Nope! Just decided to be a disappearing asshole for 36 hours and come back like nothing happened.
edit: thanks to all for the different perspectives. he is fixed, has all of his shots, and has his own temperature contolled kitty condo (aka the laundry room) that we put him into every night. we have a pretty good network of neighbors and pieced together his activities via security cameras. he's a mouser for sure and that is his job until he decides to retire.
You could replace the word "cat" with "human" in your comment and it'd make much more sense.
Where I live, cats provide an invaluable service of keeping pests away. So until they start meowing about unionizing I'll let them roam free, with the dogs.
The difference between a cat and a human is that you can teach the human stuff like, "don't kill birds for fun", or "pick up trash", etc. Humans are shit, but we're smart enough to know when we went too far and stop. Not that we always actually do.
Lets not pretend that every cat owner in New York letting them outside and onto the streets is a good idea. That would be a lot of cats.
It's nice that you can employ cats for their original domesticated purpose, but what does that change? You're a minority among minorities. In most places everyone letting their cats outside would be more like you having a literal thousand of them to take care of pests in the same amount of land that you use whatever amount you have now for.
And even then the cat is still an invasive species, unneutered/unspayed, one too many of them will get you a feral population no local ecology can handle, so stay on top of it.
I'd actually be interested to know what would happen in the new York situation, there is probably enough rats to sustain this new cat population comfortably.
I'm not against getting cats spayed/neutered, or having cats soly indoors, I'm not sure where that came from? It's just irksome when people insist on locking them up, especially unsolicited.
"One too many, no local ecology can handle"...Are you implying we are on verge of a stray cat doomsday? Lots of countries have feral cats (and dogs),and while not ideal, they haven't collapsed society (yet).
Regardless, if you are able to sort out some other issues, like global warming, or micro plastics first, I'll wholeheartedly listen about the cat apocalypse, deal?
Here are some species that cats helped drive to extinction in Australia alone.
Whataboutism? Really? People aren't allowed to care about multiple problems, but only the big ones first? I'm frankly insulted that you'd attempt such a bad faith arguing tactic, as if you'd not immediately get called on it. Fuck you, no deal.
And yes, cats breed fast. I didn't say they'd collapse society, I said ecologies. That's something they have already done in many places around the world where feral cat populations got out of control.
In any densely populated area, you just need two idiots with fertile cats letting them outside for the area to soon have a problem. How exactly does things being under control where you live change that simple truth? Letting cats outside cannot remain the default way of thinking.
Your uneducated guesses on New Yorks cat population vs rat population, is hilarious. Stop seeing the world through your narrow anecdotes, and look this shit up.
And nevermind all that... Unsolicited? Statistically certain health issues and early death isn't enough of a reason for you?
To add on, cats have contributed to many many species extinction. Here are some examples just from Australia alone.
Whoa, I didn't make up the ridiculous new York cat doomsday story, chill out. I didn't realize in your head this was a (likely?) possibility, I'd assumed common sense which is my bad. I though it was more of a "XKCD what if" question.
You're accusing me of whatabouism?! Your argument is literally "WHAT ABOUT if everyone in new York let their cats out???" Im flabbergasted. You can focus on whatever issues you want, I'm just saying cats are pretty low on my list.
And yes, unsolicited - unless I greatly missunderstood OPs intentions for the post. At least I've learned that being indoors is statistically safer than being outdoors though, so thank you for that insight.
Making up a scenario to illustrate a point is not whataboutism. I do not consider it likely, the idea was to merely illustrate that in high density areas (you know, where most of humanity lives), the number of cats is such that allowing them all outside is simply not an option.
And if solicited advice is the only advice we are allowed to give, how exactly are outdoor cat owners to be dealt with? Do we just sit around until they randomly look up how long their cats could be living?