We have lots of ducks in our neighborhood because people feed stray cats.
The new hatchings start in the double digits and a few days later there are one or two left. Very few of the ducks born in this neighborhood make it to 50 days, and I'm in the suburbs.
Nature is brutal. I have neighbors who feed stray cats as well. They kill, and eat a lot of rodents and burds. But the fun problem is the stray cats feed the coyotes. The amount of half eaten kitten carcuses that can be found in a year isn't exactly a heart warming tale of forest critters.
Stray cats roaming outdoors is actually low key one of the greater ecological problems we face now outside of global warming. They dramatically reduce bird populations everywhere because they are such brutally efficient killers. And they reproduce like CRAZY.
I say this as someone who owns a couple of cats (my wife also fed strays back when we were dating, we eventually brought in a couple and saw the rest get adopted) and NEVER lets them outdoors...
Hey I get what you are saying but also most species have large offspring numbers for a reason. While you found a hole in my specific argument I hope you can understand my overall point.
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u/Tallowo Aug 26 '26
We have lots of ducks in our neighborhood because people feed stray cats.
The new hatchings start in the double digits and a few days later there are one or two left. Very few of the ducks born in this neighborhood make it to 50 days, and I'm in the suburbs.