this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2025
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Your right humans spread them as semi wild pets to protect they food stock from rodents but for Europe that where the romans over 2000 year ago, so i would not say that they are a new emerging existencial thread for the eco system here, if that was the case it would have long colapsed lol.
This is completely faulty logic not backed by reality or even a single source.
Here is some further reading:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cats-kill-a-staggering-number-of-species-across-the-world/
Do you think 2,000 years is a long time? About how long do you think extinction events usually take?
This isnt an extinction event caused by a slow climatic change or something, in some places on earth its an invasive species and if you look up how fast/slow they cause damage than its in the range of tens to hundreds, not thousands of years.
Long enough for ecosystems to change, adapt and form as well as for animals to evolve based on their new environment. Considering that there are already rats & cockroaches adapting to pesticides, both birds & pests are most certainly adapting to cats to some degree after the passage of thousands of years.
Obviously there may be a point in restricting cats in more insular habitats such as small islands, but for anybody on a major continent it is rather pointless. Furthermore, cats serve an important purpose in hunting pests that spread alongside humans, primarily rats and mice, both of which can have an even more disastrous effect on local ecosystems.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aam8327
Maybe you missed this link from above:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cats-kill-a-staggering-number-of-species-across-the-world/
What evidence do you have that it doesn't matter save for insular habitats? You're applying logic without having any sort of evidence -- you're spitballing as far as I can tell.
No, I didn't miss it. I responded to the OPs statement regarding the passage of time, highlighting that animals are already adapting and evolving in the face of urban and human-adjacent ecosystems, which cats have always been an integral part of.