The ethics of keeping a killer cat | Hal Herzog

Cats kill billions of small animals a year, putting animal lovers in a fix – how do you reconcile keeping a predator as a pet?There have been two serial killers in my life. The first was a former student. A couple of years after he graduated from my university, he murdered his father, his mother, his younger brother, and the family dog. After he was arrested, the local television station sent a reporter to interview me because I had been his academic advisor. When the reporter asked me what he was like, I stupidly looked at the camera and mumbled the classic cliché:"Well, he was quiet and kind of shy, but he seemed like a nice guy."The same could be said of the other killer in my life, my cat Tilley. She spends part her days outdoors, and like most cats, she is a recreational hunter. I am usually successful in suppressing the guilt that comes with having a serial killer for a companion animal, but a recent report in the journal Nature Communications has caused me to rethink the ethics of keeping predators as pets. Based on existing data, the researchers concluded that the havoc wreaked by cats on native animal populations has been vastly underestimated. They calculated that in the US, cats kill between 8bn and 24bn small, feathered, and furry creatures a year, and are the largest human-related source of mortality among birds and mammals. While most of this carnage is caused by free-ranging stray cats, it is nearly certain that pet cats are responsible for at least 1-2bn of...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Comment Cats United States World news guardian.co.uk Animal welfare Animals Life and style Animal behaviour Pets Science Comment is free Source Type: news