Reply #15: I see your point [View All]

[sybylla]

But I would speculate that a fourth or fifth generation farmer may not know or understand the point in having cats on a farm. I would also speculate that if cats were all taken away, within a year or to at most, many of those farmers would be singing a different tune.

Just a few examples why:

- my dad has a kennel at his rural home. He is surrounded by crop fields. He has to routinely place rat and mouse poison in the kennel or before long his dogs are losing their food and their health to the rodents. And when I say rats, I'm not talking skinny lab rats. We're talking 18" nose to tail. It's more of a problem in the winter when there is little to eat in the fields. And of course he has to be careful what kind of poison he gets or the rodents will share it with the dogs, leaving them sick or dead as well.

- at my country house surrounded on all sides by fields for at least a quarter mile, I have small animals and kids at my house so I don't use poison for mice. I have cats. Now, I still have to put out traps in fall to catch the rush indoors but most years I trap between 5 and 10 mice. That's over a twelve month period even with cats who regularly leave me evidence of their successes as well. The late summer and fall of 2003 ended horribly dry here. It was the first time I ever saw farmers plow corn fields into dust. There was no moisture in the ground for more than the depth of the plow. Last year, from August to February, we trapped more than 50 mice. I stopped counting at 32 in November and there were some weeks we were getting more than two a day. The ground was too dry to support them for the winter and the poor things had to go somewhere. Now I don't even have anything to draw them to my house except warmth. But my farming neighbors store grain and hay all year, if you catch my drift. I bet they were pretty grateful for their farm cats and terrier pooch.

- I am descended from farmers in different parts of this state who had (or in some cases tolerated) cats on their farm for the sole purpose of control of the rodent population. I have several relatives now in different regions of this state who continue to farm and maintain a healthy cat population and I am surrounded by neighbors who do the same. I married a farm boy who says the same is true for his family farms.

I suspect these people would laugh and shake their head at the conclusion this biologist reached. My experience so heavily contradicts the research of the conservation biologist that I'm sure you understand why I can't agree with it without much more corroboration.

Thank you for your contributions to the dialogue as well. I appreciate the chance to exchange ideas and if nothing else, I've proved it's dangerous to give a Democrat a soapbox and invite them to use it. :hi: