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Comment by sen | Hacker News Reader

> a new neighbor had spotted Faith just outside a fence on Wissner’s property

Wording could be taken either way, and I could be wrong, but it almost sounds like the dog was not on the property of its owner, and was over the fence in the neighbours property?

We have a huge problem with pet cats that stray from their properties and eat birds/fish/etc in neighbouring properties... if one turns up on my property, I trap it and send it to the shelter specifically so the owner gets fined, even though I know who owns it. It's what our local council/government recommend we do considering the owners already know it's illegal for pet cats to be off their property here (or even outside of their house after dark, which is almost always when we trap them in our yard).

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> Faith was outside the livestock fence but still on Wissner's property, he said.

> it's illegal for pet cats to be off their property here

So, is it deliberate that this is indistinguishable from making outside cats illegal? Otherwise how the heck are owners supposed to ensure cats stay on their property?

> Otherwise how the heck are owners supposed to ensure cats stay on their property?

Sounds like that's their problem to figure out, and I think that's right. I would 1000 times rather have more birds at my feeders than the neighbor's cat pooping in my yard, hunting birds and bothering my dog.

Let them put in a good fence, electric collar, leash with one of those zip line things - whatever they have to do.

Reasonable. I like cats well enough, but I find that cat owners are usually very irrational about people disliking other people's cats causing issues, especially compared to dog owners. I don't really understand why.

Dogs are easier to train and control than cats. A dog being a menace outside can be put on a leash. That's not always an option for a cat, which in practice means the cat owner knowing the only option is to confine their cat indoors. Which many don't want to do. (Mine gets semi-supervised time outside. I put a GPS collar on him from time to time, however, and he doesn't go far and comes back quite quickly. He's also seventeen and so past his most urgent hunting days, though we did have an issue with him letting in an elk last winter.)

Cats are like us. They don't give a fuck and consider the planet their private resort. It's what I like about them.

On the other hand, assuming you are in North America or Europe in a typical urban or suburban environment, somewhere around 30-60% of the bird species in your area will be non-native.

At bird feeders the percentage of individual visitors that are non-native is often much higher. The non-natives tend to be more generalist eaters, whereas the native specifies tend to stick more to their native diet which isn't as well served by most feeders.

By drawing in these generalist non-natives feeders tend to actually displace native birds from the surrounding area.

That's why when I was feeding birds I didn't really worry about cats getting into my yard. I couldn't think of a way to make a good argument that the line of how much harm it is OK to do to the native environment for your enjoyment is somewhere between the harm feeding non-native birds does and the harm the neighborhood cats do (especially since I've never seen a cat catch a bird in my yard).

Outdoor domestic cats should be illegal. They destroy the ecosystem. You should be thankful parent does not trap and kill the animals.

> You should be thankful parent does not trap and kill the animals.

you know how crazy you sound?

That’s genuinely what happens here.

what is genuinely what happens? stray cats are put down by animal control?

read the exchange in which i told someone they sounded crazy. understand it in context, and try to be less eager to blurt out your first reaction. god damn.

Your neighbors do not always share the same values towards invasive species as pets.

If you care about the environment you should not let your cat wander. If you don't care about that, you should not be surprised when others do.

capturing your neighbor's pets and killing them is a bit of serial killer behavior.

> Otherwise how the heck are owners supposed to ensure cats stay on their property?

I have an electric fence; cats sense it and avoid it. 20+ years without a cat getting off the property.

I didn't get an 'outside cat' that shits in my yard and kills my songbirds.

If you'd like that pleasure, you're welcome to it. You just don't get to inflict your particular masochist tendencies on your neighbors.

Your songbirds?

The irony of "control your animals" while referring to wild birds as "yours" is ... interesting.

is that the strongest argument you can add to the discussion? Grammar?

> Wording could be taken either way, and I could be wrong, but it almost sounds like the dog was not on the property of its owner, and was over the fence in the neighbours property?

The concept of being on ranch property gets a bit nebulous in Wyoming when you realize much private land is checkerboarded with blm land and the ranchers have long term blm grazing leases. The dog being outside the rancher's private property doesn't mean it's not out doing its job.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land)

One spring a bird built a nest in a tree outside my 80 yr old grandmother's kitchen window. She watched the nest every day and then the eggs hatched. The next day a neighbor's outdoor cat climbed the tree and killed all the baby birds. My grandmother complained to the neighbors but they didn't see what the problem was. Oh well.

The problem is that cats have trouble detecting which birds have backstories.

No need to guess…

> In Faith's case, Wissner said, the neighbor apparently didn't realize the fence line and property line weren't the same

They still could have called, and the shelter could have as well.

Definitely agree on that. First thing I do is look for a tag/number. Taking the dog to a shelter is like Russian roulette, dog may get euthanized if nobody shows up looking for it within ?? days.

It’s weird because it’s like a series of well meaning people that dropped the ball on what was the most obvious action to take.

> if one turns up on my property, I trap it and send it to the shelter specifically so the owner gets fined, even though I know who owns it.

I don’t know the full story here, but have you tried talking to your neighbor? Like, really tried in a way that takes their perspective seriously? Because what you’ve described here is essentially guaranteed to make the relationship worse and likely to cause other problems down the road. Heaven forbid you ever truly need this person’s help, you’re going to be in a tough spot.

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