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Why We Need To Kill Cats.

a reflection of humanity.

By Chloe MartinPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
3
Max

I love cats, and I’m assuming most of you do too. They’re playful, mysterious, overwhelmingly cute and even sometimes cuddly. Compared to a dog they’re the ideal pet; they walk themselves, remind us when its feeding time and don’t strain us like our other furry friends. In most senses of the word, cats are perfect. They even domesticated themselves. They saw humans as a resource for rounding up food, and we saw them as both a new companion and a possible pest control.

However what happens when we take it too far? When we use and abuse the worlds gifts for our own selfish benefits? When we hold one thing higher than another, for what? A vain and materialistic hierarchy?

Maybe we’ve held cats to too high of a standard, they are cute and purposefully so, they manipulate us even down to their meows. But its a con, they’re killers, so I ask you:

Should We Kill this Cat?

Well not us, and not this particular cat. This is Max, my cat, an adorably soft tabby with a heart full of love - and a belly full of treats. We’re the same age, both sixteen and have a lot in common. Both just slightly missing a body part (he his back leg and me, my right eye). No, instead the question serves to highlight a severely overlooked and widely ignored fault in our society. A battle between our morality and our minds. The question serves to linger and gnaw at your mind, a reflection of the self and whether the way you think and the way you perceive can truly be considered just.

But before I berate you about why we should kill our beloved little sociopaths, first let me tell you a, while macabre and grisly tale, a very relevant story from Hawaii’s History.

So it’s the 1880s, rats run a rampant riot through the streets. They destroy crops, terrorise locals and devastate the island's economy. So what does Hawaii do? They introduce the mongoose, a ravenous tiny creature with greasy fur and glassy teeth. In theory, it’s an excellent ploy both practical and perfect in its own right. The mongoose would hunt the rats and they would kill the rats. Problem solved, plight over! Except for the Hawaiians, it wasn't over and it wasn't solved. The plot was not practical nor was it perfect in any sense of the word.

See, the mongoose sleep while the rats are awake and the rats sleep while the mongoose are awake. They never live alongside one another. They let each other live with no cost to their own livelihood, an unspoken alliance in the animal kingdom.

And so their mongoose solution became their mongoose problem. The Hawaiian ecosystem was raptured by the creatures they’d hoped would do the opposite and it left them with no other alternative - they had to kill the mongoose. Drown them, cage them, bleed them and beat them. It was unpleasant, to describe it in sanitary terms, but it’s what had to be done. The people had made a flawed judgement and whether it ruined mens’ appetites or not, someone had to do the killing. Someone had to step up and right the humans’ wrongs.

However, the Hawaiians weren’t the only ones with a mongoose problem. Japan has made that same mistake, or even a worse one. Despite the cautionary tale of the Hawaiians poorly devised failure and consequential eradication and murder of a species, japan still decided to employ the mongoose to hunt a notorious snake species a whole generation later. And to pour salt into an already blistering wound, they did it again in the 1970s almost 60 years after their first attempt. Nobody could pretend they were unaware of their plunders. Even in the face of mountains of abundantly clear evidence, they chose to proceed with their plan. Even looking to their own history, their own evidence, the played the fool. Feigned their ignorance and insisted it would work.

And it failed. Of course, it would fail. The nocturnal snakes and the diurnal mongoose would never cross paths. Though, the mongoose was able to cross paths with just about anything else. It ravaged local flora and fauna: once again, the mongoose had to die.

They aren't pleasant creatures, they bite and they claw and they hold no value in our hearts. But those same people who’d happily drown a defenceless mongoose wouldn’t be so eager to advocate for the genocide of a much more cherished invasive species.

As I mentioned, I love cats and sometimes - if we’re lucky- they love us back. We refer to them as our ‘pets’ but in reality, they’re just another wild creature that lets us pet them and promises not to scratch too hard. They’re tiny, what harm could they do? With their big doey eyes and tiny little toes. The fluffy tails and fluffier bellies are merely a ruse, a disguise and yet we love them so. We let them do as they please yet more often than not, what they please is killing small animals. Mice, fish, voles, they’re all on the hit list. And for somewhere like Japan with myriads of endangered and rare species, that’s a devastating issue. Creatures that have spent millennia adapting to a unique environment are being wiped out by a predator that’s only lived there for less than a century.

But hey, they brought that dead mouse as a gift, that bird as a present, how are we to deny them our unconditional and unwavering attention? In short: we won’t. No, no matter how many creatures are terrorised to the brink of extinction by cats, we love them all the same.

No matter the blood or the shedding, they are our babies.

For every one mongoose introduced in Japan, they brought thousands upon thousands of cats and despite how well we attempt to control them via microchips, collars and the rest, they remain one of the most calamitous creatures to roam our streets. They kill and they hunt and they pillage. And for places like America, the common house cat is responsible for 3 billion bird deaths per year. Better yet, it’s all our fault.

We brought the rats and the mongoose and the cats. So it’s undoubtedly up to us to put things right.

It’s easy to comprehend why we have to drown the mongoose, they were useless in their task and there isn’t a pro to their con. But cats, their unchecked butchery of prey is merely a side effect to us. Cats entertain us. They do tricks - sometimes -, they purr at us for attention, and we feed into it. We can help but love them. But the mongoose are ugly and mean. They don’t do tricks and they don’t purr and whine. They hold no value because in our rigid system they have none. They don’t benefit humans so their deaths are meaningless and their lives are worthless. They do not have the right to exist without helping humans. But their animals, they don’t choose, they don’t have morals and they rightfully don’t care what humans think. You can’t reason with a bear, you can’t reason with a mongoose, but one is a lot easier to hunt than the other. And sometimes that hunting is fun. The mongoose serves no purpose unless it’s being killed for sport by vile humans and the citizens who let standby and let them.

Globally it’s impossible to rid the world of our feline friends, but for those Japanese isles riddled with cats, it’s still a possibility. it could happen there. It would be symbolic, a testament to show that humans are capable of change, no matter how much it pains us to do so. It’s time to face facts, if we’re unable to treat the domesticated animals like we do the feral ones, the bucket of problems will only overflow. We must police our desire for companionship from these killers or the world we know will become desolate with only pets and no zoo to accompany it.

So, with desperation, I ask you again.

Should we kill the cats?

We’ve done it before. We do it today. Cows cause no harm and yet we kill thousands, mongoose killed endangered species and we wiped them out. So why is this different?

Should we kill the cats?

Now, if you find yourself nodding your head, stay away from me, because as much as I’d like not to be, I’m a hypocrite and there is no way you’d ever get Max.

fact or fiction
3

About the Creator

Chloe Martin

:-)

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