Echoing what missroserose says--I've got naturalist friends who are strongly against cats running loose because of their effect on wildlife.
The arguments are, for me, muddy. The notion is that house cats weren't native to the New World, and that native birds and other creatures haven't got the evolutionary wherewithal to avoid them (the way they presumably do against things like bobcats or martins or foxes or other things that are native? I mean, that's the argument, but I wonder. I think part of the argument is that cats are an overwhelming presence in the landscape, unlike foxes, etc.)
I have mixed feelings about the "native" versus "invasive" thing, in any case. On the one hand, nobody wants a landscape to become overrun by one species of plant or animal and lose all its biodiversity. On the other hand... things change and species migrate, and what are you going to count as the Ur natural state?
For Turkey, that concern may not be there, since maybe house cats count as native? I honestly don't know.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2018-03-25 07:26 pm (UTC)The arguments are, for me, muddy. The notion is that house cats weren't native to the New World, and that native birds and other creatures haven't got the evolutionary wherewithal to avoid them (the way they presumably do against things like bobcats or martins or foxes or other things that are native? I mean, that's the argument, but I wonder. I think part of the argument is that cats are an overwhelming presence in the landscape, unlike foxes, etc.)
I have mixed feelings about the "native" versus "invasive" thing, in any case. On the one hand, nobody wants a landscape to become overrun by one species of plant or animal and lose all its biodiversity. On the other hand... things change and species migrate, and what are you going to count as the Ur natural state?
For Turkey, that concern may not be there, since maybe house cats count as native? I honestly don't know.