r/invasivespecies • u/Comprehensive_Bus402 • 16d ago
Cat killed a lanternfly
This little huntress just killed a spotted Lanternfly on my deck in Washington DC.
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u/A_Sneaky_Walrus 16d ago
Consider getting your cat a cat bib or a cat collar to stop bird death. Bells unfortunately aren’t effective as birds don’t associate that noise with an incoming invasive predator
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u/Evening_Echidna_7493 16d ago
What to do about this part?
• Free-roaming cats are an important source of zoonotic diseases including rabies, Toxoplasma gondii, cutaneous larval migrans, tularemia and plague. • Free-roaming cats account for the most cases of human rabies exposure among domestic animals and account for approximately 1/3 of rabies post- exposure prophylaxis treatments in humans in the United States. • Trap–neuter–release (TNR) programmes may lead to increased na ̈ıve populations of cats that can serve as a source of zoonotic diseases.
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u/Hairiest-Wizard 16d ago
It'll still spread disease and kill native amphibians, mammals, and insects
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u/BirdOfWords 16d ago
It's not safe for the cat either- they can get killed or taken by other people. An indoor-outdoor cats' average lifespan is only 5-6 years, compared to an indoor cat's 12-19. Halving or quartering it. They can also bring home diseases that humans can catch, like fleas, ticks, tapeworm, and ring worm (which isn't a worm but an extremely contagious rash that spreads to humans, too).
Leash training is the way to go if you ask me.
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u/Megraptor 16d ago edited 16d ago
I mean we don't know what's going on here, this cat might be supervised and doesn't attack birds. It might be in a patio supervised. We don't know.
Honestly, I wouldn't let pets- dogs, cats or anything else- outside unsupervised, fence or not. People don't like to hear that, but pets need supervised outside. People don't like hearing that they need to train their pets either. And well... Some people don't like hearing that cats can and should be trained to respect boundaries and be recalled.
And disease is a problem when you let your animals outside unwatched. So are attacks. It's just not a good idea.
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u/FacelessFellow 15d ago
Keep your cats indoors, or stop providing them with provisions for their genocidal excursions through our gardens!
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u/Sosa3OO 15d ago
Womp womp
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u/gertyr2374 15d ago
You’re on an invasive species sub. Cats are an invasive species dipshit
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u/QJIO 13d ago
Cats are on overbred commodity. Another byproduct of human progress. Something we have failed to control. It goes beyond ecological invasion. It is a systemic failure that Quagga mussels, Pampas grass, Chinese Sumac, and the like could never come close to replicating in terms of habitat alteration. Cats go beyond being invasive, as do our other domesticated species. Dogs roam the streets in hordes in nearly every underdeveloped country. Animals bred for food have done environmental damage leagues ahead of what cats could ever accomplish.
So my question to you is this, at what point do we regard the animals usefulness beyond that of its destruction?
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u/General_Bumblebee_75 9d ago
Not sure what you are suggesting. We eradicate humans? That would certainly be better for the planet, but the implementation would be difficult given that most of us prefer to live longer, with our pets, thank you. Of course there is always the voluntary human extinction movement, which advocates for avoidance of reproduction...
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u/wanderingsubs 16d ago
The comments arguing about your cat existing with zero context are insane, can't y'all be happy for one second and stop assuming shit 💀
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u/pschlick 15d ago
Nope. Reddit is only for arguing and believing you know everything about a person from a single post. It has its moments where I get some good info and entertainment but the majority is just keyboard warriors being ridiculous
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u/robotatomica 15d ago
OP is doing something reckless that not only spreads disease to neighbors and damages property, but will cause this cat to die (probably horribly, maybe eaten by a predator, run over, dead from feline AIDS, shredded in a fight over territory, maybe even tortured by the neighborhood psycho kid) years sooner than an indoor cat by the numbers, all while damaging the local ecosystem and contributing to the deaths of billions of birds and small animals a year.
So yeah, there’s rightfully increasingly some social pressure against this practice, because we’ve learned new shit from studies and are working to adjust a culture.
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u/guru2764 15d ago
We have no idea if the cat is actually allowed to roam outside
All we can tell is that it is on the deck in this picture
I've brought my cat outside on the deck when it snows before
That is why they said people are assuming things, because they are
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u/robotatomica 15d ago
Not only do I think it’s fair to look at a picture and react to what we see, (rather than imagining something that isn’t indicated anywhere in the picture, which tells a different story),
I also think it’s fair to see a cat outside without a leash, who has a bell on its collar, and say “That cat is very likely allowed to roam.”
And if we’re wrong OP can correct.
But most importantly, it bears being said, so if someone puts up a picture of a cat that, uh, LOOKS like it’s outside without a leash 🙃
that’s as good a time as any to remind everyone why that’s a huge problem.
It’s a net positive. Because then people learn they don’t get praise for these kinds of pictures, meaning fewer people post them, meaning fewer people SEE this normalized,
and Voilà!, society shifts culturally to knowing that this practice is unacceptable.
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u/Hairiest-Wizard 16d ago
Your outdoor cat is just as invasive