a few years later. .
“Atlantic Weekly” reports: The terror of a tomcat.
There is no systematic investigation and research on the impact of stray cats on local species in China, but as long as you randomly search on social platforms, you can find a large number of stray cats ’sightings of birds and reptiles.
In Hangzhou West Lake, including local media, Zhejiang Wild Bird Association, bird watching enthusiasts, etc., stray cats have reported attacks and killing of the national second-class animal mandarin duck, especially the young mandarin duck.
Science blogger @ 黑 Scale 鸡冠 蛇 also shared a video where stray cats not only attack birds, but also kill reptiles such as wild Zhoushan cobras (vulnerable species).
The stray cat took Zhoushan Cobra away.
Stray cats not only kill wild animals, but also have records of crimes against poultry. In January of this year, a villager in Yunxi, Shiyan, Hubei, discovered that his ducks had disappeared one after another, thinking that it was a neighbour’s behavior and installed surveillance to know that it was a stray cat.
The stray cat stole more than ten ducks.
And many netizens in Weibo commented on this stray cat, praising it for its skill and skill. Last year there was also a popular video on Weibo. A slow-motion replay of a wildflower domestic cat killing a bird in a rural area was described as “A Mid-Cat Question” and “Miao Jie Yao Ming.”
These attitudes show that stray cats’ harm to wild birds and reptiles will not only be ignored, but will also be appreciated. Wild animals killed by invading stray cats, and innocentStray cats robbed pets and poultry owners, but received little mercy.
Blogger @ 鹤 九 Tsuruku also has cats at home, but “like cats” does not contradict “admit to the harm of stray cats”. After the parrot was taken away by the stray cat, she questioned and said: “Stray cat is cute, right. My bird is also cute, and has been with me for two years, and now it can’t come back.”
Under the cute appearance of stray cats, there are more invisible hazards.
Stray cats usually do not catch birds for food. Netizens’ video shows that his cat just caught a beaded necked dove (three animals) and just laid it on the ground to play.
Can stray cats protect against rodents? If it doesn’t exist, feeding cat food has almost no disadvantages
Even if stray cats do not have new coronavirus, they can spread other diseases.
Biologist Michael Clinchy of the University of Victoria in Canada pointed out that stray cats can spread plague, rabies, feline leukemia and toxoplasma gondii.
In 2002, one of the main reasons for the wild extinction of Hawaiian crows was the Toxoplasma gondii brought by stray cats. Even if the bird escapes from the stray cat’s paw, it may die from the wound infection because the bacteria in the cat’s teeth are enough to destroy the bird’s immune system.
Ten thousand steps back, assuming that stray cats do not catch birds, do not infect diseases, and only catch mice, is it acceptable to feed stray cats?
Still not. Feeding stray cats still has a lot of harm, especially to the stray cats themselves, which is counterproductive to the good wishes of the cat feeders.