phantasmagoria of animegirl view

@lookatthesky

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taste me, as the food and drink Alice found almost said. she was cast unto a stormshorn sunderedsea. you too will fall beneath my waves in time.

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phantasmagoria of animegirl view @lookatthesky1/31/2024, 5:48 AM

so do y'all think someone experienced with building relationships with and communicating to animals would be able to teach their cats to recognize and go after exclusively or almost exclusively invasive and introduced birds?

some initial thoughts are that when it comes to animals, having specialized breeds can help a lot for specific tasks when done right - see sheepdogs and livestock guardian dogs. wonderful animals. in the care of someone who understands how to communicate with animals they are truly powerful.

you need to balance the independence that is so often embedded within cats with a willingness to listen. even in nonspecialized breeds, to my understanding, this is possible. you need them to be independent enough to go and seek out their own food, but dependent enough to care about what food you want them to hunt down. you need to supplement the food they hunt or forage with the food you give them (as you should for most animals).

I don't know what specialized cat breeds and landraces exist, but I'm interested if anyone knows about some.

a side note - specialized breeding can be a symbiotic process. when they have a purpose they Know to carry out, animals can end up much more fulfilled. i think it may be worth trying to move back towards specializing breeds (not for profit), even when that specialization is for some kind of domestic, companionate role. it's an important factor in deciding whether an animal is right for your situation, even if sometimes you decide to take on less specialized animals.

#animal relations #ecology #restoration #dealing with the world that is not who she once was #but learning how to live in the one we have #learning how to see the introduced and invasive species and engage with them as their own wonderful beings and as a coherent whole #cats

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in reply to @lookatthesky's post:

bella of frell @bogsaint-philomena1/31/2024, 1:37 PM

While a nice idea, I don't think this would be at all possible. Right now cats are the biggest threat to native birds, as they are an invasive species that kill at least a BILLION birds each year, much much much more than invasive bird species (are invasive birds even a threat or are they just competing for resources?) or even windmills, and it would take decades upon decades(probably much longer) to breed a specialized cat that hunts in a specific way - still would cover native and invasive species. I think it's just too big a risk for birds.
Also a cat like this would still be put in danger - coyotes, wild dogs, cars are common causes of death, and when if you went out with said cat and were supervising them the whole time, they would still be exposed to viruses like hantavirus from dead wildlife that is dangerous to both cat and humans, because I think it'd be impossible to stop them from eating anything they hunted.

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