Should you get a cat this xmas?
While rescue groups beg people to resist the urge to buy pets as presents and for anyone who isn’t ready for the commitment of a pet, to ‘just get a stuffed animal instead’ seems people have… actually been listening!
The claws are out for manufacturers flogging $112 toy cats for Christmas while hundreds of moggies costing just $80 face death.
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Dr Webb said it was ironic that one of the surprise Christmas toy hits this year was the FurReal Lulu cat which, for $119.40, purrs, meows and moves.“How does a stuffed toy cat compare to a warm, wet smooch on Christmas morning and a living creature that purrs and meows and plays, sitting on your lap and lapping up the love?” she said.
“And, unlike these toys that cost more than $100 and rely on batteries, our kittens cost $80, our adult cats just $65; and they are for life, and not just Christmas.” ref
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Lols…
The Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service (WIRES) revealed that from 1991-2009 in NSW, there were a staggering 34,363 attacks by cats on native birds and animals.
Now the use of the word ‘staggering’ reveals a fair amount of journalist bias here; not to mention the title: “Cats make Central Coast a killing field of native wildlife”. But are these numbers indeed ‘staggering’?
Lets see, 1991 – 2009 is 18 years, and worked our per year the number is just shy of 2,000 per year, attacks not fatalities. While the same organisation features these details on their website:
Every night there are thousands of hit-and-run fatalities on our roads and the victims are our native animals. Approximately 2.5 million animals are killed by motor vehicles in NSW alone each year, that’s 7,000 a day.
Perspective people! There’s a damaging, introduced species killing our natives alright; they drive Monaros at 100kmph.
