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LUCERNE – Had just one of her cats disappeared last October, Isabelle Nydegger would simply have assumed it had lost its way in the nearby forest or been attacked by a dog or wild animal.
But first Zeus, a 2-year-old black tabby, vanished. A few days later it was her 2 -year-old black and white tabby, Zorra. And, finally, the prize of her brood, 4-year-old Merlin, a fluffy white Siberian whose perky visage remains in her mobile phone six months later. All were gone within the first couple of weeks of the fall hunting season.
The cats, Nydegger and others are convinced, were shot by hunters near this central Swiss city and sold to tanners for their fur, which is used in garments and blankets in the last West European nation where such a trade is still legal.
Legal, that is, but increasingly stigmatized — and soon Switzerland is likely to outlaw the practice.
So, you discover “tradition” and “culture” in a cozy Western nation that doesn’t differentiate between companion species and wild animals.
BS BS and more BS. First of all anybody that’s hunted will tell you that if you see a cat in the field best shoot it. Not for the chicken change pelts but to keep the cat from killing rabbit nests and ground nesting game birds. Nothing can ruin a season faster than feral cats.
Hey I love cat’s and have a cat named dizzy. But she lives in the house and if I lived in a rural area she sure as hell wouldn’t get out at hunting season, is this woman a dunce or what?
Yes, house cats are wonderful and feral cats suck.
People were eating what they killed (or selling the meat for food) up until about 1900. They nearly wiped out the deer and several other types of animals. Sportsmen (those dastardly fiends who like to KILL for FUN, mwha-ha-HA-HA-HA!) got game laws passed to slow down the slaughter. The animal populations started to recover, until the Depression hit.
During the Depression, people went out and killed for food once more, and nearly exterminated an even wider range of animals. Possum, woodchuck, deer, anything big enough to hunt nearly extinct.
What made the Depression worse was the Socialist laws and regulations. After WWII, they were pretty much rolled back and the US recovered.
The animal populations pretty much recovered because most people were back to hunting for fun, and not because they had to.
Many of the small animals in danger of extinction are not in danger because of habitat change or global warming. They are in danger because of the house cats in the housing developments and gated communities being constructed out near their habitat.
#20 – I read your critique of my post and it’s mostly jibberish and reflects a poor understanding of my position.
But you did make one exceptional observation:
OFTLO is a master of rhetoric.
And I would be remiss if I did not say thank you.
#23 – Wow man… Hat’s off… You actually managed to drag socialism into this. There are train engineers that switch tracks more often than you…
#24–OFTLO===heh, heh, heh.
Gibberish—a general denial without specifics or analysis.
Please identify why killing cows is acceptable but killing cats is not. Assume same circumstances for both species other than cats are often pets while cows less so.
OFTLO, Socialism was the cause of the near extinction of several species. The US would have recovered much sooner without it, and people would not have been out hunting for food.
#24 – uh, what’s wrong with circumstances that only include reality instead of dithering off through the underbrush of debating society bullshit?
There are wild animals. There are animals which have been domesticated; but, are raised for the same reason we originally hunted [as a species] = food. There are animals which have come in from the wild and for thousands of years have coexisted, bred and continued to evolve as companion species.
True, human beings excel in rationalization; but, you already know that. The anthropology of humans and companion species varies around the world. Doesn’t make it any less real.
#26–Phillep–you score points on causes of animal extinction until you try to link them to economic causation.
Now, the Great Depression==an episode/example of capitalistist excess and you want to criticize socialism for not correcting those ills most appropriately?????
How do you define socialism? – - anything that restricts robber baron laissez-fair corrupt capitalism==or the actual ownership of the means of production by the people? Where is the dividing line between the two where sensible regulation fits?
The initial crash was a financial bubble bursting. The bubble was created by people being allowed to use stocks and bonds as security to purchase more stocks and bonds. I agree that it was “capitalist greed” that led to that stupidity. Even the small investors were being stupid that way.
However, the crash would have played out and the US would have recovered had Presidents Hoover (R) (1929-1933) and F. Roosevelt (D) (1933-1945) resisted the urge to “do something”. Everything they did made the depression worse.
I’m speaking of the centralized planning aspects of Socialism, not the true socialism we get in small groups. Seems like people praising Socialism mean the parts that work, while they work, and not the parts that have failed even though the person praising socialism was advocating them just a few years ago. More nuancing, I suppose?
#25 – Please identify why killing cows is acceptable but killing cats is not.
I am saying that killing for purpose is acceptable and killing for pleasure is not.
And killing for purpose should always be done in as humane a way as possible.
There may be a purpose to killing a pride of feral cats living in the woods… But killing a cat known to be a pet from the the neighborhood, just because one doesn’t fancy cats, makes one an asshole.
What is so hard to understand about that?
#26 – We have never been a socialist country… If you think we were, then socialism isn’t what you think it is.
#29 – Okay… While I don’t necessarily agree, at least that makes more sense and shows you do know what socialism is.
#29–Phillep, thanks. You said the depression would have ended sooner without socialism, then you add that the depression would have ended sooner if the Presidents of the time had not tried to do something.
In short==you can’t know that. Economics is the dismal science because it cannot be predicted in the way you present.
But the issue you started with was that socialism caused animal extinction. I recognize the attempt at humor there but the unpolished gem beneath that all is
How do you ==PHILLEP== distinguish between required regulations and socialism. You seem to think socialism is bad, and anything else that is bad is socialism==as in the supposed errant recovery attempts by FDR.
Economics is not the only dismal science on display.
#30–OFTLO==Just took your post #18 apart line by line and then at the end, had to change my mind.
Yea, you do mostly relate the issue of killing cats to peoples pets.
Who could disagree with that???? And I doubt anyone would==so rethinking again, the killing of feral cats TO PROTECT THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT should not be confused with killing cats for fun. You are too bright to do that so anything further on that line would be quibbling.
Good to see us on the same page boringly again.
OFTLO – A cat does not become harmless to the environment by having a home and being well fed.
The argument has been made many times that a well fed cat does more damage because it is usually in better shape, and bored. Killing little things is entertainment for cats.
House pet cats have no business in the woods, and killing them is actually environmentally responsible behavior.
#33–Phillep==yep. Unlike Mustard and Thomas, at least you recognize a poorly constructed argument. For that you deserve at least one feral cat pelt.