Comments on: Cat hater seeks cat ban

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 14:01:00 +0000

Wait, you think that dogs are natural? But they’re a species artificially created by thousands of years of interventional selective breeding by humans? Whether he’s licking his balls or tickling the ivories, he and his behavior are the result of human activity. Can’t have it both ways.

To answer your previous question, I don’t consider anything unnatural. Everything is natural. That doesn’t mean everything is desirable.

By: Itsumishi

Itsumishi — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 23:21:00 +0000

You’re right that there is no animal known as an Opossum in Australia, however I can certainly attest that many Australian Possums run about with scraggly fur and rat like tails and that only a small percentage act anything like cute.

I’ve never seen the possum in the middle though, no idea what type that would be.

By: L_Mariachi

L_Mariachi — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 23:20:00 +0000

Of course I’m aware that “natural” is often mistakenly used as a pseudosynonym for “good,” but if all products of human activity are natural because humans are part of nature, what exactly would you consider “unnatural?”

See, I don’t consider “natural” to usefully mean “of or pertaining to nature” so much as it is a category of qualities that are in a thing’s nature. A dog licks his balls, that’s in the nature of a dog, ergo it’s natural behavior. A dog wears a top hat and plays piano, that’s unnatural. Cute, but unnatural, even though the top hat and piano and dog and soundwaves are all made of things found in the universe.

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:53:00 +0000

No, “natural” means “of or pertaining to nature”. Humans are part of nature. Some have come to use “natural” to mean good, or beautiful, or beneficial. Or at least that’s how marketers have taught us to understand it, so they can push their “all natural” products on us. But you have to keep in mind that poison ivy, tapeworms, ebola virus, and F5 tornadoes are also natural.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 09:51:00 +0000

Apparently, the Australian one is a Possum, not an Opossum. So no scraggly fur and gigantic rat tail.

… and unlike cats, I doubt that anyone would miss them.

Based on these photos, I’d say that they may actually outcute cats.

By: Slarti Bartfast

Slarti Bartfast — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 09:04:00 +0000

In NZ, lets start with the (introduced) Australian opossum; infrared filmed evidence has shown it not only destroys flora, but also attacks nests for eggs and young. Even feral cats don’t do that, although they should also be eliminated.

Efforts to control the opossum have so far have been ineffectual, and their population has grown so large they are common nighttime roadkill.

… and unlike cats, I doubt that anyone would miss them.

By: L_Mariachi

L_Mariachi — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 08:57:00 +0000

Words should mean things. By your definition “natural” has no meaning whatsoever.

By: donovan acree

donovan acree — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 19:17:00 +0000

In nature, if a new predator arrives on the scene, those without a defense from said predator die. That’s natural. Eventually, some life will evolve to hunt the cats. The problem here is that we want immediate (as in less than a million years) solutions.
I see this as simple survival of the fittest. If your locale has life so fragile as to be incapable of protecting itself from something as simple as a cat, nature will take care of the problem by eliminating the over specialized species.
If the writer was so worried about imported species changing NZ, then he should take a very close look at sheep. 45 million sheep are sure to have a greater negative impact than 1.5 million cats.

By: Funk Daddy

Funk Daddy — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 19:04:00 +0000

Sure I’ve let my hair go for the winter but I’m still perfectly capable of getting off the couch to stuff my face thank you very much. Haarumph, get lazy with my hygiene and suddenly I’m a hippie, Jeez

By: erics373

erics373 — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 18:15:00 +0000

I already said that plagiarism was too strong a word. I’m not hung up on anything.

By: Luther Blissett

Luther Blissett — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:17:00 +0000

Hm, maybe you are right. I’m quite possibly overreacting.

But then, the quoted above are all misleading, which annoys me. Except the question mark. (Further up on BB: how SEO optimisation changed headlines. Related?) And, if the OP wanted to be funny, why put “Cat hater seeks cat ban” and not something in the line of “Last chance for lolcatz from NZ?” or “Caturday in danger: NZ guy wants all cats to be castrated”, or anything web-related? Even “Cat haters gonna hate” would have been better, slightly. Hm, did that get my point across? I’m simply not comfy at all in this chair. Out of tea error.

By: Pobol Pobotrol

Pobol Pobotrol — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:35:00 +0000

My cat wears a bell and has never caught anything that hasn’t been dead for a couple of days already.

By: RElgin

RElgin — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 06:36:00 +0000

Three little words: “Cat hunter” & “bounty”.

Feral cats or cats let go to turn wild are a real problem in more places than NZ. They are often culled in other places, thus culling them in NZ is logical.

By: mike3k

mike3k — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:39:00 +0000

The plague during the middle ages resulted from killing off cats because people thought they were evil, which caused the rat population to grow out of control.

By: Itsumishi

Itsumishi — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:00:00 +0000

No purpose? They keep my lap warm, keep my flat relatively free of mice and keep me endlessly entertained.

By: cfuse

cfuse — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 03:05:00 +0000

Unless rats don’t exist in NZ this idea is entirely pointless.

By: Itsumishi

Itsumishi — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:02:00 +0000

Adorable, yes. Poisonous, pretty much none actually, apart from the Red Back and the White Tail (both spiders introduced from Australia) I don’t believe there are any real dangerous animals on either island.

By: Sheri L. Williamson

Sheri L. Williamson — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:53:00 +0000

“Inspired by” is not plagiarism, and similarities are inevitable when addressing the same subject. I suspect the “element” you’re hung up on is the vertical comic format, which predates The Oatmeal by at least a century.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:23:00 +0000

You can’t ride cats to work.

Tell that to Freyja.

By: Sheri L. Williamson

Sheri L. Williamson — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:19:00 +0000

If only people valued their cats more, they wouldn’t put them in danger by letting them roam outdoors.

By: Kevin Duffy

Kevin Duffy — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:06:00 +0000

First they came for the cats, and I didn’t speak out because I was not a cat.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 23:51:00 +0000

Did your sense of humor slip down the bathtub drain?

By: Jonathan Badger

Jonathan Badger — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 23:22:00 +0000

Cats are mammals; humans are mammals. Birds are dinosaurs (literally — not just descendants of them — birds are members of the clade Dinosauria). So screw the birds — they had their time as masters; post K-T, we mammals call the shots on this rock.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 23:21:00 +0000

The age of men is over. The time of the native fauna has come!

By: erics373

erics373 — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 23:06:00 +0000

Perhaps plagiarism is too strong a word. I agree Morgan’s graphic is by no means verbatim, but to anyone that has read the original Oatmeal comic, the similarities are quite obvious, and it could be argued that at the very least the Morgan graphic was inspired by elements of the Oatmeal version.

By: Sheri L. Williamson

Sheri L. Williamson — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:51:00 +0000

To be plagiarism, Morgan’s graphic would have to have more in common with Inman’s than subject matter and format.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:16:00 +0000

Many types of longhairs won’t get off the sofa unless you carry them to their place at the dinner table.

By: Trond

Trond — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:14:00 +0000

Just failing to replace cats will have little effect. Cats are more than capable of living in the wild, and do so throughout New Zealand.

As for the damage they occur, the Stephen’s Island Wren makes for a sad, if spectacular story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephens_Island_WrenConservation is more a case of excluding cats from certain areas and dealing with wild cats. For a much more balanced approach to understanding the scope of the problem and controlling cat predation, there’s a LandCare research article worth a look. http://www.envirolink.govt.nz/PageFiles/481/468-HBRC54.pdf

By: First Last

First Last — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:29:00 +0000

What about evolution? The vast majority of extinctions have been due to being out-competed by better equipped species, which is much more threatening.

What about physics? 100% of all deaths across all species involve atomic activity! We should eliminate all atoms.

By: SumAnon

SumAnon — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:15:00 +0000

I grew up in Morris County. Most of my friends had cats, and all but one household let their cats wander in and out of doors at will. And while most were pretty passive hunters, there were a few stand-out characters that would bring home dead things every day. And their killing spree wasn’t restricted to mice and songbirds; one declawed female tabby was infamous for bringing back large rabbits, possums, and full grown owls.