Feral cats in Los Angeles go to work

Great article!

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...y?coll=la-home


Joyce
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wrote in message
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Great article!

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...y?coll=la-home


Joyce


What a great idea! Finally, a reason to be proud of my home 'town'!

Joy

Joy wrote:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...y?coll=la-home

What a great idea! Finally, a reason to be proud of my home 'town'!

I know. Every time I hear about some organization or institution putting
down rat poison to take care of their rodent problem, I ask myself, "Have
these people heard of these animals called 'cats'?" They've done a great
job of controlling rodents for millenia, which is how we ended up keeping
them as pets.

Joyce

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Joy wrote:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...y?coll=la-home

What a great idea! Finally, a reason to be proud of my home 'town'!

I know. Every time I hear about some organization or institution putting
down rat poison to take care of their rodent problem, I ask myself, "Have
these people heard of these animals called 'cats'?" They've done a great
job of controlling rodents for millenia, which is how we ended up keeping
them as pets.

Joyce

Indeed.

There are some historians that believe the 'black death' (Bubonic plague)
was helped along because of people's superstition about cats. They didn't
want the cats around as they were associated as being a witch's familiar.
No cats around = more rats around. Rats carried fleas... fleas carried
plague... and leas don't care who they bite. I'm sure the rats carried the
plague as well, and bit a few people on their own.
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"Magic Mood Jeep" wrote in message
m...
wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...y?coll=la-home

What a great idea! Finally, a reason to be proud of my home 'town'!

I know. Every time I hear about some organization or institution putting
down rat poison to take care of their rodent problem, I ask myself, "Have
these people heard of these animals called 'cats'?" They've done a great
job of controlling rodents for millenia, which is how we ended up keeping
them as pets.

Joyce

Indeed.

There are some historians that believe the 'black death' (Bubonic plague)
was helped along because of people's superstition about cats. They didn't
want the cats around as they were associated as being a witch's familiar.
No cats around = more rats around. Rats carried fleas... fleas carried
plague... and leas don't care who they bite. I'm sure the rats carried
the plague as well, and bit a few people on their own.


There are also cultures that valued cats for their ratting skills. Many
Italian towns recognized that cats killed rats, and gave cats the freedom
of the town for protecting them from the plague. So if you go to Italy,
you see "gatti" everywhere. And there is really something about Italy that
goes well with cats-- the "bella figura," the love of beautiful things, the
sunniness, the food, the determination to work to live, not live to work.
Cats look great in Roman ruins. However, Italy still has a lot of
catching up to do on spaying and neutering.

On Jan 5, 7:18*am, "Kreisleriana" wrote:


There are also cultures that valued cats for their ratting skills. *

In England prior to the Middle Ages, a person could be fined for
killing a cat but only once a kittens eyes opened since before then
the kitten was not useful as a rat catcher. Thereafter there was a
scale of fines depending on whether the cat was a kitten, an adult or
a mouser

One king had a novel way of dealing with someone who killed another
person's cat. The dead cat would be suspended by the tail so only the
nose touched the ground and the killer would then shovel grain over
the body until it was completely covered. The amount of grain was the
compensation to the cats owner (they didn't think of themselves as
slaves thern) and was considered to represent the grain the owner
would lose to mice and rats because the cat wasn't around to kill
them.

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs

Kreisleriana wrote:

There are also cultures that valued cats for their ratting skills. Many
Italian towns recognized that cats killed rats, and gave cats the freedom
of the town for protecting them from the plague. So if you go to Italy,
you see "gatti" everywhere. And there is really something about Italy that
goes well with cats-- the "bella figura," the love of beautiful things, the
sunniness, the food, the determination to work to live, not live to work.

I remember several years ago there was a tour, put on by some travel group,
called "Cats and Culture", which was a trip through Italy to check out
various museums and historical sites, as well as to visit areas that had
large cat colonies, such as in Rome. I thought that was a great travel idea,
and toyed with going, but alas, I didn't have enough money for it.

Joyce
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To send email to this address, remove the triple-X from my user name.

Magic Mood Jeep wrote:

There are some historians that believe the 'black death' (Bubonic plague)
was helped along because of people's superstition about cats. They didn't
want the cats around as they were associated as being a witch's familiar.
No cats around = more rats around. Rats carried fleas... fleas carried
plague... and leas don't care who they bite.

I've heard this a lot, and at first glance, it makes a lot of sense. But
then it occurred to me that, as every cat slave knows, cats also carry
fleas. So how does keeping cats around reduce the flea population? They
didn't have Advantage back then.

Joyce
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To send email to this address, remove the triple-X from my user name.

wrote in message
...
Magic Mood Jeep wrote:

There are some historians that believe the 'black death' (Bubonic
plague)
was helped along because of people's superstition about cats. They
didn't
want the cats around as they were associated as being a witch's
familiar.
No cats around = more rats around. Rats carried fleas... fleas carried
plague... and leas don't care who they bite.

I've heard this a lot, and at first glance, it makes a lot of sense. But
then it occurred to me that, as every cat slave knows, cats also carry
fleas. So how does keeping cats around reduce the flea population? They
didn't have Advantage back then.

Joyce

They also didn't let the cats into their living quarters or their beds like
we are inclined to.

Jo

There are some historians that believe the 'black death' (Bubonic plague)
was helped along because of people's superstition about cats. They didn't
want the cats around as they were associated as being a witch's familiar.
No cats around = more rats around. Rats carried fleas... fleas carried
plague

That has to be an urban legend. The Black Death was c.1350, the witch
panic didn't start until the 1580s. The Black Death was more often
blamed on the Jews, who had no particular association with cats.

Though people doing appallingly cruel things to cats didn't necessarily
have anything to do with a belief in witches. Some kinds of ritual cat
torture survived in Scotland until around 1800. (Maybe the people who
took part in it all emigrated to Texas to do it to rattlesnakes instead).

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