Why Demonizing Cats is Going to Give You Cancer

House cats are getting a lot of bad press just lately: they are being slandered as "friendly neighborhood serial killers", they are being cited for the murdering of billions of birds and mammals each year, they are even scapegoats for the extinctions of entire species. I'm calling bullshit.

I remember 20-30 years ago the public conversation around protecting endangered species was focused heavily on predatory animals and birds because we depend on their ecological contribution to pest control. What changed? Yes, some populations of wolves, eagles, foxes, owls, and wild cats have recovered, but the evidence of their limited growth is all around you; the roadsides and highways are simply LITTERED with deer, geese, raccoons, turkeys, possum, turkeys, skunks, raccoons, deer...

Now just think about what will happen if we eradicate cats... No, go ahead, I'll wait... That's right, BILLIONS more rats, mice, pigeons, squirrels, rabbits! And that's just in the first year - they'll be exploding exponentially thereafter.

If an intellectual midget such as myself can reach this conclusion, these cat haters must have flea circuses between their ears. Humans have been able to pick up some of the slack left by emaciated populations of predators by donning blaze orange and shooting the shit out of dinner-sized critters. Who picks up the disease-riddled slack left by cats then? Humans who don hazmat gloves and respirators while fumigating homes with neurotoxins.

In my opinion, the cat eradication idea defies logic: we would expose ourselves to pestilence, disease, and chemical warfare to save endangered birds who will just die off anyway from exposure to chemical run-off into the water system and being outcompeted for food by billions of rodents. Why not start at the root cause of their endangerment which is human encroachment into wild areas for resource extraction, agriculture, and sprawl?

But, seeing as how people will be people (reactionary, short-sighted, obstinate), I guess I will be investing all my cash in chemical companies so I can afford a good oncologist.