• Nalivai@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Cats originated in Egypt and spread across the world basically by humans. So unless you’re in Egypt, cats aren’t native to your ecosystem.

    • Tiefkuehlkost@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      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.

        • Iceblade@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          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

        • Tiefkuehlkost@feddit.org
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          14 hours ago

          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.