The Next Great Cat Massacre

Brought to You Courtesy of the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food and the Environment

Human history is littered with both unspeakable atrocities and acts of kindness (charity) that defy logic, morality, better judgement. While this quite generic statement covers human-human contact, one of the issues we rarely, if ever, think about is how we humans relate to our environment, in particular our relationship with ‘the animal kingdom’.

Of these things, of course, we rarely speak, and if we do, polite society—our juste milieu—expects us to relate to animals in terms and notions proscribed by virtue-signalling organisations, such as PETA: don’t you dare eating meat, you barbarian, is their battle cry, with ‘NGOs’, such as ‘Greenpeace’ or the WWF joining that particular cacophony by adding, however discordantly, the hymnal of a mostly vegetarian/vegan diet. In more recent years, these notions have been ‘updated’ by the WEF and its acolytes advocating the addition of both insects and ‘lab-grown, artificial’—i.e., fake—’meat’ to our diet.

One of the issues that, so far, received quite little attention, though, our domestic animals and in particular pets. Beloved by children and a companion of humanity since time immemorial, there are now (hare-brained) re-education campaigns targeting dogs (see, e.g., this website advocating for ‘vegan’ dogfood) and, in more recent time, the call to drastically reduce the existent feline population.

The latter being the subject of this posting, let me briefly add more meat (pun intended) to the insane idea of feeding a carnivore (like a dog) ‘vegan’ food.

Courtesy of the above-linked website, here goes (emphases mine):

Can a Dog Survive on a Vegan Diet?

Yes, a dog can survive on a vegan diet. However, if going vegan, the dog’s diet might have to be enriched with specific supplements. This is particularly true for home-cooked meals. [buy processed foods]

Keep in mind that your dog needs a variety of nutrients that are more easily found in animal-based foods [this also applies to humans, by the way]. Therefore, to ensure a healthy and balanced vegan diet, we recommend talking to a veterinary nutritionist. [I didn’t know that ‘veterinary nutritionists’ existed, but then again, now I do]

Is it Cruel to Feed a Dog a Vegan Diet?

No, it isn’t cruel to feed your dog a vegan diet. Modern pet owners adopt a vegan lifestyle for their dogs for various reasons—from ethics to culture to health [is it possible to talk about ‘projection’ of one’s own—’modern pet owners’, that is—mental illness on their pets? I do think so, which renders this, yes, cruelty]

As long as a dog is provided with balanced and nutritious food, there is no animal cruelty if you choose a vegan diet. [I’’ so glad I learned that here, but I will re-iterate—this applies to humans, too]

By way of competing interests, I’m a proud dog owner (Border Collie) and my buddy gets ‘regular’—I suppose: ‘white’, ‘racist’, and ‘climate-denying’—food, including innards from our local slaughterhouse. He seems happy, esp. about real meaty stuff, which, at times, includes venison (as hunting rights are part of our property rights).

That said, let’s now turn to the main piece today (sorry fellow dog owners), which covers the next impending cat massacre of gigantic proportions. In the interest of accuracy, I shall disclose that we also own a cat, which results from living in an old wooden farmhouse; those who do, too, know why farms always come with cats. In terms of dietary issues, by the way, the same ‘food policy’ applies with respect to our dog.

The below text was taken from Bergens Tidende, which republished something written by Mette Estep of NTB; emphases and translation mine, as are the bottom lines.

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New Report: Are Cats a Risk to Endangered Species, Themselves, and Humans?

The domestic cat is our most popular pet, but it also naturally hunts and kills other animals. What’s more, they can potentially spread infections and parasites.

Since February 2021, the Scientific Committee for Food and Environment (VKM) has been working on the report ‘Keeping Cats: Risks to Biodiversity and Animal Welfare’. [two things: they misunderstand: cats keep humans; also, that link, while it brings you to that website, is useless right now for the report will be published on Friday, 10 Nov.] On its own initiative, VKM has assessed the risk that keeping cats in Norway poses to endangered species such as birds, amphibians and reptiles, and whether letting cats run free is good animal welfare.

The report will be launched on Friday.

Project manager Martin Malmstrøm of VKM will not reveal what they have found, but confirms to NTB that this is a topic that engages and arouses emotions. Even though the domestic cat has been a beloved family pet in Norway for over 1,000 years, it was introduced by humans and is allowed to roam freely without being supervised by its owner. [I have yet to read something more insanely stupid than that premise] Malmstrøm:

There is probably a lot of emotion on all sides here. We hope that this report, as a solid and neutral [lol] knowledge base, can help to reduce polarisation.

Killing Endangered Species

The background for the project includes a report from the Norwegian Ornithological Society (now BirdLife) from 2018, which concluded that around seven million small birds are killed by cats in Norway every year:

‘Cats are a major burden on birds and small animals in nature. This is our responsibility since we are the ones who have introduced the cat here’, says Secretary General Kjetil Aadne Solbakken of BirdLife, who is very excited about what VKM will conclude.

The authors of the 2018 report [by BirdLife; also, shouldn’t they disclose their conflict of interest here?] pointed out that precisely because domestic cats are largely free to roam, they have not lost their original hunting instincts. A fairly large proportion of owned domestic cats regularly hunt native wildlife. [that’s true, as far as my cat is concerned] From BirdLife’s summary:

Unfortunately, domestic cats don't only hunt the species that humans consider pests, such as rats and other indoor rodents [hahahahaha, you know, dear bird people, rats ‘and other indoor rodents’ also live outdoors, which is why I let my cat out]. They also don't know where property boundaries are, and thus have the opportunity to hunt whatever wild animals and birds are present in the neighbourhood.

VKM's mandate points out that in addition to the individuals killed by cats, a large number of individuals are either injured or frightened by cats. [yes, they actually refer to birds and the like as ‘individuals’, orig. individer; is it too late to come out against such anti-anthropomorphism? shame on you, BirdLife, for being such anti-human hatemongers]

Does the Cat Belong Here?

Predation is when an individual hunts and eats all or part of another living individual. In nature, predation will occur as an interaction between species that belong there. Those who hunt and those who are hunted adapt. However, Birdlife’s 2018 report stated that cats are to be considered an alien species.

Many people think cats are a natural part of the Norwegian fauna, but they would never be here if it wasn't for us humans.

Thus Oddvar Heggøy, a research fellow in evolutionary biology at the University Museum of Bergen who was involved in writing the report. [this is mind-bogglingly stupid, for one way to read this is—reduce the human population and the cat problem is…well, presumably still there, ain’t it]

He says that the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre's definition of alien species should also include stray/homeless domestic cats.

The reason why the domestic cat is not considered an alien species in Norwegian legislation is that traditional livestock species that were in widespread use in Norway as of 1700 are excluded from the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre's risk assessments for alien species. [oh, look, what a fancy-pants way of saying that it’s a kind of bureaucratic sleight-of-hand at-work here]

Heated Debates

Domestic cats pose a particular danger to ground-nesting species, seabirds, waders, and passerines. Heggøy emphasises that you can’t blame the cat for its predation, but owners should take action [I don’t understand this: if it’s ‘natural’, why socially construct cages here? This doesn’t make any sense to me; also, while we’re on this issue: we shouldn’t blame a human for his or her orientations, right? Should our ‘owners’ now ‘take action’?]:

There is a lot of emotion attached to this, when people argue for and against. Owners obviously have a close relationship with their cat and want the best for it. Perhaps that's why there's a lot of opinion about whether cat predation poses a risk.

At the same time, he says that it's difficult to say how much it matters to the bird population that cats hunt them:

We don't know if it's only weak and sick individuals that cats take. But the numbers are so high that it can have a significant impact on local bird species, especially when they live close to humans. [you don’t get to say ‘we don’t know’ and follow this up by ‘numbers are so high’—decide which of these two arguments you’d like to make, dude]

We believe we have shown that cats are indeed a problem [remember: belief ain’t science (but it might be ‘Science™’], but beyond our arguments, there are probably many people who are annoyed by all the cats that roam freely in the wild, unsupervised, and who defecate in flower beds and sandboxes and make a lot of noise.

One of the World's Biggest Threats

Worldwide, wild domestic cats are considered one of the greatest threats to local fauna, according to VKM:

Outdoor cats can also spread disease-causing organisms and parasites and potentially SARS-CoV-2 to various animals and humans. [fear da virus, pesky humans; also: is there anything backing this up? (at least not anywhere on their website so far)]

In addition, VKM has looked at the cat’s welfare. When cats run free, they are exposed to the significant risk of being attacked by wild animals, such as badgers and foxes, and is exposed to traffic, poisoning, and abuse.

Cats that are not neutered/sterilised also breed in the Norwegian wild and give rise to wild domestic cats.

This is a problem that has been widely recognised in other countries, with large populations of feral cats in the USA and Australia, for example.

Possible Actions

On Friday [10 Nov. 2023], VKM will also present measures to prevent any negative effects the report has found from keeping cats.

BirdLife has previously highlighted measures cat owners can take to prevent domestic cats from catching birds and to stop uncontrolled mating.

This includes keeping the cat indoors during the morning and evening hours, when it is most likely to catch birds. The use of collars with colours and sound, designed to reduce predation, can also help. [I’ve yet to hear a more moronic idea about this]

According to the Norwegian Food Safety Authority, there are around 800,000 cats in Norway, of which 50,000 are stray and homeless. In the ‘Kjæledyrrapporten 2022’, [trans. ‘Pet Report’] it is estimated that over 80% of all cats are ID-tagged and registered. If labelling of cats is made mandatory, it will help to make owners more responsible. [what a load of horse manure (disclosure: we also own horses, no offence, guys): if tagging and inserting chips into pets made owners more responsible, why don’t we do that with humans—because that should, theoretically, render ‘our’ leaders ‘better’, right? Right?]

Spaying/neutering domestic cats can also reduce the risk of establishing populations of homeless cats. [let’s ask Yuval Harari about the adoption of such ‘ideas’ to what he calls ‘useless eaters’, right? Right?]

In November 2019, the EU categorically rejected the idea of introducing a requirement that cats must be kept indoors or that cats must be on a leash when outside [that might be the first useful idea coming out of Brussels]. The EU concluded that the right to free movement applies to domestic cats [oops, that was too early to call: cats have a ‘right to free movement’? Seriously?], even though they may pose a threat to birds.

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WTF Has the EU Commission to Say About This?

Apart from these, we must also consider the laughable EU freedom of movement angle here for a moment.

By way of an excursus into the depths (ahem) of excellent leadership by exceptionally gifted eurocrats, I shall quote at considerable lengths from a bunch of articles on the subject matter.

Thus the UK Telegraph’s James Crisp wrote in November 2019 (kudos for coming up with the factually most brilliant title ever; also, I’m not making this up, by the way):

Fake mews: Brussels denies EU plot to force owners to put cats on a lead

The European Commission has denied it plans to force owners to put their cats on a lead and, in a staunch defence of  freedom of movement rights for pets, insisted EU law does not ban putting the cat out for the night.

Brussels was forced into the bizarre denial on Wednesday after Dutch lawyers from Tilburg University in Trouw, the Netherlands, said letting unleashed cats loose broke the EU’s Birds and Habitats Directive because they killed so many birds.

‘The Commission is a strong defender of free movement rights—including of cats’, said Enrico Brivo, the executive’s environment spokesman. 

‘We categorically deny that the commission will oblige cats to be held on a leash at all times’, Mr Brivo told the Telegraph.

Predictably, these mews also spilled across the pond (Atlantic), as the below excerpt from the venerable NY Post’s reposting of an AP piece from November 2019 shows:

Put domestic cats on a leash to better protect threatened birds and the environment? The European Union says that would deny mankind’s furry friend its unalienable right to roam. [I like that spin]

The EU’s executive said Thursday that it is ‘a strong defender of free movement rights—including of cats’ and ‘categorically’ denied it would ever force cats to be kept indoors or on a leash, as one scientific study suggests…

They argued that EU laws and directives could effectively force owners to keep them indoors or on a leash outdoors.

Now we know ‘more’, right? What a wonderful waste of taxpayer money. I never thought that eurocrasts had any sense of humour, to say nothing about irony.

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Bottom Lines

Pending publication of VKM’s report in two days, the solutions are obvious, isn’t it?

Hold cat owners responsible for whatever the f*** a cat does when its owner isn’t looking. This should, in short order, create hundreds of thousands of jobs for a rapidly de-industralising Europe.

The mandatory introduction of social constructivist activism to the animal kingdom will, of course, yield excellent results, right? Right! (But let’s not follow this through and apply the same logic to other socially constructed issues, such as, e.g., ‘gender’, eh?)

If we don’t ‘do something™’, the globalists will come for our furry friends and hunt them down. Let’s unite to prevent the coming cat massacre.

If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend Robert Darnton’s The Great Cat Massacre (Basic Books, 1999); more recently, Hilda Kean, in her The Great Cat and Dog Massacre, has unearthed evidence of World War Two’s Unknown Tragedy (Chicago UP, 2017). It would not be the first mass slaughter of cats and dogs.

Also, I suspect that it’s high time to address the proverbial tomcat in the room:

What do the cats say and feel about humans—presumably not even ‘their’ owners—following them all-day long to ensure that no endangered species are hunted?

Now, I don’t dare to presume I’d know the answer, but here’s what my cat (whose name is Orca, by the way) had to say about this when I asked her:

Picture taken around 5:20 a.m. a few days ago; our cat is, of course, fluent in many languages as German, English, and Norwegian (both bokmål and nynorsk, for those ‘in the know’) are spoken; also, I swear to you that when I entered the bathroom, the letters read: ‘don’t tread on me’.

Shout-out to

ExcessDeathsAU

for asking about cat pictures: you’re welcome.

P.S.: if there’s a ‘verified’ Twitter/X user among you, dear readers, please DM

el gato malo

, if you’d be so kind, for I think he or she might be interested in this.