For those interested, sentencing remarks for Thomas Birley who attempted to burn down the hotel in Rotherham. That's been published very quickly.
Guilt plea, so full reduction on sentence.
One item of dark humour: I assume the injured police got a Doctor, not a Vet.
As a measure of how serious the incident became; 64 police officers were injured several seriously, 3 police horses were injured and 1 police dog was also injured. They required veterinary care.
On topic (If that's OK with most of you): In 2016, I looked at the races in the close states and found this pattern: The Loser was consistently out-polled by the Republicans just below him on the ballot (senators or governors where there were those races, the total of House races, where there was not).
From that I concluded -- tentatively -- that the Loser had been elected, thanks to a "reverse coattails effect". Enough voters who might not have voted for the Loser had he been the only one on the ballot, were brought to the polls by other Republicans (or studied their mail balllots), and decided to vote for the Loser, even though they hadn't intended to, originally.
For the record: I didn't try to do any statistical tests and haven't decided whether such tests are possible.
No wonder when we are jailing people for tweets made rather than giving them community orders and fines. Prison should be mainly for those who have killed with intent, killed while dangerous driving, committed violent crimes or serious sexual offences of assault or rape or stolen large amounts of property ie those we need to protect society from and who need a long period of rehabilitation before they are released.
Agreed, Hyufd - plus of course those that put pineapple toppings on their pizza.
As I have said it has been a really poor start from Reeves. Why could she not see how this would land?
Because Rachel Reeves is an ex-BoE technocrat. It's the omnishambles budget all over again. Of course it makes sense to charge VAT on hot as well as cold food, or cold as well as hot, and why should church repairs be VAT-exempt? Rich pensioners don't need WFP and if poor pensioners can't fill in a 100-page form they don't even know about, more fool them. It's all bean-counting and no politics.
Labour lied and they are going to concrete over the Green Belt, all to accommodate overpopulation caused entirely by mass migration
This government is like a car speeding into a wall, already
It's in the Manifesto:
Labour is committed to preserving the green belt which has served England’s towns and cities well over many decades. Under the Conservatives, greenbelt land is regularly released for development but haphazardly and often for speculative housebuilding. Without changing its purpose or general extent, Labour will take a more strategic approach to greenbelt land designation and release to build more homes in the right places. The release of lower quality ‘grey belt’ land will be prioritised and we will introduce ‘golden rules’ to ensure development benefits communities and nature.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
If keeping other species as pets is just like slavery, is eating them akin to cannibalism?
lol drole and touché
I saw an article about lab grown meat the other day - salmon, I think - which said it is close to being acceptable. Soon we will be able to synthesise delicious meat in vast factories, and - thank God - the era of industrial livestock farming will come to an end
My guess is that we will look back on the era of battery hens and pigs in boxes with utter horror, and regard ourselves as total barbarians
And I speak as a happy meat eater (albeit with greater care, these days), so yes I am a hypocrite
Ditto. I think sometime in the future eating meat will be viewed in the same way as hunting and I also say that as someone who enjoys all sorts of meat.
I believe factory farming will be seen with far MORE disapproval than hunting
How bad is hunting? A few foxes, some shot pheasants? You can argue that the foxes are vermin and the pheasant are consumed
Compare that to billions of sentient mammals - some extremely intelligent, like pigs - which we breed and keep in squalid conditions, solely so they can be brutally slaughtered and eaten
It ain’t pretty. Speed the day when we can end it
You conflate hunting to eat and hunting for fun and seem woefully ignorant of the shooting industry.
Have you ever been on a driven shoot ? I'd say a quarter of birds are wounded rather than killed. The lucky ones will fall so at least might be despatched with a whack to the head.
Shoots are overstocked with birds that are raised in factory like conditions. These birds don't even enjoy the pitiful basic welfare standards that factory farmed chickens have as game birds for shooting are exempt. They are then released on to monoculture moors where predators have been eliminated, with snares inevitably catching hares as well as foxes or stoats.
Pheasants aren't even native to the UK
Then they are shot. The majority aren't eaten by humans, some are, but the majority are simple buried or incinerated. Lead shot is still used so you may get a nice fragment of lead with you game meat.
I've absolutely no problem with killing animals to eat them, but that's at best a by-product of the shooting industry, not the purpose.
Largely right but you don't get pheasant on the "monoculture moors", that's grouse which you can't breed in captivity. Dunno why not.
If wild birds of prey are eating wild garden birds there's an automatic stabilisation if the birds of prey kill too many song birds - they run out of food.
This isn't the case with domestic cats who are subsidised hunters, and the science has been done monitoring domestic cats. A proportion of them are very prolific hunters and they don't bring home, or eat, most of their kills. They're sport killers, just like human game hunters, and they're capable of hunting song birds to extinction - which is not the case with a natural predator like a native bird of prey.
I'm no expert but I do know that birds of prey eat animals other than songbirds.
When times are hard, up to 25% of a buzzard's diet is earthworms. They also eat larger insects.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
I think the missing item from this debate is migratory songbirds shot or caught in nets to be eaten in Southern / Eastern Europe.
I think the biggest cause of bird population declines is the collapse in insect populations.
Last couple of springs in central France have been eerily silent, but the summers have also been pleasantly yet unnervingly free of insects.
I’ve noticed this around the world. The crash in insects
I doubt there are many people on the planet who travel as widely and globally as me. Insect populations are notably, palpably in decline. Everywhere
I didn't get a single noticeable insect bite or sting when I walked across Spain
I grew up feeling like ripe fruit for mosquitoes; I'd get bitten all the time, especially on holiday
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
Single market membership via EFTA/EEA is a great idea - and the one I proposed since long before the referendum. That is a very long way away from rejoining. Inded it would remove most of the objections that sensible people have to the current form of Brexit. But that is not tghe Lib Dem position. They made it clear in the elction campaign that they want to rejoin the EU entirely, not just the Single Market.
By the way, your shifting of the goalposts in you posting is rather poor. You had previously been talking about farmers and their views. That was the point I answered and refuted your claims. No mention of that in your follow up post. Just a general polemic on Brexit as a whole.
No they didn't. The LD manifesto committed to 'Fix the UK’s broken relationship with Europe, forge a new partnership built on cooperation, not confrontation, and move to conclude a new comprehensive agreement which removes as many barriers to trade as possible.' Not to rejoin the EU and they were the most pro EU/EEA of the 4 main UK parties https://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto
From the BBC:
"The Liberal Democrat manifesto, entitled For a Fair Deal, says these measures would boost the economy but are also "essential steps on the road to EU membership, which remains our longer term objective".
They were explicit in their manifesto and their speeches that the long term aim of thr party is for the UK to rejoin the EU.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Pet owners need to grow up and own the truth. If you must have a pet cat or dog, accept what these animals are doing to our wildlife
“Cats kill in excess of 50 million birds each year as well as frogs, slow worms and various small mammals. Given these facts there are a few points to consider if you are thinking of bringing a cat into an area where birdlife is thriving”
Animals kill other animals. That's just a fact of life.
But that doesn’t mean we should introduce 12 million EXTRA predators (fed and housed by us) who completely devastate the eco system, slaughtering 50 MILLION birds a year (and much else) and all because we “like” the company of cats
It is irredeemably selfish. Sorry
Why prioritise birds over cats? Or mice, or rats?
My own cat slaughters mice with gusto, and that's a good thing, because they would be swarming thought my house, otherwise.
Because everyone enjoys the beauty and song of wild birds. Only you enjoy the company of your cat
Pet ownership is a pure act of selfishness. “Fuck the ecosystem and the wildlife, I want a pet because I’m bored, lonely, stupid, delete as appropriate”
I accept my opinion is not popular. People REALLY do not want to hear this
The worst types are pet owners who are also eco-loon Greens. The cognitive dissonance is so intense they spontaneously self-combust
This needs context:
1 - The act of pure selfishness is by the cat. 2 - The owner has been groomed to think s/he enjoys the company of the cat. Perhaps "cuckooing" needs to be renamed to "catfishing". 3 - Cats are remarkable; they manage to convince 'owners' that the relationship is the other way round.
(I may now need to camouflage myself as a rug in case Kitten Kong is around.)
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
And here’s the kicker. That’s exactly what cats do. They hunt for fun even when completely fed. That’s why they are so calamitous for wildlife
It's not "fun", it's instinctive, survival driven predator behaviour. Even if the cat can't manage to eat another chaffinch, it's logical to kill more if it can because the cadaver might still be there tomorrow when it is hungry.
No pets for us. Domestic animals are an abomination.
Hah. A rare moment of agreement between us @Dura_Ace
Great. You can still FOAD as far as I'm concerned.
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
Single market membership via EFTA/EEA is a great idea - and the one I proposed since long before the referendum. That is a very long way away from rejoining. Inded it would remove most of the objections that sensible people have to the current form of Brexit. But that is not tghe Lib Dem position. They made it clear in the elction campaign that they want to rejoin the EU entirely, not just the Single Market.
By the way, your shifting of the goalposts in you posting is rather poor. You had previously been talking about farmers and their views. That was the point I answered and refuted your claims. No mention of that in your follow up post. Just a general polemic on Brexit as a whole.
Well, I can only talk from my own experience. It seems that the Gloucestershire farmers, my family know, are more concerned about being undercut from abroad, than benefits from environmental payments.
I think the underlying point is thar very large numbers of people are just not being listened to ; some farmers; even some fishermen ; small and large businesses ; students ; performers and musicians; the vast majority of big city Britain ; and now, it seems, about 70% of the British population, all of which group will support a return to the single market. Nature refuses a vacuum, though, so I suspect new political forces may enter to fill this gap first.
Someone used the 70% claim on here the other day and then had to withdraw it when it was shown to be incorrect (not by me).
Much of the off-top discussion sounds very strange to some one who grew up on a farm in the Western US, decades ago. Restrictions on guns were looser then, to say the least. I bought a .22 rifle when I was 14 or 15, as I recall. I didn't even need my parents permission, much less anything from law enforcement. During harvest season, I sometimes used it, or the family shotgun, to discourage birds from eating our cherries.
We kept a cat for very practical reasons, to control the mice in our house. We also had to protect our trees from mice*, but a single cat could not do that job.
We kept a dog, for companionship, and as a watch dog.
(*In the winter, the mice would often chew the bark on trees, under the snow cover. Since they were chewing at about the same level, they could kill a young tree by chewing the bark, going around the tree. We put screens around the trees to protect the trees.)
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
And here’s the kicker. That’s exactly what cats do. They hunt for fun even when completely fed. That’s why they are so calamitous for wildlife
It's not "fun", it's instinctive, survival driven predator behaviour. Even if the cat can't manage to eat another chaffinch, it's logical to kill more if it can because the cadaver might still be there tomorrow when it is hungry.
No pets for us. Domestic animals are an abomination.
Hah. A rare moment of agreement between us @Dura_Ace
Great. You can still FOAD as far as I'm concerned.
If wild birds of prey are eating wild garden birds there's an automatic stabilisation if the birds of prey kill too many song birds - they run out of food.
This isn't the case with domestic cats who are subsidised hunters, and the science has been done monitoring domestic cats. A proportion of them are very prolific hunters and they don't bring home, or eat, most of their kills. They're sport killers, just like human game hunters, and they're capable of hunting song birds to extinction - which is not the case with a natural predator like a native bird of prey.
I'm no expert but I do know that birds of prey eat animals other than songbirds.
When times are hard, up to 25% of a buzzard's diet is earthworms. They also eat larger insects.
You'll quite often see Red Kites following the plough.
Flip side, in August the majority of Tawny Owl's diets are moles. It's the month the youngesters learn to burrow. Not very well at first - and with terminal consequences.
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
Single market membership via EFTA/EEA is a great idea - and the one I proposed since long before the referendum. That is a very long way away from rejoining. Inded it would remove most of the objections that sensible people have to the current form of Brexit. But that is not tghe Lib Dem position. They made it clear in the elction campaign that they want to rejoin the EU entirely, not just the Single Market.
By the way, your shifting of the goalposts in you posting is rather poor. You had previously been talking about farmers and their views. That was the point I answered and refuted your claims. No mention of that in your follow up post. Just a general polemic on Brexit as a whole.
Well, I can only talk from my own experience. It seems that the Gloucestershire farmers, my family know, are more concerned about being undercut from abroad, than benefits from environmental payments.
I think the underlying point is thar very large numbers of people are just not being listened to ; some farmers; even some fishermen ; small and large businesses ; students ; performers and musicians; the vast majority of big city Britain ; and now, it seems, about 70% of the British population, all of which group will support a return to the single market. Nature refuses a vacuum, though, so I suspect new political forces may enter to fill this gap first.
Someone used the 70% claim on here the other day and then had to withdraw it when it was shown to be incorrect (not by me).
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Pet owners need to grow up and own the truth. If you must have a pet cat or dog, accept what these animals are doing to our wildlife
“Cats kill in excess of 50 million birds each year as well as frogs, slow worms and various small mammals. Given these facts there are a few points to consider if you are thinking of bringing a cat into an area where birdlife is thriving”
Animals kill other animals. That's just a fact of life.
But that doesn’t mean we should introduce 12 million EXTRA predators (fed and housed by us) who completely devastate the eco system, slaughtering 50 MILLION birds a year (and much else) and all because we “like” the company of cats
It is irredeemably selfish. Sorry
Why prioritise birds over cats? Or mice, or rats?
My own cat slaughters mice with gusto, and that's a good thing, because they would be swarming thought my house, otherwise.
Because everyone enjoys the beauty and song of wild birds. Only you enjoy the company of your cat
Pet ownership is a pure act of selfishness. “Fuck the ecosystem and the wildlife, I want a pet because I’m bored, lonely, stupid, delete as appropriate”
I accept my opinion is not popular. People REALLY do not want to hear this
The worst types are pet owners who are also eco-loon Greens. The cognitive dissonance is so intense they spontaneously self-combust
This needs context:
1 - The act of pure selfishness is by the cat. 2 - The owner has been groomed to think s/he enjoys the company of the cat. Perhaps "cuckooing" needs to be renamed to "catfishing". 3 - Cats are remarkable; they manage to convince 'owners' that the relationship is the other way round.
(I may now need to camouflage myself as a rug in case Kitten Kong is around.)
I hate cats as much as the next person, but it’s worth noting that as far as rats and mice are concerned, reducing their numbers is generally welcomed and the alternative of having some pest controller spread toxic chemicals about the place is hardly environmentally friendly.
If cats were turned loose rather than kept as pets and generally neutered, there would be a lot more cats about, reliant on eating birds and stuff. Indeed those countries where pet ownership isn’t a cultural ‘thing’, like Turkey and Morocco and some parts of rural Greece, are typically awash with stray dogs and cats.
No wonder when we are jailing people for tweets made rather than giving them community orders and fines. Prison should be mainly for those who have killed with intent, killed while dangerous driving, committed violent crimes or serious sexual offences of assault or rape or stolen large amounts of property ie those we need to protect society from and who need a long period of rehabilitation before they are released.
The number of people jailed for tweets is very small and is not why the prison population is at a record high.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
And here’s the kicker. That’s exactly what cats do. They hunt for fun even when completely fed. That’s why they are so calamitous for wildlife
It's not "fun", it's instinctive, survival driven predator behaviour. Even if the cat can't manage to eat another chaffinch, it's logical to kill more if it can because the cadaver might still be there tomorrow when it is hungry.
No pets for us. Domestic animals are an abomination.
Hah. A rare moment of agreement between us @Dura_Ace
Great. You can still FOAD as far as I'm concerned.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Pet owners need to grow up and own the truth. If you must have a pet cat or dog, accept what these animals are doing to our wildlife
“Cats kill in excess of 50 million birds each year as well as frogs, slow worms and various small mammals. Given these facts there are a few points to consider if you are thinking of bringing a cat into an area where birdlife is thriving”
Animals kill other animals. That's just a fact of life.
But that doesn’t mean we should introduce 12 million EXTRA predators (fed and housed by us) who completely devastate the eco system, slaughtering 50 MILLION birds a year (and much else) and all because we “like” the company of cats
It is irredeemably selfish. Sorry
Why prioritise birds over cats? Or mice, or rats?
My own cat slaughters mice with gusto, and that's a good thing, because they would be swarming thought my house, otherwise.
Because everyone enjoys the beauty and song of wild birds. Only you enjoy the company of your cat
Pet ownership is a pure act of selfishness. “Fuck the ecosystem and the wildlife, I want a pet because I’m bored, lonely, stupid, delete as appropriate”
I accept my opinion is not popular. People REALLY do not want to hear this
The worst types are pet owners who are also eco-loon Greens. The cognitive dissonance is so intense they spontaneously self-combust
This needs context:
1 - The act of pure selfishness is by the cat. 2 - The owner has been groomed to think s/he enjoys the company of the cat. Perhaps "cuckooing" needs to be renamed to "catfishing". 3 - Cats are remarkable; they manage to convince 'owners' that the relationship is the other way round.
(I may now need to camouflage myself as a rug in case Kitten Kong is around.)
I hate cats as much as the next person, but it’s worth noting that as far as rats and mice are concerned, reducing their numbers is generally welcomed and the alternative of having some pest controller spread toxic chemicals about the place is hardly environmentally friendly.
If cats were turned loose rather than kept as pets and generally neutered, there would be a lot more cats about, reliant on eating birds and stuff. Indeed those countries where pet ownership isn’t a cultural ‘thing’, like Turkey and Morocco and some parts of rural Greece, are typically awash with stray dogs and cats.
Oh I like cats, but it's Friday - and I can recognise a boss when I see one .
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Pet owners need to grow up and own the truth. If you must have a pet cat or dog, accept what these animals are doing to our wildlife
“Cats kill in excess of 50 million birds each year as well as frogs, slow worms and various small mammals. Given these facts there are a few points to consider if you are thinking of bringing a cat into an area where birdlife is thriving”
Animals kill other animals. That's just a fact of life.
But that doesn’t mean we should introduce 12 million EXTRA predators (fed and housed by us) who completely devastate the eco system, slaughtering 50 MILLION birds a year (and much else) and all because we “like” the company of cats
It is irredeemably selfish. Sorry
Why prioritise birds over cats? Or mice, or rats?
My own cat slaughters mice with gusto, and that's a good thing, because they would be swarming thought my house, otherwise.
Because everyone enjoys the beauty and song of wild birds. Only you enjoy the company of your cat
Pet ownership is a pure act of selfishness. “Fuck the ecosystem and the wildlife, I want a pet because I’m bored, lonely, stupid, delete as appropriate”
I accept my opinion is not popular. People REALLY do not want to hear this
The worst types are pet owners who are also eco-loon Greens. The cognitive dissonance is so intense they spontaneously self-combust
This needs context:
1 - The act of pure selfishness is by the cat. 2 - The owner has been groomed to think s/he enjoys the company of the cat. Perhaps "cuckooing" needs to be renamed to "catfishing". 3 - Cats are remarkable; they manage to convince 'owners' that the relationship is the other way round.
(I may now need to camouflage myself as a rug in case Kitten Kong is around.)
Confirms my cat is definitely the owner, you realise this when they wake you up at 4am because their food bowl is empty and you go down to fill it
According to BBC World at One 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. This was put to the leader of the Greens who said one of their first priorities was re-establishing the pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.
As an OAP I wouldn't mind if the WFA was taxable. I don't think I know any millionaires, though, UNLESS they're including the value of peoples houses.
They are. But I guess anyone short of heating could always go for equity release if they weren't worried about their children's inheritance.
Equity release is terrible value though. The interest rates have been historically punitive compared to std mortgage rates.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
Every single cat owner says this. Its ridiculous
Some cats genuinely do not hunt, but owners will not see most of what their cats do kill - the figure from the study is only about 23% of kills are brought home - and so unless owners have a camera on their cat, they cannot know for sure what they are hunting.
And in this case we have a cat who is proven to be hunting (moths) and the blithe assumption is that they're not predating on other prey, winged or otherwise.
As a study in denial it is instructive.
I love cats, but I'm not going to fool myself that I wasn't contributing to mass and uncontrolled predation if I were to have one as a pet again.
All my family is the same. They are all cat owners but every single one says “oh our cats don’t hunt”
When they blatantly do
Btw I don’t lecture them I just occasionally ask whether it worries them. The power of this denial is too great and I don’t want to distress them with cognitive dissonance. I do that here
I've always had house cats so the issue didn't arise. But I don't see why people should be expected necessarily to prefer songbirds to cats.
I'm on a train so cannot YouTube, but if that's Lichtman (sp?), he has the best record of predictors. His nearest competitor is Norpoth, but Norpoth messed up 2020 and Iirc 2020.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
You claimed wild bird numbers were falling due to reintroductions of birds of prey. You then mentioned Sparrowhawks in support of that claim. Except, sparrowhawks were not reintroduced and their numbers have been decreaasing not increasing.
So I am afraid your claims are junk, whatever single anecdote you might push.
From the RSPB - who would suggest have at least a passing interest in seeing bird populations recover:
"Extensive research, by the RSPB and many others, into declining farmland songbirds has provided no evidence that predation by Sparrowhawks has driven population declines. Instead, a lack of different food resources and suitable breeding habitat is thought to be the main cause of songbird declines – mainly because of modern farming methods."
The fact that extensive research has been conducted indicates that this is a serious issue. I'd be interested in seeing the research.
I would also like evidence for your claims regarding the recent decline in Sparrowhawk numbers, because the most recent figures I saw were from 2021 or thereabouts.
China 74 gold medals Dear Old Blighty 39 USA 27 NL 22 France & Italy 17 each Slava Ukraini 16
If you wanted proof of the extent of the abuse of disability benefits in this country.....
I am rather meh on the paralympics to be honest. Some of the competitors are astonishing - that archer with no arms, for instance. But there are an awful lot of classes to ensure fair competition, and some of the classes are rather weak.
For instance, is someone with a visual impairment, but who can still see, needing a special class at the paralympics?
I'm on a train so cannot YouTube, but if that's Lichtman (sp?), he has the best record of predictors. His nearest competitor is Norpoth, but Norpoth messed up 2020 and Iirc 2020.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
Every single cat owner says this. Its ridiculous
Some cats genuinely do not hunt, but owners will not see most of what their cats do kill - the figure from the study is only about 23% of kills are brought home - and so unless owners have a camera on their cat, they cannot know for sure what they are hunting.
And in this case we have a cat who is proven to be hunting (moths) and the blithe assumption is that they're not predating on other prey, winged or otherwise.
As a study in denial it is instructive.
I love cats, but I'm not going to fool myself that I wasn't contributing to mass and uncontrolled predation if I were to have one as a pet again.
All my family is the same. They are all cat owners but every single one says “oh our cats don’t hunt”
When they blatantly do
Btw I don’t lecture them I just occasionally ask whether it worries them. The power of this denial is too great and I don’t want to distress them with cognitive dissonance. I do that here
I've always had house cats so the issue didn't arise. But I don't see why people should be expected necessarily to prefer songbirds to cats.
I may be alone, but I much prefer the singing of songbirds to the singing of cats!
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
Every single cat owner says this. Its ridiculous
Some cats genuinely do not hunt, but owners will not see most of what their cats do kill - the figure from the study is only about 23% of kills are brought home - and so unless owners have a camera on their cat, they cannot know for sure what they are hunting.
And in this case we have a cat who is proven to be hunting (moths) and the blithe assumption is that they're not predating on other prey, winged or otherwise.
As a study in denial it is instructive.
I love cats, but I'm not going to fool myself that I wasn't contributing to mass and uncontrolled predation if I were to have one as a pet again.
All my family is the same. They are all cat owners but every single one says “oh our cats don’t hunt”
When they blatantly do
Btw I don’t lecture them I just occasionally ask whether it worries them. The power of this denial is too great and I don’t want to distress them with cognitive dissonance. I do that here
I've always had house cats so the issue didn't arise. But I don't see why people should be expected necessarily to prefer songbirds to cats.
Small birds have fewer predators nowadays anyhow, with the decline in birds of prey and other bird-eating mammals. Except in places like Italy where netting and shooting passing songbirds is still a hobby of choice.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
Every single cat owner says this. Its ridiculous
Some cats genuinely do not hunt, but owners will not see most of what their cats do kill - the figure from the study is only about 23% of kills are brought home - and so unless owners have a camera on their cat, they cannot know for sure what they are hunting.
And in this case we have a cat who is proven to be hunting (moths) and the blithe assumption is that they're not predating on other prey, winged or otherwise.
As a study in denial it is instructive.
I love cats, but I'm not going to fool myself that I wasn't contributing to mass and uncontrolled predation if I were to have one as a pet again.
All my family is the same. They are all cat owners but every single one says “oh our cats don’t hunt”
When they blatantly do
Btw I don’t lecture them I just occasionally ask whether it worries them. The power of this denial is too great and I don’t want to distress them with cognitive dissonance. I do that here
I've always had house cats so the issue didn't arise. But I don't see why people should be expected necessarily to prefer songbirds to cats.
I may be alone, but I much prefer the singing of songbirds to the singing of cats!
No wonder when we are jailing people for tweets made rather than giving them community orders and fines. Prison should be mainly for those who have killed with intent, killed while dangerous driving, committed violent crimes or serious sexual offences of assault or rape or stolen large amounts of property ie those we need to protect society from and who need a long period of rehabilitation before they are released.
The number of people jailed for tweets is very small and is not why the prison population is at a record high.
We are also jailing some people for careless driving who stopped at the scene, weren't drunk or on drugs or speeding and sometimes didn't kill as well. Another offence which should have a community order or suspended sentence only as the maximum not an immediate jail term
Much of the off-top discussion sounds very strange to some one who grew up on a farm in the Western US, decades ago. Restrictions on guns were looser then, to say the least. I bought a .22 rifle when I was 14 or 15, as I recall. I didn't even need my parents permission, much less anything from law enforcement. During harvest season, I sometimes used it, or the family shotgun, to discourage birds from eating our cherries.
We kept a cat for very practical reasons, to control the mice in our house. We also had to protect our trees from mice*, but a single cat could not do that job.
We kept a dog, for companionship, and as a watch dog.
(*In the winter, the mice would often chew the bark on trees, under the snow cover. Since they were chewing at about the same level, they could kill a young tree by chewing the bark, going around the tree. We put screens around the trees to protect the trees.)
Interesting. One of my favourite type of videos on YouTube is when Americans watch videos about the British police and they can't believe that most of them don't have guns. What they also find difficult to believe is that the reason most of them don't have guns is because the vast majority of criminals don't have them either.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Pet owners need to grow up and own the truth. If you must have a pet cat or dog, accept what these animals are doing to our wildlife
“Cats kill in excess of 50 million birds each year as well as frogs, slow worms and various small mammals. Given these facts there are a few points to consider if you are thinking of bringing a cat into an area where birdlife is thriving”
Animals kill other animals. That's just a fact of life.
But that doesn’t mean we should introduce 12 million EXTRA predators (fed and housed by us) who completely devastate the eco system, slaughtering 50 MILLION birds a year (and much else) and all because we “like” the company of cats
It is irredeemably selfish. Sorry
Yep, the issue with raptors versus cats on small bird predation is that the latter don't need to kill the birds to survive. Not a moral judgement that, but a practical one. If sparrow hawk numbers get too big and they substantially reduce the numbers of their prey in an area, then there won't be enough food and sparrow hawk population will reduce. Cats could happily kill every last bird and still go home for a nice bowl of Whiskas - the natural predator/prey equilibrium is broken.
That said, I'd back whoever said upthread that it's more about habitat removal than anything. A completely lawned garden (or worse, paved/astroturfed) offers little to support bird life.
Yes, agreed. I hate paved front lawns, too
This is a rare occasion when I am not advancing a contentious argument largely to provoke, I sincerely believe all this
It would be good if science could find a compromise for now, and devise some way of removing the predatory instinct from domestic cats. We are happy to snip their bollocks off, I imagine most “loving pet owners” will be equally happy with fucking with their predator brains
Ah, well on cats it's easy. Bell on collar saves all but the slowest/doziest prey, who probably won't last long anyway.
Apparently the bells don’t work
Ah. Well in that case just muzzle them I guess?
Maybe needs something more sophisticated. Compulsory electronic collars that constantly broadcast "danger, cat approaching" and charge up when the cat does move suddenly. Helpful side effect of making cats extremely annoying to own.
But anyway... My main beef with the many cats near us is not their occasional kills but their constant defecation in our garden.
I remember reading the news story below and being incensed on behalf of the snake:
The pet snake was minding it's own business in it's owners garden and the cat comes in uninvited. The gall of the cat's owners to call the snake dangerous still annoys me 15 years later.
Pythons owners should require licenses as much as venomous snakes owners are required to have a license to keep in the UK.
They are not native species and potentially dangerous not only to neighbours pets but to humans too if not kept securely
It was secure in it's own garden. The owners of the eaten cat seem to think that their cat has the right to roam unmolested by other animals in someone else's property. I always found that stunningly hypocritical.
As I have said it has been a really poor start from Reeves. Why could she not see how this would land?
Given there is a fiscal black hole so taxes will need to increase and/or benefits/reduced and given WFA is objectively poor value for money in benefit terms, how do you think Reeves should have handled this?
This is not to defend Reeves. She has choices. Interested to understand what different choices she should make in your view?
(Gun ownership tends to be higher in rural states, Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and West Virginia.)
Down at individual level, I’d guess that the correlation between owning a gun and having shot someone dead is quite high?
All your statistic points up is that, if the US had the UK system, where guns are strictly licensed and available on the basis of need, responsible ownership would be concentrated in the rural states. And you’d have more living schoolchildren.
Doesn’t somebody get shot dead in the US on average every ten minutes or so?
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Pet owners need to grow up and own the truth. If you must have a pet cat or dog, accept what these animals are doing to our wildlife
“Cats kill in excess of 50 million birds each year as well as frogs, slow worms and various small mammals. Given these facts there are a few points to consider if you are thinking of bringing a cat into an area where birdlife is thriving”
Animals kill other animals. That's just a fact of life.
But that doesn’t mean we should introduce 12 million EXTRA predators (fed and housed by us) who completely devastate the eco system, slaughtering 50 MILLION birds a year (and much else) and all because we “like” the company of cats
It is irredeemably selfish. Sorry
Yep, the issue with raptors versus cats on small bird predation is that the latter don't need to kill the birds to survive. Not a moral judgement that, but a practical one. If sparrow hawk numbers get too big and they substantially reduce the numbers of their prey in an area, then there won't be enough food and sparrow hawk population will reduce. Cats could happily kill every last bird and still go home for a nice bowl of Whiskas - the natural predator/prey equilibrium is broken.
That said, I'd back whoever said upthread that it's more about habitat removal than anything. A completely lawned garden (or worse, paved/astroturfed) offers little to support bird life.
Yes, agreed. I hate paved front lawns, too
This is a rare occasion when I am not advancing a contentious argument largely to provoke, I sincerely believe all this
It would be good if science could find a compromise for now, and devise some way of removing the predatory instinct from domestic cats. We are happy to snip their bollocks off, I imagine most “loving pet owners” will be equally happy with fucking with their predator brains
Ah, well on cats it's easy. Bell on collar saves all but the slowest/doziest prey, who probably won't last long anyway.
Apparently the bells don’t work
Ah. Well in that case just muzzle them I guess?
Maybe needs something more sophisticated. Compulsory electronic collars that constantly broadcast "danger, cat approaching" and charge up when the cat does move suddenly. Helpful side effect of making cats extremely annoying to own.
But anyway... My main beef with the many cats near us is not their occasional kills but their constant defecation in our garden.
I remember reading the news story below and being incensed on behalf of the snake:
The pet snake was minding it's own business in it's owners garden and the cat comes in uninvited. The gall of the cat's owners to call the snake dangerous still annoys me 15 years later.
Pythons owners should require licenses as much as venomous snakes owners are required to have a license to keep in the UK.
They are not native species and potentially dangerous not only to neighbours pets but to humans too if not kept securely
It was secure in it's own garden. The owners of the eaten cat seem to think that their cat has the right to roam unmolested by other animals in someone else's property. I always found that stunningly hypocritical.
Secure to attack native species and other peoples pets who go walkabout. No, regardless of where it is python owners should be required to keep them in terrariums or under their control at all times and have a license before owning them
As mentioned, it"s really quite striking how much places like Sicily, or rural Greece, are awash with "stray", or wild cats.
But, as also mentioned, it's also unclear to me as to whether their origins are stray or wild. The Romans and Greeks seem to have had a major role with these animals in the southern half if Europe, but they probably left quite a lot of the local ones undomesticated, too.
According to BBC World at One 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. This was put to the leader of the Greens who said one of their first priorities was re-establishing the pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.
As an OAP I wouldn't mind if the WFA was taxable. I don't think I know any millionaires, though, UNLESS they're including the value of peoples houses.
They are. But I guess anyone short of heating could always go for equity release if they weren't worried about their children's inheritance.
Equity release is terrible value though. The interest rates have been historically punitive compared to std mortgage rates.
Expensive is not the same as terrible value
True, however I believe equity release is terrible value.
Talking of pensions the WASPI women are still there demanding compensation. They finally had a meeting with a pensions minister and seem optimistic of some compensation.
Much of the off-top discussion sounds very strange to some one who grew up on a farm in the Western US, decades ago. Restrictions on guns were looser then, to say the least. I bought a .22 rifle when I was 14 or 15, as I recall. I didn't even need my parents permission, much less anything from law enforcement. During harvest season, I sometimes used it, or the family shotgun, to discourage birds from eating our cherries.
We kept a cat for very practical reasons, to control the mice in our house. We also had to protect our trees from mice*, but a single cat could not do that job.
We kept a dog, for companionship, and as a watch dog.
(*In the winter, the mice would often chew the bark on trees, under the snow cover. Since they were chewing at about the same level, they could kill a young tree by chewing the bark, going around the tree. We put screens around the trees to protect the trees.)
This kind of confirms a thought I have. Most UK people think of American gun owners as urban gangstas or cap-wearing enthusiasts who carry whilst shopping in Walmart, but a large proportion of the whole appear to be a man/woman in the country who use it for pest control or for defence against wild animals or bad people in areas where law is few and far between.
If you don't want Harris to win for any other reason, then want her to win just to see Trump and the pro-Russian US right-wing MAGA types's heads explode.
As I have said it has been a really poor start from Reeves. Why could she not see how this would land?
Labour thought younger voters would support letting pensioners freeze in the winter.
They didn't seem to realize that whilst the generations did have a quarrel over Brexit, generally people want their parents, grand-parents and great grand-parents to be looked after,
No wonder when we are jailing people for tweets made rather than giving them community orders and fines. Prison should be mainly for those who have killed with intent, killed while dangerous driving, committed violent crimes or serious sexual offences of assault or rape or stolen large amounts of property ie those we need to protect society from and who need a long period of rehabilitation before they are released.
Agreed, Hyufd - plus of course those that put pineapple toppings on their pizza.
That's like aggresively pursuing drug users when we should target producers and traffickers. Down with DelMonte I say.
(Gun ownership tends to be higher in rural states, Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and West Virginia.)
There may be a correlation with Republican rule, however! And that could mean a correlation with looser gun laws. Although probably what you have is a correlation with poverty and, ultimately, being a slave state.
As I have said it has been a really poor start from Reeves. Why could she not see how this would land?
Labour thought younger voters would support letting pensioners freeze in the winter.
They didn't seem to realize that whilst the generations did have a quarrel over Brexit, generally people want their parents, grand-parents and great grand-parents to be looked after,
Most successful union in the country, putting even the RMT in the shade. The National Union of Pensioners.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
Every single cat owner says this. Its ridiculous
Some cats genuinely do not hunt, but owners will not see most of what their cats do kill - the figure from the study is only about 23% of kills are brought home - and so unless owners have a camera on their cat, they cannot know for sure what they are hunting.
And in this case we have a cat who is proven to be hunting (moths) and the blithe assumption is that they're not predating on other prey, winged or otherwise.
As a study in denial it is instructive.
I love cats, but I'm not going to fool myself that I wasn't contributing to mass and uncontrolled predation if I were to have one as a pet again.
All my family is the same. They are all cat owners but every single one says “oh our cats don’t hunt”
When they blatantly do
Btw I don’t lecture them I just occasionally ask whether it worries them. The power of this denial is too great and I don’t want to distress them with cognitive dissonance. I do that here
I've always had house cats so the issue didn't arise. But I don't see why people should be expected necessarily to prefer songbirds to cats.
Songbirds are about a million times nicer, prettier, more beautiful, serene, musical, calming, wonderful and charming than cats. You can watch them, draw them, listen to them, photograph them, and bathe in them. They are sublime. All cats do is shit in your garden and kill pointlessly. It's basically heaven versus Nazis.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
Every single cat owner says this. Its ridiculous
Some cats genuinely do not hunt, but owners will not see most of what their cats do kill - the figure from the study is only about 23% of kills are brought home - and so unless owners have a camera on their cat, they cannot know for sure what they are hunting.
And in this case we have a cat who is proven to be hunting (moths) and the blithe assumption is that they're not predating on other prey, winged or otherwise.
As a study in denial it is instructive.
I love cats, but I'm not going to fool myself that I wasn't contributing to mass and uncontrolled predation if I were to have one as a pet again.
All my family is the same. They are all cat owners but every single one says “oh our cats don’t hunt”
When they blatantly do
Btw I don’t lecture them I just occasionally ask whether it worries them. The power of this denial is too great and I don’t want to distress them with cognitive dissonance. I do that here
I've always had house cats so the issue didn't arise. But I don't see why people should be expected necessarily to prefer songbirds to cats.
I may be alone, but I much prefer the singing of songbirds to the singing of cats!
I recommend the film The Painted Bird on Prime Video. You will never feel the same about cats, or birds, again.
Talking of pensions the WASPI women are still there demanding compensation. They finally had a meeting with a pensions minister and seem optimistic of some compensation.
Cheque for £50,000 and a peerage each, and call it a Tory black hole.
Hasn't the ombudsman recently said Waspi women should be compensated but not by very much? In the absence of new information, a couple of thousand iirc.
As mentioned, it"s really quite striking how much places like Sicily, or rural Greece, are awash with "stray", or wild cats.
But, as also mentioned, it's also unclear to me as to whether their origins are stray or wild. The Romans and Greeks seem to have had a major role with these animals in the southern half if Europe, but they probably left quite a lot of the local ones undomesticated, too.
For cats in particular, the culture of pet ownership means that a cat that is stray - lost, or its owner has died or chucked it out - is going to find someone else to feed it, and be adopted as a pet, and continue to get veterinary treatment including neutering. There certainly isn’t the local government resource to go round dealing with stray animals any more.
If we didn’t have that culture, cats and dogs would become vermin as they effectively are in North Africa and parts of southern Europe.
It must be a very local factor because it's warm and bright here in north London.
Should have played at Chelmsford. I'm about 10 miles North of the city and it's a lovely afternoon.
I find its hard to believe they can't play cricket in it. It's a tad gloomy, maybe, but dry and warm, and there are floodlights. It is often said that Test cricket does itself no favours: well, indeed. I have tickets for tomorrow and now I'm fretting about it being too cloudy to play. In summer. FFS.
Autumn.
Nope. Autumn doesn't start until 22 September, by the equinox. But let us not start this dull 'debate' again.
Here is a factsheet from the Met Office explaining this.
Usually, when we talk about the first day of autumn we are referring to the astronomical autumn which is defined by the Earth's axis and orbit around the Sun. This year autumn begins on 22 September...
They use 1 Sep for statistical convenience, so each season falls neatly into three months. This is neither the thermal season of autumn nor the astronomical one.
I dunno what's "usually" about astronomical autumn. Seeing as they go onto say that meteorological autumn is the one to do with seasons and weather which presumably is the usual one for...erm... the meteorological office.
I mean they are pretty clear about it: "Solstices and equinoxes are considered to be the astronomical transition points between the seasons and mark key stages in the astronomical cycle of the Earth. In a year there are two equinoxes (spring and autumn) and two solstices (summer and winter)."
The argument (such that it is an argument outside the weird realms of PB) could be easily solved by officially running the seasons 15th to the 15th (e.g. 15 June to 15 Sep to 15 Dec to 15 Mar to 15 Jun and so on) these would then be at, or close to, the actual thermal seasons so it would be near impossible to argue against them (although some on here would no doubt try).
A main characteristic of Summer is long days, and of Winter short days.
Midsummer is around the solstice, as is Midwinter.
The Spring term in English schools runs from mid January to Easter, and the Summer term from Easter until approx mid July. (Except you probably insist on calling them the Winter term and the Spring term).
Apart from which a lot of the world doesn't have those 4 seasons.
You also forgot to make the word "astronomical" bold.
Much of the off-top discussion sounds very strange to some one who grew up on a farm in the Western US, decades ago. Restrictions on guns were looser then, to say the least. I bought a .22 rifle when I was 14 or 15, as I recall. I didn't even need my parents permission, much less anything from law enforcement. During harvest season, I sometimes used it, or the family shotgun, to discourage birds from eating our cherries.
We kept a cat for very practical reasons, to control the mice in our house. We also had to protect our trees from mice*, but a single cat could not do that job.
We kept a dog, for companionship, and as a watch dog.
(*In the winter, the mice would often chew the bark on trees, under the snow cover. Since they were chewing at about the same level, they could kill a young tree by chewing the bark, going around the tree. We put screens around the trees to protect the trees.)
Interesting. One of my favourite type of videos on YouTube is when Americans watch videos about the British police and they can't believe that most of them don't have guns. What they also find difficult to believe is that the reason most of them don't have guns is because the vast majority of criminals don't have them either.
If an armed policeman fires a gun in the UK, whether the bullet hits anyone or not, there’s a stack of reporting to complete, and I believe the annual total for the whole of the country ranges between zero and four, typically either zero or one.
In the US, somebody is killed by a police bullet, on average, every eight hours.
No wonder when we are jailing people for tweets made rather than giving them community orders and fines. Prison should be mainly for those who have killed with intent, killed while dangerous driving, committed violent crimes or serious sexual offences of assault or rape or stolen large amounts of property ie those we need to protect society from and who need a long period of rehabilitation before they are released.
The number of people jailed for tweets is very small and is not why the prison population is at a record high.
We are also jailing some people for careless driving who stopped at the scene, weren't drunk or on drugs or speeding and sometimes didn't kill as well. Another offence which should have a community order or suspended sentence only as the maximum not an immediate jail term
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
Every single cat owner says this. Its ridiculous
Some cats genuinely do not hunt, but owners will not see most of what their cats do kill - the figure from the study is only about 23% of kills are brought home - and so unless owners have a camera on their cat, they cannot know for sure what they are hunting.
And in this case we have a cat who is proven to be hunting (moths) and the blithe assumption is that they're not predating on other prey, winged or otherwise.
As a study in denial it is instructive.
I love cats, but I'm not going to fool myself that I wasn't contributing to mass and uncontrolled predation if I were to have one as a pet again.
All my family is the same. They are all cat owners but every single one says “oh our cats don’t hunt”
When they blatantly do
Btw I don’t lecture them I just occasionally ask whether it worries them. The power of this denial is too great and I don’t want to distress them with cognitive dissonance. I do that here
I've always had house cats so the issue didn't arise. But I don't see why people should be expected necessarily to prefer songbirds to cats.
I may be alone, but I much prefer the singing of songbirds to the singing of cats!
Poor Elaine Paige.
There was a reason she was 'all alone in the moonlight'
(Gun ownership tends to be higher in rural states, Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and West Virginia.)
Down at individual level, I’d guess that the correlation between owning a gun and having shot someone dead is quite high?
All your statistic points up is that, if the US had the UK system, where guns are strictly licensed and available on the basis of need, responsible ownership would be concentrated in the rural states. And you’d have more living schoolchildren.
Doesn’t somebody get shot dead in the US on average every ten minutes or so?
Much of the off-top discussion sounds very strange to some one who grew up on a farm in the Western US, decades ago. Restrictions on guns were looser then, to say the least. I bought a .22 rifle when I was 14 or 15, as I recall. I didn't even need my parents permission, much less anything from law enforcement. During harvest season, I sometimes used it, or the family shotgun, to discourage birds from eating our cherries.
We kept a cat for very practical reasons, to control the mice in our house. We also had to protect our trees from mice*, but a single cat could not do that job.
We kept a dog, for companionship, and as a watch dog.
(*In the winter, the mice would often chew the bark on trees, under the snow cover. Since they were chewing at about the same level, they could kill a young tree by chewing the bark, going around the tree. We put screens around the trees to protect the trees.)
This kind of confirms a thought I have. Most UK people think of American gun owners as urban gangstas or cap-wearing enthusiasts who carry whilst shopping in Walmart, but a large proportion of the whole appear to be a man/woman in the country who use it for pest control or for defence against wild animals or bad people in areas where law is few and far between.
There is pretty good evidence that higher rates of gun ownership lead to higher rates of gun suicide, accidental deaths from gunshots, gun homicides and police homicides.
As mentioned, it"s really quite striking how much places like Sicily, or rural Greece, are awash with "stray", or wild cats.
But, as also mentioned, it's also unclear to me as to whether their origins are stray or wild. The Romans and Greeks seem to have had a major role with these animals in the southern half if Europe, but they probably left quite a lot of the local ones undomesticated, too.
For cats in particular, the culture of pet ownership means that a cat that is stray - lost, or its owner has died or chucked it out - is going to find someone else to feed it, and be adopted as a pet, and continue to get veterinary treatment including neutering. There certainly isn’t the local government resource to go round dealing with stray animals any more.
If we didn’t have that culture, cats and dogs would become vermin as they effectively are in North Africa and parts of southern Europe.
There are attempts to change this, in Itajy and Greece at least, at the same time.
I've heard of new shelters and animal welfare organisations in both Sicily and Crete, for instance, and they are trying to change the culture on that ,here.
As I have said it has been a really poor start from Reeves. Why could she not see how this would land?
Because Rachel Reeves is an ex-BoE technocrat. It's the omnishambles budget all over again. Of course it makes sense to charge VAT on hot as well as cold food, or cold as well as hot, and why should church repairs be VAT-exempt? Rich pensioners don't need WFP and if poor pensioners can't fill in a 100-page form they don't even know about, more fool them. It's all bean-counting and no politics.
Ed Balls seems to think she is annoyed at being bounced into this decision by the Treasury.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
You claimed wild bird numbers were falling due to reintroductions of birds of prey. You then mentioned Sparrowhawks in support of that claim. Except, sparrowhawks were not reintroduced and their numbers have been decreaasing not increasing.
So I am afraid your claims are junk, whatever single anecdote you might push.
From the RSPB - who would suggest have at least a passing interest in seeing bird populations recover:
"Extensive research, by the RSPB and many others, into declining farmland songbirds has provided no evidence that predation by Sparrowhawks has driven population declines. Instead, a lack of different food resources and suitable breeding habitat is thought to be the main cause of songbird declines – mainly because of modern farming methods."
The fact that extensive research has been conducted indicates that this is a serious issue. I'd be interested in seeing the research.
I would also like evidence for your claims regarding the recent decline in Sparrowhawk numbers, because the most recent figures I saw were from 2021 or thereabouts.
From the British Trust for Ornithology page on Sparrowhawks
"Between the 1970s and the mid 1990s, the CBC charted a steep increase in this species. Many former haunts especially in the Midlands and east of England were reoccupied between the first two atlas periods (Gibbons et al. 1993). The population stabilised from the mid 1990s, though BBS figures suggest a moderate decline has occurred in England over the last ten years. Nest productivity has risen, especially during the period of strong population increase, although it has subsequently fallen during the period of decline.
And the 'extensive research' is conducted because of the myth perpetuated by some that Sparrowhawks are a cause of songbird decline. Those trying to identify the cause of the decline will look at all claimed causes - and as in this case will eliminate those they find to be unfounded.
(Gun ownership tends to be higher in rural states, Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and West Virginia.)
Down at individual level, I’d guess that the correlation between owning a gun and having shot someone dead is quite high?
All your statistic points up is that, if the US had the UK system, where guns are strictly licensed and available on the basis of need, responsible ownership would be concentrated in the rural states. And you’d have more living schoolchildren.
Doesn’t somebody get shot dead in the US on average every ten minutes or so?
Much of the off-top discussion sounds very strange to some one who grew up on a farm in the Western US, decades ago. Restrictions on guns were looser then, to say the least. I bought a .22 rifle when I was 14 or 15, as I recall. I didn't even need my parents permission, much less anything from law enforcement. During harvest season, I sometimes used it, or the family shotgun, to discourage birds from eating our cherries.
We kept a cat for very practical reasons, to control the mice in our house. We also had to protect our trees from mice*, but a single cat could not do that job.
We kept a dog, for companionship, and as a watch dog.
(*In the winter, the mice would often chew the bark on trees, under the snow cover. Since they were chewing at about the same level, they could kill a young tree by chewing the bark, going around the tree. We put screens around the trees to protect the trees.)
This kind of confirms a thought I have. Most UK people think of American gun owners as urban gangstas or cap-wearing enthusiasts who carry whilst shopping in Walmart, but a large proportion of the whole appear to be a man/woman in the country who use it for pest control or for defence against wild animals or bad people in areas where law is few and far between.
There is pretty good evidence that higher rates of gun ownership lead to higher rates of gun suicide, accidental deaths from gunshots, gun homicides and police homicides.
Worth noting that half of US gun deaths are suicides. Having guns in the house is dangerous. Many of these suicides are impulsive.
One positive from the fallout of the recent incident is the arrest of the father who gave his teenage son the gun to play about with. If it gets other US parents thinking a bit more responsibly about their potential liability, it won’t be a bad thing.
As mentioned, it"s really quite striking how much places like Sicily, or rural Greece, are awash with "stray", or wild cats.
But, as also mentioned, it's also unclear to me as to whether their origins are stray or wild. The Romans and Greeks seem to have had a major role with these animals in the southern half if Europe, but they probably left quite a lot of the local ones undomesticated, too.
For cats in particular, the culture of pet ownership means that a cat that is stray - lost, or its owner has died or chucked it out - is going to find someone else to feed it, and be adopted as a pet, and continue to get veterinary treatment including neutering. There certainly isn’t the local government resource to go round dealing with stray animals any more.
If we didn’t have that culture, cats and dogs would become vermin as they effectively are in North Africa and parts of southern Europe.
There are attempts to change this, in Itajy and Greece at least, at the same time.
I've heard of new shelters and animal welfare organisations in both Sicily and Crete, for instance, and they are trying to change the culture on that ,here.
Yes, but there are still rescue organisations (charities) in Spain and Romania and Greece that capture stray animals and then try to find Northern European homes for them. It’s an ongoing challenge, and a problem that will likely never be resolved, until people in those areas start wanting to keep animals as pets. So, as usual, our site’s own pet twat is wrong in that pet culture is more likely to be the solution than the problem.
(Gun ownership tends to be higher in rural states, Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and West Virginia.)
Down at individual level, I’d guess that the correlation between owning a gun and having shot someone dead is quite high?
All your statistic points up is that, if the US had the UK system, where guns are strictly licensed and available on the basis of need, responsible ownership would be concentrated in the rural states. And you’d have more living schoolchildren.
Doesn’t somebody get shot dead in the US on average every ten minutes or so?
Much of the off-top discussion sounds very strange to some one who grew up on a farm in the Western US, decades ago. Restrictions on guns were looser then, to say the least. I bought a .22 rifle when I was 14 or 15, as I recall. I didn't even need my parents permission, much less anything from law enforcement. During harvest season, I sometimes used it, or the family shotgun, to discourage birds from eating our cherries.
We kept a cat for very practical reasons, to control the mice in our house. We also had to protect our trees from mice*, but a single cat could not do that job.
We kept a dog, for companionship, and as a watch dog.
(*In the winter, the mice would often chew the bark on trees, under the snow cover. Since they were chewing at about the same level, they could kill a young tree by chewing the bark, going around the tree. We put screens around the trees to protect the trees.)
This kind of confirms a thought I have. Most UK people think of American gun owners as urban gangstas or cap-wearing enthusiasts who carry whilst shopping in Walmart, but a large proportion of the whole appear to be a man/woman in the country who use it for pest control or for defence against wild animals or bad people in areas where law is few and far between.
There is pretty good evidence that higher rates of gun ownership lead to higher rates of gun suicide, accidental deaths from gunshots, gun homicides and police homicides.
(Gun ownership tends to be higher in rural states, Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and West Virginia.)
Down at individual level, I’d guess that the correlation between owning a gun and having shot someone dead is quite high?
All your statistic points up is that, if the US had the UK system, where guns are strictly licensed and available on the basis of need, responsible ownership would be concentrated in the rural states. And you’d have more living schoolchildren.
Doesn’t somebody get shot dead in the US on average every ten minutes or so?
Much of the off-top discussion sounds very strange to some one who grew up on a farm in the Western US, decades ago. Restrictions on guns were looser then, to say the least. I bought a .22 rifle when I was 14 or 15, as I recall. I didn't even need my parents permission, much less anything from law enforcement. During harvest season, I sometimes used it, or the family shotgun, to discourage birds from eating our cherries.
We kept a cat for very practical reasons, to control the mice in our house. We also had to protect our trees from mice*, but a single cat could not do that job.
We kept a dog, for companionship, and as a watch dog.
(*In the winter, the mice would often chew the bark on trees, under the snow cover. Since they were chewing at about the same level, they could kill a young tree by chewing the bark, going around the tree. We put screens around the trees to protect the trees.)
This kind of confirms a thought I have. Most UK people think of American gun owners as urban gangstas or cap-wearing enthusiasts who carry whilst shopping in Walmart, but a large proportion of the whole appear to be a man/woman in the country who use it for pest control or for defence against wild animals or bad people in areas where law is few and far between.
There is pretty good evidence that higher rates of gun ownership lead to higher rates of gun suicide, accidental deaths from gunshots, gun homicides and police homicides.
Worth noting that half of US gun deaths are suicides. Having guns in the house is dangerous. Many of these suicides are impulsive.
Some points
* "Half of all gun deaths are suicides" is not the same as "half of all suicides are gun deaths". * Tyranny of percentages. A percentage is not enough, you also need to know its absolute value. 50% of 1,000,000 is qualitatively different to 50% of 10. * Threshold. What percentage of gun deaths would you like to be suicides? If zero, then all gun deaths are accidental or homicides, which is bad. If all gun deaths are suicides, then nobody is being nonconsenually killed by guns, which is good.
Although suicide by gun is not good, as not 100% quick nor effective (with many horror stories of unlikely survivals or great suffering before death), it is perhaps preferable to the other methods.
As mentioned, it"s really quite striking how much places like Sicily, or rural Greece, are awash with "stray", or wild cats.
But, as also mentioned, it's also unclear to me as to whether their origins are stray or wild. The Romans and Greeks seem to have had a major role with these animals in the southern half if Europe, but they probably left quite a lot of the local ones undomesticated, too.
No wonder when we are jailing people for tweets made rather than giving them community orders and fines. Prison should be mainly for those who have killed with intent, killed while dangerous driving, committed violent crimes or serious sexual offences of assault or rape or stolen large amounts of property ie those we need to protect society from and who need a long period of rehabilitation before they are released.
I would think trying to burn down hostels with immigrants inside scared for their lives is worthy of prison if anything is.
For those interested, sentencing remarks for Thomas Birley who attempted to burn down the hotel in Rotherham. That's been published very quickly.
Guilt plea, so full reduction on sentence.
One item of dark humour: I assume the injured police got a Doctor, not a Vet.
As a measure of how serious the incident became; 64 police officers were injured several seriously, 3 police horses were injured and 1 police dog was also injured. They required veterinary care.
Fascinating. Every reason you would expect for him to grow up into the person he did. A white supremacist treated hideously by his mother no friends spent all day on far right websites etc. Not really his fault but hugely dangerous nonetheless
Comments
Guilt plea, so full reduction on sentence.
One item of dark humour: I assume the injured police got a Doctor, not a Vet.
As a measure of how serious the incident became; 64 police officers were injured several seriously, 3 police horses were injured and 1 police dog was also injured. They required veterinary care.
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/R-v-Birley-6th-Spetember-2024.pdf
From that I concluded -- tentatively -- that the Loser had been elected, thanks to a "reverse coattails effect". Enough voters who might not have voted for the Loser had he been the only one on the ballot, were brought to the polls by other Republicans (or studied their mail balllots), and decided to vote for the Loser, even though they hadn't intended to, originally.
For the record: I didn't try to do any statistical tests and haven't decided whether such tests are possible.
Labour is committed to preserving the green belt which has served England’s towns and cities well over many decades. Under the Conservatives, greenbelt land is regularly released for development but haphazardly and often for speculative housebuilding. Without changing its purpose or general extent, Labour will take a more strategic approach to greenbelt land designation and release to build more homes in the right places. The release of lower quality ‘grey belt’ land will be prioritised and we will introduce ‘golden rules’ to ensure development benefits communities and nature.
Page 32 in https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Labour-Party-manifesto-2024.pdf
None are bad but often none are restricted either and it leads to serious consequences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld6x3wsuwG8&ab_channel=CNN
I grew up feeling like ripe fruit for mosquitoes; I'd get bitten all the time, especially on holiday
"The Liberal Democrat manifesto, entitled For a Fair Deal, says these measures would boost the economy but are also "essential steps on the road to EU membership, which remains our longer term objective".
They were explicit in their manifesto and their speeches that the long term aim of thr party is for the UK to rejoin the EU.
1 - The act of pure selfishness is by the cat.
2 - The owner has been groomed to think s/he enjoys the company of the cat. Perhaps "cuckooing" needs to be renamed to "catfishing".
3 - Cats are remarkable; they manage to convince 'owners' that the relationship is the other way round.
(I may now need to camouflage myself as a rug in case Kitten Kong is around.)
We kept a cat for very practical reasons, to control the mice in our house. We also had to protect our trees from mice*, but a single cat could not do that job.
We kept a dog, for companionship, and as a watch dog.
(*In the winter, the mice would often chew the bark on trees, under the snow cover. Since they were chewing at about the same level, they could kill a young tree by chewing the bark, going around the tree. We put screens around the trees to protect the trees.)
Flip side, in August the majority of Tawny Owl's diets are moles. It's the month the youngesters learn to burrow. Not very well at first - and with terminal consequences.
That cat is definitely a pear not an apple.
If cats were turned loose rather than kept as pets and generally neutered, there would be a lot more cats about, reliant on eating birds and stuff. Indeed those countries where pet ownership isn’t a cultural ‘thing’, like Turkey and Morocco and some parts of rural Greece, are typically awash with stray dogs and cats.
I would also like evidence for your claims regarding the recent decline in Sparrowhawk numbers, because the most recent figures I saw were from 2021 or thereabouts.
For instance, is someone with a visual impairment, but who can still see, needing a special class at the paralympics?
(Gun ownership tends to be higher in rural states, Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and West Virginia.)
https://coventryobserver.co.uk/news/video-footage-released-of-cyclist-struck-by-car-in-coventry-as-driver-is-jailed-for-a-year/
This is not to defend Reeves. She has choices. Interested to understand what different choices she should make in your view?
All your statistic points up is that, if the US had the UK system, where guns are strictly licensed and available on the basis of need, responsible ownership would be concentrated in the rural states. And you’d have more living schoolchildren.
Doesn’t somebody get shot dead in the US on average every ten minutes or so?
But, as also mentioned, it's also unclear to me as to whether their origins are stray or wild. The Romans and Greeks seem to have had a major role with these animals in the southern half if Europe, but they
probably left quite a lot of the local ones undomesticated, too.
If you're interested in aviation this is one of the best channels on YouTube imo. Only discovered it about a year ago, wish I'd found it much earlier.
https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot/videos
A woman - a non-white woman - as president!!!!
They didn't seem to realize that whilst the generations did have a quarrel over Brexit, generally people want their parents, grand-parents and great grand-parents to be looked after,
(I got bored.)
Union of Pensioners.
NEW THREAD
That's why.
If we didn’t have that culture, cats and dogs would become vermin as they effectively are in North Africa and parts of southern Europe.
Midsummer is around the solstice, as is Midwinter.
The Spring term in English schools runs from mid January to Easter, and the Summer term from Easter until approx mid July. (Except you probably insist on calling them the Winter term and the Spring term).
Apart from which a lot of the world doesn't have those 4 seasons.
You also forgot to make the word "astronomical" bold.
In the US, somebody is killed by a police bullet, on average, every eight hours.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/
Worth noting that half of US gun deaths are suicides. Having guns in the house is dangerous. Many of these suicides are impulsive.
I've heard of new shelters and animal welfare organisations in both Sicily and Crete, for instance, and they are trying to change the culture on that ,here.
Not a good sign frankly for how things will go.
"Between the 1970s and the mid 1990s, the CBC charted a steep increase in this species. Many former haunts especially in the Midlands and east of England were reoccupied between the first two atlas periods (Gibbons et al. 1993). The population stabilised from the mid 1990s, though BBS figures suggest a moderate decline has occurred in England over the last ten years. Nest productivity has risen, especially during the period of strong population increase, although it has subsequently fallen during the period of decline.
UK breeding population -25% decrease (1995–2020)"
https://www.bto.org/understanding-birds/birdfacts/sparrowhawk (under the 'Population Change' tab
And the 'extensive research' is conducted because of the myth perpetuated by some that Sparrowhawks are a cause of songbird decline. Those trying to identify the cause of the decline will look at all claimed causes - and as in this case will eliminate those they find to be unfounded.
* "Half of all gun deaths are suicides" is not the same as "half of all suicides are gun deaths".
* Tyranny of percentages. A percentage is not enough, you also need to know its absolute value. 50% of 1,000,000 is qualitatively different to 50% of 10.
* Threshold. What percentage of gun deaths would you like to be suicides? If zero, then all gun deaths are accidental or homicides, which is bad. If all gun deaths are suicides, then nobody is being nonconsenually killed by guns, which is good.
Although suicide by gun is not good, as not 100% quick nor effective (with many horror stories of unlikely survivals or great suffering before death), it is perhaps preferable to the other methods.
Fixed it for you