Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Cat Responsibility

Let me start by saying that I'm a cat lover, and always have been. At this point I'm still in mouring for a beloved feline friend who passed away three months ago. With that said, I cannot ignore this: http://abcnews.go.com/US/roaming-cats-kill-billion-birds-year-american-bird/story?id=13194701

This article was posted on Witchvox's facebook news page, and some of the comments were just shocking to me. People who claim to follow a nature-based religion should realize the harm that pets can do to the environment, and be responsible pet-owners. This includes spaying and neutering, and minimizing our furry friends' impact on the local ecosystem.

We shouldn't let our sentiment blind us to the truth that in many areas our domestic cats are an introduced species; and, if left to roam, they can cause damage to an ecosystem that hasn't had the necessary time on an evolutionary level to adapt to their presence. In places like Australia, and other island ecosystems, the feral cat problem has become very serious, and roaming felines are hunting indigenous species which have no natural defenses against such foreign predators.

I implore other cat-lovers who read this to become aware of the situation. We, as pet-owners, have a responsibility to ensure that our pets do not contribute to the problem.