BBC News Science and Environment happily reports that cats are perhaps the greatest danger to birds and mammals. Who would have thought that our little "tiger," pretty puss is a ferocious killer? No kidding?
Well, duh. That's what makes cats so pretty - they are petite panthers, jaguars in miniature, cute little cougars, tiny tigers. In short, stone-cold killers of little things.
Mostly they don't kill because we keep them fed and they're lazy. But the instinct is certainly there and if they are outdoor cats, what we in ranch country call "barn cats," killing is more than theory to them, it is their main activity.
Notice that if cats are killing rats, mice, gophers, moles and voles - in short, vermin, we don't mind much. Nobody complains. It's the killing of pretty song birds that raises ire.
During the so-called Middle Ages the Black Death or Bubonic Plague (Yersinia Pestis) killed millions in Europe. People caught it after being bitten by fleas from infected rodents. Rodents were common because cats were not common, cats being associated in people's minds with witchcraft.
BTW, yersinia pestis is still found among rodents in the Western U.S. and rarely passes to a human. It's a lucky sufferer who encounters a doctor who can diagnose it because it is so seldom seen in humans. Plague is rare because we live with cats, little killers of rodents. Weird science indeed ....
