Kiwi Cats: An Endangered Species?

Some people in New Zealand, and no doubt in other places, would like to exterminate the domestic pussycat because of its environmental impact, specifically on native wildlife. But the double standards applied here condemn the people advocating them way more than the objects of their condemnation.

Humans somehow have this ingrained idea that they can best manage the natural environment that Mother Nature created and evolved over billions of years before mankind was ever thought up in anyone’s philosophy. The end result of human management has been an unmitigated and ever ongoing environmental disaster. The latest in a long, long, long line of ‘humans know best’ has been a proposal to eliminate the domestic pussycat.

In early January 2013, the idea was floated in New Zealand that the domestic moggy, the dear old and much loved companion animal the pussycat, be phased out. All cats should be de-sexed and no further cats be obtained upon the natural death of existing moggies. Therefore, within 15 to 20 years, New Zealand would be pussycat free, and native wildlife, especially flightless birds, would be eternally grateful, because pussy cats like to eat little native flightless birds and other native wildlife too. Needless to say, the claws are out and fur is flying over the issue.

From the various online debates and commentaries I’ve seen, there seem to be three equally divided points of view. Point One: kill them all – the cats that is – or more humanely let them go extinct through natural attrition by neutering them all. Point Two, sharp and to the point, all jaws, paws and claws out and firing, touch my cats and you die. Companion animals are good for human well being, and besides cats catch mice and rats and other undesirable vermin*. Point Three is probably the most relevant – it’s a variation on the pot calling the kettle black; the all too frequent human double standard.

If you take the argument to its logical conclusion, perhaps one should exterminate spiders because they kill native flies; exterminate birds that eat pretty native butterflies; kill the lions that eat native zebras; or for that matter eliminate anything that kills and feeds off of anything else native. Sorry, the fundamental principle in nature, tooth and claw, is the relationship between prey and predator; eat or be eaten. Cats are just one of millions of species that kill to eat. It’s hardwired into their brains. If they kill and eat a native flightless bird, it’s not their fault. Puppy dogs hunt and kill too, but I don’t hear any equivalent about killing them off humanely or otherwise despite the fact that some dogs, pet dogs, have maimed and killed humans; the same cannot be said about the domestic moggy. And no doubt some native species hunt and kill for food other native species. Where do you draw the line in this quest to save native species? And just who self-anointed human beings to be judge, jury and executioner?

Prey animals, flightless birds or otherwise, have presumably over millions of years evolved natural abilities to avoid most predators most of the time; otherwise they wouldn’t be around for us to talk about them. That’s the natural way of things – a natural evolutionary arms race. Prey evolves ways and means to avoid predators; predators evolve better ways and means of catching prey. Failure results in extinction, and that too is nature’s way. Most species that have ever existed are now extinct.

While we don’t wish to see native wildlife hunted down and killed, the hardcore truth of the matter is that this is nature’s way, and if you have a problem with that, take it up with God – it’s His master plan. If you don’t accept a deity, blame Mother Nature. In any event, that’s the way it is and you can’t do anything to change that fundamental fact of life. Cats kill; dogs kill; spiders kill; lions kill; birds kill; sharks kill; and guess what – humans kill too. That’s part of the pot and kettle side of things. But humans don’t kill animals just for the need to put food on the table. Humans kill for the pure pleasure of killing things, just for fun, from hunting as a so-called ‘sport’, often with a semi-automatic rifle, and often in enclosed wildlife parks for that purpose where the animals can’t escape, to squashing ants who are outside in their own natural environment and bothering no one.

As for that other common reason given to cull the moggie – the neighbour’s cat uses my garden as a litter box. If that’s the most pressing problem this person has, well I’d like to be that person! Seriously, you get free fertilizer that’s 100% biodegradable and while the cat is around, it’s helping to keep your property free of mice and rats. I’ve been on the receiving end of both gifts and that doesn’t bother me at all. In any event, as a problem, personal or environmental, cat poo in the garden pales compared to doggie poo on the sidewalk.

There are several of the newer suburbs in Canberra (Australia) bordering on native grasslands and in these suburbs cat owners are legally required to confine their cats to their own property, say by using outdoor cat runs or keeping them indoors. I have no problem with that. The cat owners are happy (or should be); the cats should be happy too; and naïve wildlife can relax and worry about other things – like humans and humans who will probably build an ever newer suburb as the population expands, on that very native grassland. 

Confining your cat to your own property helps keep the cat safe too from other humans and traffic. You wouldn’t want your companion animal to end up as road kill.

Legally required or otherwise, human owners are morally responsible for the actions or their companion animals, and it is up to the owners of pets to ensure that other valued animals and people are not in harms way through the actions of animals under their control. That moral requirement exists because you cannot expect cats (hardwired to act in certain ways) to conform to human standards in the same way that you can teach a child.

Australia has declared war on the Cane Toad, the Common Indian Myna Bird, the Rabbit, Carp, the European Wasp, etc. in order to save native species and native habitats on which they depend. Yet every day hundreds of native Australian animals are killed by the motor car, deliberately shot, poisoned, trapped, etc. The Australian Capital Territory government routinely culls thousands of native Kangaroos because there are, allegedly, too many of them, allegedly, destroying native grasslands. Humans reek of the double standard!

Now IMHO, if ever there was a species that needed culling because of their environmental impact, including the extermination, intentional or otherwise, of native wildlife, its dear old Homo sapiens.  The pot has indeed called the kettle black. For some unfathomable reason, it’s A-OK for humans to condemn any and all non-human species for doing what comes naturally, yet when do humans point the finger at humans?  Those who advocate such extreme measures or controls on cats would never ever dream of applying that same logic to themselves and their fellow human companions. De-sex the moggies? That’s all fine and well and I agree on the grounds of animal welfare, but on the other foot, I’ve seen more than one news story or item about these mega-families where a couple revel in having literally offspring cheaper by the two dozen, all products from their own privates and private interactions.  Talk about your environmental impact! Even four of more kids is too many.

Kids or no kids, any one human being in any advanced first world country (New Zealand, Australia, Canada, USA, Europe, Japan, etc.) has a vastly greater detrimental environmental impact per day than any cat has had over the cat’s entire lifetime.

And don’t talk back to me about how cats torture small animals – that absolutely pales in significance with comparison to the daily tortures humans infest on animals, examples way, way too numerous to mention, though in very recent times we’ve seen some very graphic livestock cases of barbaric cruelty in Indonesia, Pakistan and even Israel. And what would the world come to without children pulling the wings off of flies, or as one disgusting co-worker of mine did, throwing live grubs onto a red hot barbeque just for ‘fun’.

When it comes to cats vs. humans, well, you don’t see cats driving 4WD gas-guzzlers on the freeway, one cat per car. You don’t see cats requiring vacations and holiday days off. You don’t see cats shopping down at the mall. You don’t see cats peddling drugs. Cats don’t litter. You don’t see cats going hunting with semi-automatic rifles shooting anything that moves; everything in sight. You don’t see cats maxing out their credit cards and going bankrupt. I’ve yet to see cats invent, build and test an atomic bomb. Cats have way too much sense to believe in deities, they don’t even deify their human ‘masters’.

Cats ask for nothing more than the basic necessities of life, and all their waste products are 100% biodegradable and recycled. Can humans make the same claim?

There is already at least one place that bans pussy cats to protect native wildlife – Lord Howe Island, off the coast of New South Wales, Australia. I imagine there are some similar small islands set aside as wildlife refuges that ban cats and dogs and other predators. I have no problem with that. Of course keeping them out from the get-go is not quite the same issue as eliminating or exterminating them once established, and when it comes to New Zealand, you can hardly claim the entire country as a native wildlife refuge, and cats are already well established there playing the role of companion animal and making lots of people happy.

Ultimately the New Zealand scenario is not going to happen – there are too many cat and companion animal lovers who vote. Then there’s the cat industry from veterinarians to the producers and manufacturers of cat food, kitty litter and litter boxes, cat collars, food bowls, etc. All of this and more means cats are a major employer as it were, given the number of moggies in residence not only in New Zealand but around the world. Human self-interest will ensure that cats will be with us for generations to come. 

*In fact that’s why the cat was accepted into human company in the first place. Back in the days of primarily rural settlements, agricultural-based communities and farms, cats kept in check the mice and rats and daresay the birds that would otherwise feed on the grains, etc. the farmers were trying to grow. There was no question back then what side the cat sided on with respect to human tolerance.

Monster Birds of the Americas: Part Two

There are myths and legends that tell of human beings abducted as a food source by flying beasties. Confining ourselves to the Americas, especially the indigenous natives of North America, the question is, is there anything verified by science that’s birdlike or that flies that could snack on a fully grown human? If not, something’s screwy somewhere and other explanations are required.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Real Monster ‘Birds’ of the Americas

Pterosaurs and Pterodactyls: These beasties weren’t really birds-of-a-feather, rather just winged and flying (or gliding) reptiles that belonged way back in fact to ‘The Age of Reptiles’ – the Mesozoic Era. The largest of these discovered (to date) was Quetzalcoatlus, named obviously after that Mesoamerican feathered serpent deity. Quetza-baby had a 36 to 40 foot wingspan, and just might have been able to snack on a human. However, pterosaurs and pterodactyls all went kaput by the end of the Mesozoic – Q-baby made it in fact through to the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 millions of years ago. Alas, that was at least 64 million years before anything resembling humans walked the planet as a food source. While Native Americans were probably aware of the fossils of these flying reptiles, they had nothing to fear from them in terms of being snack-food. 

Terror Birds: Well, these terrors really existed in the Americas and for a while were thought to be contemporary with the earliest humans in the Americas. Though they survived and thrived in mainly South America, some made it across the Isthmus of Panama land bridge into Central and North America about 3 million years ago. The most recent of them is now thought to have gone extinct about 1.8 million years ago, well before humans arrived on the scene.

But even assuming humans and terror birds were contemporary, why the terror? Well, these crows-on-steroids were up to ten feet tall and could gallop after you at velocities up to some 37 miles per hour. Relatives of these monsters with equally large beaks and talons have been found in Texas and Florida, and presumable bridged the geographical gap in-between. So, should the natives have been afraid; very afraid? Well, in this case the top apex predators probably succumbed to being ultimately human prey since the terror birds, along with the rest of the North, Central and South American mega-fauna went extinct in pretty quick-smart fashion after humans appeared on the scene. Now humans, if contemporary, probably didn’t engage in hand-to-wing combat with these ungodly raptors, but rather found their eggs as a handy-dandy breakfast food supplement to their gatherer nuts-and-berries fare. Alas, no baby terror birds hatchlings; ultimately no terror birds. In any event, terror birds were flightless, like the emus, cassowaries, the ostrich and kiwis, not to mention their extinct cousins the moa and dodos. Thus, terror birds don’t fit our description of birds that fly and pluck humans off the ground and feel us to their young.

Giant Condors & Related:  The Andean condor at 11 to 15 kg (24 – 33 pounds) is currently the Guinness Book of Records holder for being the America’s largest flying feathered member of the avian clan, at least with respect to a roughly 10 to 12 foot wingspan. The California condor at 7 to 14 kg (15 to 31 pounds) comes a very close second with wingspans around ten feet. Then too there was the Pleistocene [Ice Age] teratorns weighing in at 15 kg to 23 kg (33 to 50 pounds), huge raptors resembling eagles with wingspans 12 to 17 feet across.

Overall the wandering albatross is on a par with the Andean condor for title of ‘king of the wingspan’ (up to 11 feet for the great albatrosses), but it isn’t a common sight in North America – then or now. There are several North Pacific varieties which reach the western coast of North America, but because these are sea birds, feeding on seafood although scavenging carrion when on land (remote islands) for breeding purposes. The odds that Native American Indians would have noted the albatross as a regular part of their environment wouldn’t have been common for other than those living right on the Pacific Ocean.

Now the sixty-four cent question is, can any one or more of the above account for eyewitness accounts of monster birds abducting their comrades in arms? Well any sane person would eliminate dragons and Thunderbirds – they are mythological and therefore don’t exist. One cannot witness non-existence. Pterosaurs and pterodactyls were extinct long before humans were thought up in anyone’s philosophy. Terror birds couldn’t fly and probably weren’t actually contemporary with humans in any event. Condors, while big, aren’t big enough. I mean an average human should be large enough to punch a condor’s lights right out, and certainly humans are too large to be carried across the condor’s threshold.

Condors (Andean or Californian) are actually vultures and thus scavengers, feeding primarily on carrion, even though preferring large carcases like those of cattle. It has to feed while on the ground, and often stuffs itself silly when it does come across a suitable meal that it can’t, for a while, lift itself off the ground. This is hardly a bird likely to be the source of American Indian human-abducting mythology, although the bird certainly features in Native American mythology. However, as the condor is an endangered species, the bird had and has way more reason to fear the natives than the other way around.

The extinct teratorns however were contemporary with humans (Amerindians), but while large enough to cause more than sufficient trouble for a human infant, there’s evidence to suggest that overall, the humans were probably more the hunters than the hunted when crunch came crunch.

However, even at a weight of fifty pounds and a wingspan of 17 feet, could a teratorn have actually picked up and carried away an adult human, with a weight say at least twice or thrice that of the raptor? Fossil evidence suggests that small mammals, even fish, and carrion were its usual means of sustenance. Since the Native Americans say it’s so – at least according to their mythology – you have to ask yourself whether or not a 50 pound bird, who could obviously carry its own weight and probably a bit more through the air, could actually fly with a 100 to 150 pound payload? That’s 150 to 200 pounds all up the bird is carrying. Now that’s a pretty big ask.

Has anyone seen an owl or an eagle or other flying raptor carry off prey two to three times its own weight?  Now it might be one thing for a very large bird to pick you up (especially if you’re dead and not struggling) and carry you off while in contact with the ground, like the terror birds, at least for a short way since after all you’re still very heavy compared to the bird. But it’s quite other kettle of fish for a bird to pick you up and actually fly away with you without any leg and ground support at all. Flying (flapping wings) is very energy intensive at the best of times (we’ve all seen birds in gliding mode in order to conserve energy), far less trying to lift up and flap wings with twice or thrice its normal body weight to struggle with.

Now we’ve all seen wildlife documentaries showing a large carnivorous bird swooping low over the water and then grabbing an unsuspecting fish out of the water with its talons. Now that fish may even be as large and heavy as the bird itself, but the prey can’t be that much larger and certainly not twice as large and heavy as the predator. The bird, so close to the water, can not afford to be dragged down by extra unmanageable weight into the water – then it’s bye-bye birdie. 

Moving back to the land, raptor birds can and do attack prey much larger than themselves. The bones of these large prey animals have been found in the raptor’s nests or lairs. An eagle might attack a deer or fawn. The deer can’t really defend itself very well out in the open. But that’s not to say that the eagle can actually carry off the deer carcass whole, rather it’s going to tear out chunks at a time and carry them take-away style back to the nest. If not feeding young, it just might dine in on the spot, only flapping away if threatened by the appearance of larger scavengers.

In human terms, a normal average fit human may be able to life twice its body weight but can’t hardly be expected to run an obstacle course carrying it. Half a human’s body weight maybe, but not twice far less thrice.

Now in more ‘modern’ times, there have been a few sightings of giant and other unknown birds – critters that fall within the realm of study called cryptozoology. Having looked over the ‘modern’ (1850 to date) cryptozoological literature, most sightings prove to be ordinary birds though perhaps viewed out of their normal territory and thus somewhat unfamiliar to the viewer. Most unexplained avian species remain unverified and usually too small to be the sort of critter we’ve been looking for. Sightings of monster birds, while they exist, have never yielded up the sort of data that would have confirmed their reality. No dung, no feathers, no carcass, no bones. Unknown monster birds, if they do still exist, are running out of habitat to hide in; in fact they probably have run out of viable environmental living space. If they haven’t been confirmed by now they probably won’t ever be. Besides, any unknown North American birds, monster or otherwise, would have long since been shot out of the sky by trigger-happy Americans.  

Conclusions: No flying bird that is or was contemporary with humans (like the America Indian) was capable of lifting up and carrying off anything other than perhaps a small infant; certainly not adults. Flying birds are lightweights – they have to be in order to lift themselves up into the air. The largest of the predatory flightless birds (terror birds) were probably capable of running down, capturing, and lifting up human adults, but that’s not what the legends describe. But to a technologically unsophisticated Native American, living hundreds to thousands of years ago, a UFO abduction event might only have made natural sense to them in a Thunderbird related scenario. 

Further Readings about Monster Birds

Allan, Tony; “Beasts of the air” (in); The Mythic Bestiary: The Illustrated Guide to the World’s Most Fantastical Creatures; Duncan Baird Publishers, London; 2008; pages 14-53.

Bord, Colin & Bord, Janet; “Giant birds and birdmen” (in); Alien Animals: A Worldwide Investigation; Panther Books, London; Revised Edition 1985; pages 109-135. 

Clark, Jerome & Coleman, Loren; “Things with wings” (in); Creatures of the Outer Edge; Warner Books, New York; 1978; pages 165-194.

Mackal, Roy P.; “’Alice in Wonderland’ birds” (in); Searching for Hidden Animals: An Inquiry Into Zoological Mysteries; Doubleday & Company, New York; 1980; pages 99-128.

Mayor, Adrienne; Fossil Legends of the First Americans; Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey; 2005.

Animal Mutilations

For the better part of going on towards five decades worth, there’s been a ongoing and gruesome phenomena seemingly clustered around the American mid-western regions that involves what has been described as the mutilation of large herbivore wildlife such as bison, but more usually domesticated livestock like cattle, sheep and horses - Whodunit?

For the better part of going on towards five decades worth, there’s been a ongoing and gruesome phenomena seemingly clustered around the American mid-western regions (though Charles Fort collected similar cases from England in the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries) that involves what has been described as the mutilation of large herbivore wildlife such as bison, but more usually domesticated livestock like cattle, sheep and horses. Mutilation is not usually a word associated with natural processes like predation, rather deliberate acts for purposes other than taking down an animal as a natural food source. We’ll return to that unnatural bit later on down the track.

These unfortunate victims usually have selected and nearly consistent bits and pieces of their body removed with near surgical precision. Most of the carcass is left behind, though the body is usually devoid of blood.

Firstly, from the outset, there’s no denying the reality of the phenomena – ghosts and UFOs come and go like will-o’-the-wisps, but animal mutilations, like crop circles, stick around and are available for ongoing scrutiny and analysis, and both have some other common threads like clustering in geographical areas (crop circles tend to be associated with and clustered in SW England). Both are ongoing and both now number in the hundreds to thousands of individual cases. Further, there have been several (two) independent Federal inquiries into the phenomena, one by the FBI (1979), the other by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (AFT). Both studies produced conclusions that anomalies existed in some mutilation cases and that further studies were warranted. There have also been various State-level investigations as well as Senate hearings.

The most obvious answer to the mutilation mystery is that all can be attributed to natural predators doing their thing. In fact professional veterinarians usually associated with university schools of veterinary medicine or science proclaim from their ivory towers that these are indeed the results of natural predation by known carnivores, all by studying the photographic evidence – god forbid they’d actually do any on-site fieldwork. However, they do admit that not all of the hundreds to thousands of mutilation cases fall into such neat little piles. All agree by now that all cases cannot be easily explained by wild cats like mountain lions and bobcats or those from the canine side of things like wolves and coyotes, and similar predators such as foxes and wild dogs. 

An obvious problem with the natural predation theory is the appearance of the phenomena in the mid-1960s (apart from still relatively recent England noted above). Prey and predators existed way before that as well as humans to report the cases.  

In contrast, the man-on-the-land, the farmers, rangers, hunters, wildlife field biologists and vets who work for government departments and other outdoors types who are quite familiar with viewing and inspecting your run of the mill animal predation tend to take a more opposite view – there’s nothing natural about these sorts of animal predations and the state the remains of the carcass are found in.  This might appear to be a typical academic skeptic vs. eyewitness (I know what I saw) disagreements were it not for a few other unusual features.

Firstly, you’d expect to see signs of a predator-prey struggle – the ground should have been scuffed up a bit; the vegetation slightly disturbed. That’s not what you find. You’d expect in many cases to observe the tracks of the predatory animal(s). You don’t tend to find tracks. Often there are not even tracks of the victim in the immediate vicinity as if the animal were dumped from above at the spot. Thirdly, if natural, you wouldn’t expect the ground/soil and surrounding vegetation in the immediate area of the kill to show any long-term lasting effects. Often the kill site can be identified way down the track by unusual changes in the condition of the soil and vegetation, usually for the worse.

Further, natural predators tend to avoid or shy away from the mutilated carcass even though it’s an apparently easy meal. Ditto other livestock avoid the area as well. It’s like a no-go zone. Some post-mortem biochemical studies suggest that the victim in question was tranquilized prior to the mutilation. One of the anomalies often reported via laboratory studies of the carcass are unusual alterations in the amounts of vitamins, minerals and other associated biochemical compounds. The findings of tranquilizers and/or anomalies in the standard biochemistry of the victim, points more to a human or an otherworldly culprit. What about the human animal?

Because the nature of the wounds often having the nature or hallmarks suggestive of surgery; well there’s another predator that needs to be considered, the human predator. Well that doesn’t really appear to wash either – again, no human footprints in the area prior to discovery; no tire tracks (and most of the kill sites are off the beaten track – a long walk to get to them). Further, to the best of my knowledge, no human(s) have ever been observed in the act, far less caught, tried and convicted. Further, no human(s) or cults (Satanic or otherwise) have claimed responsibility. In gun-toting America, especially rural America where rifles and shotguns probably outnumber their human owners, any other humans with animal mutilation on their depraved minds are really risking their hides – farmers seeing their livestock (and livelihoods) butchered are liable to shoot first and ask questions later!

Further still, the nature of the incisions hasn’t been duplicated in the laboratory by lasers (an obvious human tool if humans were responsible) since there’s no signs of heat or cooking on the carcass incisions. Laboratory tests show that the time and effort to do the high precision cutting job using sharp steel implements is quite considerable. Hides are tough, unlike human skin. Further, no evidence beyond reasonable doubt (say by the FBI or the AFT) of any human or cultist activity was ever uncovered by any official investigation

Of course there have been claims that the American government is actually responsible via clandestine or covert research into possible cattle-human transmitted diseases like ‘mad cow disease’ and scrapie, research  via the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) with covering support from the armed forces via ‘black helicopters’. However, on balance, you’d think such work in the public interest wouldn’t have to be done undercover! Surely the American powers-that-be can buy livestock at random for testing; ditto hunt other wildlife for routine and ongoing testing in the open. Some conspiracy scenarios make sense – this one doesn’t.

You can’t really pin this on some sort of unknown, undiscovered predator like the Chupacabra – an animal that would be in the providence of cryptozoologists since there have been no sightings of such potential critters in the area with the necessary ‘tools’ (teeth and jaws), and anyway no tracks, known animal or unknown animal.

Since the phenomena exists and requires explanation and resolution, perhaps that leaves the otherworldly. Are aliens in UFOs responsible? While there have, on occasion been reports of unusual aerial objects in the relevant vicinity prior to mutilations, it would seem on the surface to be relatively absurd. Why would aliens want bits and pieces and the blood of large herbivores?

Alien beings will, by definition, have alien minds, an alien psychology and alien motives – alien relative to us of course.

There is however an obvious parallel with alien UFO abductions. Humans who claim to have been abducted by the ‘Greys’ also claim to have had tissue samples taken from them – biopsies – and often have the unexplained scares to ‘prove’ it, though to the skeptics that hardly constitutes real evidence, far less proof. Still, it’s another dot point suggesting that aliens, for whatever reason, just take tissue samples to monitor – what? Well, who knows? At least the humans aren’t sacrificed on the alien’s altar.

Needless to say humans (biologists, vets, nurses, medical doctors & researchers) do tissue sample work all the time and sometimes it’s necessary to kill the subject under the knife first.

Ultimately, to date, the only reasonable conclusion that can be reached is that there is no ‘smoking gun’ proof yet to identify beyond question whodunit, if indeed there is just a single whodunit.