And Then They Bring the Wretched Thing Inside
“The American Bird Conservancy estimates that up to 500 million birds are killed each year by cats — about half by pets and half by feral felines. ‘I hope we can now stop minimizing and trivializing the impacts that outdoor cats have on the environment and start addressing the serious problem of cat predation,’ said Darin Schroeder, the group’s vice president for conservation advocacy.” [NYT]
This is why I have never had a bird feeder in my yard. My cats catch enough birds without setting out bait.
This was a key plot point in Jonathan Franzen’s book “Freedom”.
nothing to add. mine is an inside cat. now, if you want to talk about dogs and rabbits? that is a subject I have some experience with. posted this on another blog a while back.
. . . a perfect day to put the dogs in the yard and forget them. ground is frozen, they cant dig, no mud. perfect. so I do and sit down to make some phone calls. later, maybe two hours I am on with the insurance company and my phone beeps, I ignore it. beeps again, two times. I ignore. an urgent knock at the door. its my neighbors teenage son and he looks like he has just seen the Kraken. three words.
“dude, the dogs . . . ”
I “go” to the back door and they have killed another rabbit. number 5. probably less than ten seconds after I closed the door two hours ago.
it looked like a rabbit had exploded in my yard. no idea what my expression was but it caused my neighbor who was standing in her back yard with her cell phone start laughing hysterically.
“that was you on the phone, huh?”
“yep”
“its a rabbit right?”
pause
“oh my god. Matt have you seen Walter?”
so I get to wade in to learn if its another rabbit or the fat old grey tomcat from the other neighbor that they almost got once before.
but fortunately when I put the dogs in Walter showed up to see what all the excitement was about.
it was a rabbit. I found an ear. and two feet. both front, I think.
and when I opened the door Daisy had part of the skull (missing the lower jaw which was not found) in her mouth.
quite a scene. who knew a rabbit had that much blood. of course every drop was visible because of the snow.
so now my yard looks like a crime scene and the dogs have pink heads until I get them groomed.
I wish we had a cat, but the rest of the family is allergic. I waved at an adolescent black cat with green eyes I saw in my neighbor’s yard this morning. I swear, it really looked as if it raised a paw slightly and waved back.
@Capt Howdy: Two things I’ve seen with lots of blood: an elk (literally gallons when you open one up) and a guy who got shot in the head. I’ll never forget that image of a river of blood draining from a sheet covered body across a 7-11 parking lot at night .
False equivalency: cats kill birds; dogs shit on the grass.
I am now entering the witness protection so Cyn can’t get me.
@redmanlaw:
something about blood on snow too.
@Capt Howdy: Pink from a lung shot.
my dogs? pink from playing tug-o-war with pieces of a mangled rabbit. and probably rolling around in it. I got all the blood off I could but the pink lingered until I had them groomed. also their front legs.
they had way to much fun with that rabbit corpse.
@Capt Howdy: That’s rabbits. Dude. You got them fenced. They can’t get away. Out in the open there’s no way your pure white heavenly angels could do such a thing. I blame Al Gored.
I found a dead raccoon outside the kitchen door Sat morning. The OH says, “What are you going to do about it?” My big boy (the dog, not the OH, just to be clear) has killed groundhogs and raccoons – though not the one who got trapped in the cellar a couple of years back and who cried out like an infant needing its mother’s breast – and I have buried them all.
We had a siamese in London in our homo phase (I have since gone ex-homo) who would hurl invective out the window at the pigeons on the roof of the American millionaire’s palazzo across our adjoining house hindquarters. Finally we found that we couldn’t live with a pet who despised us, switched to dachshunds and the rest is history.
But I miss the songbirds. Cats don’t do so much damage here. It’s in the suburbs they do their worst.
@Capt Howdy: We need to warn flippin not to click on this linque.
nom nom nom
@SanFranLefty: Too late. Between this and being the LOSER up top, I just may have to steer clear of Stinque for awhile… :(
@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.:
well yeah
I have them fenced. but why do they still come inside the fence after 5 of their number have met horrible fates in that yard. seems like a Darwinian thing to me.
usually the dogs know when they are back there and nearly kill me getting out the door to get at them. that day they did not. so I suspect they were as surprised as the rabbit.
@flippin eck: Awww, no, stay. I’ll issue a fiat and make them be nice to you.
@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.: My mighty-hunter cat Baxter would like both you and that Schroeder pipsqueak to know that you can kiss his fluffy black tail.
@flippin eck: We love you and bunnies. My dogs can’t catch them outside. I blame fences. I rejoice to see their little white flopsie hinies go hippity-hop beyond the buried electric fence. I saw one yesterday and was glad to see them back so long as they don’t eat my tulips. Cos that means smiting. But. Come summer I will be happy to look out on them sunning themselves on the lawn. Plus one of my very fave books is Watership Down. Hazel for Preznit!! Fiver for SoS!!
@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.:
hey
if I didnt have a fence they would be finding them in the woods in greater numbers. my fence PROTECTS them as long as they stay on the outside.
you are very wrong. they can and have caught them outside the fence.
@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One:
bad linky Im thinkin
@Mistress Cynica: I am afraid of Baxter. Does he eat pugs? I bet he does. I bet he eats them for breakfast and spits out the bones in an insouciant manner while humming Mozart’s ländlers.
@Capt Howdy: Bunnies can do much but I’m not sure they can read tax maps. Maybe they meant to get to your neighbor’s but got confused by a reconciled boundary from the 20s and wound up facing your husky patrol. So they ambled in to check out the lot for burrows all easy like, jammin on some leaf, when the white fury laid down the law.
@flippin eck: Hazel!!
@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: McBlah avec le sauce meh.
@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One:
sort of reminde me of this one.
she is in the new batman
You people and your starlets.
check out this cool skyscraper proposed for Deli.
Traffic and pollution from cars is a major problem in New Delhi and while CNG buses for public transportation are becoming more popular, even more must be done. As public transportation and more fuel efficient vehicles come into use, the older, polluting cars will become obsolete, but are still full of resources that can be used. Atelier CMJN proposes to take these old cars and recycle them for parts and materials in order to construct their circular skyscrapers.
LO2P is one part recycling center, one part power plant and one part air filter – waste goes in and clean energy, air and food come out. The recycling loop serves as the structure for a large wind turbine as well as photovoltaic panels on the exterior that generate clean energy.
@flippin eck: We love you!!!!
@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.: You’ve never had any taste in women.
@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.:
it doesnt seem that difficult. the dogs must have a smell, right?
dogs inside the fence, rabbits outside the fence. see how simple that is?
@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Hah. You call yourself gay. That female tennis player you brought to have drinks with Cyn and me — the one I couldn’t keep my eyes off of — you probably took her back to your place for a night of fevered bangery.
@Dodgerblue: Who, Jen? Yeesh, ick.
She is an exquisite beauty though.
@Capt Howdy: Oh right. You blame the victims? What are you some kind of NY Times reporterer? Huh? The bunnies should be outside the fence. So like the bunny is inside the fence the bunny is like provoking the male to attack? So you are like abortion kills children? So like the bunnies are the first line in the abortion wars? Tell me this, can you swear your mother didn’t try to abort you? I thought not.
So next time you eat a rabbit stew remember that could be your unaborted fetus stewed slowly with apples and cider.
Cheers to Cyn and Baxter.
Are these starlets all 13 years old? They look it.
@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.:
by the way B
this is not the plot synopsis of “Faster Pussycat Kill Kill” that I was berating your homo cred for not having seen last week.
@IanJ:
I think Juno is not much more than that.
@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.: There is nothing wrong with being blandly pretty.
@mellbell: As I have learned from my ‘career’.
@Capt Howdy: so need to see that movie. Though the optimal viewing might require pristine spitz dogs panting in my ear.
@redmanlaw: Excellent track. They owe something to Lou Reed, no?
Birds gotta fly.
Fish gotta swim.
Cats gotta hunt.
@Capt Howdy: What’s up with the GAMEZZZZZ?
@JNOV:
well
RFA is coming out May 31st (I think).
@Capt Howdy: w00t fuckin’ w00t!
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