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from the dogs-have-family-cats-have-staff dept.
People who live with cats like to joke about how these small fuzzy creatures are still wild, basically training us rather than the other way around. Now a new genetic study of ancient cat DNA reveals that we are basically right. Cats were not domesticated in the same way dogs, cows, pigs, and goats were. They have lived among us, but it wasn't until very recently that we began to change them.
Unlike dogs, whose bodies and temperaments have transformed radically during the roughly 30,000 years we've lived with them, domestic cats are almost identical to their wild counterparts—physically and genetically. House cats also show none of the typical signs of animal domestication, such as infantilization of facial features, decreased tooth size, and docility. Wildcats are neither social nor hierarchical, which also makes them hard to integrate into human communities.
Yet it's impossible to deny that cats are tame. We know that humans have lived with cats for at least 10,000 years—there's a 9,500-year-old grave in Cyprus with a cat buried alongside its human, and ancient Egyptian art has a popular motif showing house cats eating fish under chairs. Today, cats still share our homes and food, and for thousands of years they have worked alongside farmers and sailors to eradicate vermin. If we haven't domesticated cats, what exactly have we done to them?
Related:
Ancient Egyptians may have given cats the personality to conquer the world
The palaeogenetics of cat dispersal in the ancient world
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @09:00PM (1 child)
While I understand that there are times when wild animal populations must be culled you do come off as a sick motherfucker. Especially if they are domesticated cats you should trap them and take them to the local shelter. At the very least they won't die in as much agony and fear when you can't make a clean shot.
From your phrasing it sounds like you enjoy it, so yes you probably are a sick person getting jollies through physical violence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @01:12AM
You know, given the choice between a gutshot cat's agony and fear, or my chickens' agony and fear when an unshot cat takes one of them, I'd go with the cat. But I do my sick motherfuckery best to kill cleanly, and I do have a pretty good record of achieving it. (For whatever an internet boast is worth.)
I do wonder how a post so critical of those who drop off their unwanted cats "to starve or be shot" suggests that I enjoy it (surely I wouldn't want to dissuade anyone and miss my chance to shoot even more confused, abandoned drop-offs), but I'm sure that just shows I really like slimy shit.
But you know... What the fuck, I'll be honest here. I do enjoy it -- I take the same pride as anyone in a shot well made, whether the target is steel, paper, or flesh, and I take satisfaction in having made the world a little safer for the animals under my protection. Taking the life of an animal, even a cat, doesn't contribute any enjoyment, but it doesn't negate the enjoyable aspects, either. If there's one thing about shooting a drop-off that does bring me down a bit, it's knowing I'll never get to sock the damned owner one.
But of course, I'm the sick motherfucker, not the guy who drops Fluffy in a ditch somewhere. My desire to punch that fine specimen of humanity only confirms what a horrible sadist I am.