I Have a Safari Park

Fang Yedao: "Under normal circumstances, a healthy ecosystem will form a network relationship, in which the number of species increases and decreases, but they are all maintained within a certain range, allowing the ecosystem to maintain a dynamic balance.

But when cats, which were not part of it, joined them, they preyed on birds, weakening the ecosystem's ability to limit insects, and starving raptors and medium-sized beasts that also feed on small animals.

Ecosystems are formed through long-term evolution. After hundreds of thousands of years of competition, exclusion, adaptation and mutual assistance, species in the system have formed the close relationship that is now interdependent and mutually restrictive.

After an alien species is introduced, it may be excluded from the system due to its inability to adapt to the new environment; if there are no organisms that compete or restrict it in the new environment, it will become a real invader, breaking the balance, changing or destroying the local environment. ecological environment and severely damage biodiversity.

The most famous of the ecological disasters caused by cats is a cat named Tibbs, who killed off Stephen Island's endemic birds, the different wren, in one year.

But that is a closed island environment, and no animal can deal with a perfect predator like a cat. In China, in the wild, there are predators in the same ecological niche like leopard cats and red foxes to restrain them, and stray cats can't make waves.

However, in cities, stray cats that should have been eliminated naturally can eat kitchen waste and even be fed by humans, allowing them to multiply in large numbers to achieve a population density that is impossible for small carnivores in nature.

The number is abnormally large, and they belong to the animals that are full and bored to hunt because of play, so in the city, stray cats are a big problem.

Not only the impact on birds and other animals, but also infectious diseases such as toxoplasmosis and rabies, which bring hidden dangers to public health and safety. "

Some netizens who like cats and even feed them can not help but feel a little ashamed after listening to Fang Ye's explanation.

When I fed them before, I didn't understand this, I just felt that I was loving and kind.

It turns out that random feeding is not a good thing, and it is the same type of operation as random release.

Netizens couldn't help asking: "What should I do then?"

Fang Ye said: "First of all, at the root, don't let cats become stray cats.

Keeping pets costs money and energy, but many people only think about the fun that pets bring before raising pets. .

For example, in the university, if you want to keep pets, the school will not allow them to keep them outside, and they will not take them away after graduation. In this way, there are more and more stray cats on campus.

Some people keep cats free, or if the cat slips out of the window and can't be found after throwing it away, if you have a cat, don't keep it free, remember to close the window, you can effectively avoid this kind of thing. The cats that have been raised at home are also very healthy and long-lived. This is a fact. You don't have to think about letting them go outside. Going out may harm a few birds.

For stray cats, control yourself and don't feed them.

The living standard of stray cats is definitely not as good as that of domestic cats. They will be hit by cars, stoned by people, starving and eating garbage, and fighting with other stray cats for territory. They will freeze into popsicles in winter. Your feeding only temporarily improved its living conditions. When the offspring are reproduced, there will be a group of poor little stray cats in the city who will be frozen and turned over by rubbish.

While talking about how pitiful stray cats are and how hateful the people who abandoned them are, feeding them is not like becoming someone you hate.

The other is sterilization!

Some people are very disgusted with neutering cats. They feel that after neutering, they have castrated a part of their life experience, deprived them of the right to reproduce, and cats are unhappy.

In fact, this kind of thinking is completely from the perspective of human beings.

Animal mating is only based on instinct, and most of them do not feel happy or even extremely painful experience during mating. Cats have barbs.

After neutering, the cat will not suffer from estrus mating, and the body will be healthier. What's wrong?

If you insist that the child is not a cat, how can you know the joy of a cat? If you are not a cat, how do you know that the cat is not happy to mate, or you want to let the cat mate at least once, give birth to offspring, and then sterilize the cat after the cat's life is complete - this idea is also From a human point of view, cats do not have the concept of 'I want to have a child', and their reproduction is only driven by genetic instinct.

You can calculate how many offspring can be produced by allowing cats to reproduce indefinitely.

A female cat can give birth to a maximum of 12 and a minimum of 2, usually 3-6. A cat with good physical strength can give birth twice a year.

A pair of sterilized cats, under ideal conditions, can breed 2 million cats in 8 years.

You want to keep its reproductive rights, but what about its children's reproductive rights? What about the child's child? Are these offspring capable of feeding and caring? If you can't take care of it, abandon it or give it to someone else? Not everyone has the ability to raise a cat well, just stuff it with others, and others will abandon it for a while. Isn't this a source of stray cats? "

Fang Ye paused and continued: "Capture, sterilization, and release, or TNR for short, is a more humane way to reduce the number of stray cats.

After the volunteers capture the cat in a safe way, a qualified veterinarian will perform a sterilization operation and immunization for the cat. After the operation, the cat will be released back to its original living area, and a notch will be cut in its ear as a mark to prevent it from being abused. surgery. Individual friendly cats can help them find adoptive families.

If you want to adopt a cat, I recommend adopting it instead of buying it.

TNR is respected by many people, but it is not a panacea. It is necessary to block the source of stray cats, achieve a sterilization rate of 71% to 94%, and conduct centralized feeding management. Only in this way can it be effective, and the requirements are very strict. The most important thing is not to feed it at will, and do not abandon it.

In fact, there is no problem with three or five neutered stray cats in a community. If you have nothing to do with them, the happiness of the residents in the community can be improved, children can cultivate love, and they can be considered close to nature.

Engaging in protection work often starts with such simple kindness.

But the hundreds of thousands of stray cats in a city far exceed the carrying capacity of the ecosystem.

As for culling, the problem of stray cats is not a purely ecological problem, but also a social one.

Simple and rude hunting, although it can effectively reduce the number of stray cats, will arouse the disgust of many people, and the gains will outweigh the losses.

Unless the ecological environment is seriously threatened, it will be used when protecting endangered wild animals or controlling severe infectious diseases.

In fact, euthanasia is also a good method, but it is also a question of acceptance, which requires us to continue to popularize science. "