Famous do-gooders need to pull their heads in

[fragger]

When I read about this I got so cranky that I had to vent, and since venting is what this part of the site is for, I'll do it here :-()

Famous animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot and ex-Smiths singer Morrisey have openly criticized the Australian government for its plan to cull 2 million feral cats in an effort to reduce the devastating effect these animals are having on native wildlife. Their comments on why we shouldn't do this are both so arrogantly imperious and astoundingly ignorant that I didn't know whether to laugh or scream.

Before I go on, here's a few facts to consider:

Due to the havoc feral cats have wreaked on small native animal populations, which have evolved with no defense against feline predators, no less than 27 species of native fauna have become extinct and another 124 species are endangered.

It is estimated that there are as many as 20 million feral cats on the loose in the wild, and on average each cat kills 5 animals per day. Do the math.

Feral cats are not your usual cute little household moggies. Having bred in the wild for decades, feral cats can be up to three times as large as a regular domestic cat and are incredibly vicious and aggressive. There have been a few instances where people have been attacked by one and seriously injured. Ask anyone who's tried to catch a feral cat just what's involved. To quote a National Parks & Wildlife ranger:

"When you have located a cat lover that wants to try to catch a feral, let me know. Knowing how vicious these things are, I would not attempt to catch one even wearing thick leather trousers, gloves and close to a bullet-proof vest. I would also wear a full face motorbike helmet. But to watch some nitwit wearing shorts standing in knee high grass trying to catch one would have me/us rolling around laughing our guts out. Just the visualization on this has me laughing" [sic].

Ms. Bardot believes that a more "humane" approach would be to catch and de-sex the cats. Uh, yeah, OK... let's search 7,692,000 square kilometres of land to find and catch 20,000,000 cats, neuter them all, then release them back into the wild to get on with their killing. Does BB have the vaguest idea of how long that would take, and how much it would cost, even if it were remotely doable? This ain't France, honey. It's a tad bigger and somewhat less inhabited.

The enlightened Ms. Bardot continues:

"This animal genocide is inhumane and ridiculous. In addition to being cruel, killing these cats is absolutely useless since the rest of them will keep breeding. Your country is sullied by the blood of millions of innocent animals [WTF?] so please, don't add cats to this morbid record".

This comment spans so many levels of stupid that it boggles my mind. So is she saying:

Let the cats live and keep breeding, so instead of 20m we'll have a 100m in a few decades?
It's wrong for humans to sully our country with animal blood but it's fine to stand back and let wild cats do it?
If we de-sex all feral cats, well sure, they'll die out in another 15 years or so, along with potentially around 150 species of native wildlife, but she's OK with that?
A human killing a cat is cruel, but a cat toying with a terrified, helpless little bandicoot before finally killing it is cute?
Preserving cats takes precedence over an entire ecosystem?

And what the frack is "animal genocide"? An entire generation of humans wiped out by animals? Someone get this woman a dictionary.

I would think that an animal-rights activist would be concerned with the protection of all animals, not just the ones she/he has a fondness for, and bugger the rest of them. Plus I find a comment from someone whose own country helped to practically wipe out the American beaver population in the 17th-18th centuries a tad rich. BB may also like to consider that the life of a feral cat in Oz is miserable in the extreme - filthy, plagued by ticks, mites and flies, bitten by venomous wildlife and suffering an excruciating death, covered in wounds and sores, fur matted to the point where every move causes pain and discomfort, succumbing to any number of crippling diseases... If I were a feral cat I think I'd be begging for a bullet.

On to the other know-it-all. Morrisey has branded the planned cull as "idiocy" and says that feral cats are "smaller versions of Cecil the lion". He also labels the Australian government as "a committee of sheep-farmers who have zero concerns about animal welfare or animal respect".

Doesn't it occur to this dickhead that maybe it is out of deep concern for native animal welfare that this cull is being planned? Or is it that Aussie animals are largely an unknown quantity to him which makes them lesser forms of life than his beloved cats and thus beneath consideration? And by the way M, lions are indigenous to Africa, feral cats are not indigenous to Oz. Someone get this man an atlas (and jump-start at least one of the dormant nine-tenths of his punked-out brain).

I'd like to knock these celebrity blowhards right off their high horses and not let them climb back up until they've educated themselves about whatever it is they want to activate about. I'm sick to death of famous ignoramuses telling us how we should be running our affairs and demonstrating their dim knowledge of actualities in the process. The Australian government has actually taken the time to write back to these two in an attempt to explain why the cull needs to go ahead. If it was up to me, I wouldn't have dignified the daft comments from those two with a response. We're not answerable to them, and it's none of their damned business anyway.

Really though, the culling should begin with the ratbags who allow these animals to go feral in the first place I too am a lover of animals. I may be a dog guy and not a cat guy, but I still have a love of cats. I think they're beautiful animals even though they're not for me. I certainly don't want to see them killed, but we're talking about avoiding the potential destruction of an entire ecosystem. The ownership of any animal comes with responsibility, and those who allow animals to go feral should be slapped with the stiffest penalties possible, then made to go out and get the s#!t clawed out of them trying to recapture some of the ferals they've helped to breed.

Incidentally, the NP&W ranger quoted above had a great idea: Let's capture as many feral cats as possible, crate them up, ship them to Mr. Morrisey and Ms. Bardot and let them deal with the problem, since they're apparently such great authorities on the matter. We'd better ship them a few crates of bandages, tetanus shots, antiseptics and body armour too - they're gonna need them.

[mandru]

Protecting the native species has to come first.

The loudest voices in almost any disagreement usually turn out to have the least actual vested interest in the outcome.  You can see that behavior among drunks in any bar when an argument breaks out.  I do believe these two yammerheads opinions would change after the first thousand or so of your Aussie ferals get chucked in over the wall of their compounds uninvited.  Let the two geniuses figure out their own protective gear.

Better yet invite them to step out of their isolated bubbles and fly on down to gather up as many Kitties as they care to cart away.  They'd quickly see the error of their ways once they had to do something more involved and strenuous than shooting their mouths off.

[PZ]

Perhaps those two fools appreciate the Africanized bees in the Americas.

You can't fix stupid, and it is a pathetic statement on the intelligence of the media fools that those morons give celebrity idiots any exposure.

[Art Blade]

I think most people consider it to be OK to lend a beautiful face (young BB) to a movement (animal rights) to make it more sexually appeal-- err, scratch that, err.. to make it more appealing. Or is it indeed the sexual thing that all of this is about? Why only good-looking models, musicians and actresses? OK, M must have got confused when he signed up.. perhaps his rocker quiff is just the right little something for the gay community so they can join the cheering crowd. People like to look at the face and/or body and admire it while they forget about the movement (hey, not pelvis movement) it is representing. Like Kristy Turlington who had herself portrayed nude and a headline above her stating, "I'd rather go naked than wear fur." She's more beautiful naked, so who cares about the missing fur on her body anyway. Or Gisele Bündchen, naked, to protect the rain forest. f@#k the forest, we just want to see tits. We can still pretend we're completely in for the movement. Oh, I said "lend a beautiful face" -- we never said they were supposed to talk.

Oops. Was that too straightforward? :-D

[mandru]

Heh heh, you got my vote of agreement Art.  :-X


Can't fix stupid?  :D

(Sorry if off topic but I needed to address that sentiment.  :-\\ )

Why is it that the very loudest worshipers at the church of Darwinian Evolution are the same buffoons who insist on being protected by stricter and stricter over reaching behavioral laws that attempt to keep idiots from weeding themselves out of the gene pool?

For me personally (for those of you who know me) even I have no argument with the concept of evolution.  I was after all born with a mind that observes, thinks and forms opinions based on all that I am and all that I encounter.

The only reason I can think of for law makers insisting on protecting the genuinely stupid is that the world Leaders/Rulers fear an eventuality where the human race actually achieves a next step in a higher level of intelligence paired with heightened wisdom leading to a more enlightened awareness of the human condition.  That's far to frightening of a thought for established authority to ever want to face.  I've read a lot of science fiction where the governing powers fight to stamp out a wave of spontaneous births of children clearly in the next level of human evolutionary development (I like to call them Homonovos (Novo = Latin  "from the beginning," "afresh," "anew," "beginning again."))

OKAY, so we won't see anything as far reaching as a new species of human but that next "step up" would be a desirable landmark for our species to reach.

Any leap in species awareness (I think) would be a step similar to the one where many of us realized that the concept of owning another human in the face of all reason, is an abhorrence.  That's a wrongness that must always be challenged.  Slavery, bondage, mining companies that paid chronically in debt workers with script that could only be spent on company provided housing and in The Company Store, etc...  The song "I Owe my Soul to the Company Store" comes to mind for me as my maternal grandfather worked under those terms and conditions for many years.

Protecting chaos inducing morons seems to be useful towards keeping those in power at the top of the food chain.

[Art Blade]

heh heh, spot on, mandru :-D

Let the most brutal ones fight their way to the top and let the most unscrupulous ones help them by charming their way up through the ranks of idiots who follow and obey in awe and fear, then allow them to wipe out any sign of intelligent opposition by an overwhelmingly brute force of the mindless.. let's go tribal again and embrace those strong leaders that are so mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence that we will finally reach the grand stage of the good old Dark Ages again. Who needs wisdom and science when a feral roar and swinging a massive gnarly club is enough to make it to the top.. let's burn all those witches and crucify those bloody heathens.. GROAR!! WE ARE ANIMALS!

Alright. Maybe not yet..

[PZ]

 :-X

[mandru]

A few minutes ago a TV show I was watching made reference to two conceptual terms that I thought really lent themselves to these two self-important celebrities* who have taken it on themselves to tell the government of an entire continent how they should protect the native species of their country.

The first is Fatal Conceit coined by philosopher Friedrich Hayek.
The second is Tyranny of Experts coined by development economist William Easterly.

Both of these conditions arise when those who see themselves as elite seek to lead or impose their opinion into action fall under the erroneous mindset that the average person is to stupid and evil to be able to make their own choices and lifestyle decisions but those who seek to lead or impose their opinion into action are so pure hearted, moral, and highly intelligent that it only make sense the masses should gratefully accept their lead and fall into line behind them.


*(In a humorous aside I misspelled celebrities and when I Rt clicked to auto-correct "Huckleberries" was one of the selectable options and I really had to fight with myself to not chose that equally appropriate option for these two boneheads)

[fragger]

I love these' responses from you guys :-X I couldn't agree more with you all.

lol "Huckleberries" You should have run with that mandru :-() The terms "Fatal Conceit" and "Tyranny of Experts" fit those people perfectly.

I'm reminded of the time Meryl Streep came to Australia to appear in the film "Evil Angels", in which she played the part of a woman named Lindy Chamberlain. A quick background story if you're not familiar with it: Back in 1980, Lindy, husband Michael and their kids including nine-week-old baby Azaria, went for a camping trip to Uluru (who takes a nine-week-old on a desert camping trip?) They weren't in some isolated location or anything, they were in a popular and well-appointed public campsite with amenities. Azaria disappeared one night and Lindy claimed she had been taken from their tent by a dingo while the rest of the family was having a BBQ. There were a lot of other people around and nobody actually saw what happened. Nothing was ever found of the baby, although some of the baby's alleged clothing turned up in 1986 under somewhat odd circumstances - namely, it was found in an area that had already been searched repeatedly years before. Lindy was at one point charged with the baby's murder and did three years in prison before her conviction was overturned - not because she was proven innocent beyond doubt, but because it was determined that the evidence presented was in fact insufficient to justify her tenure in prison.

Eight years after the event, a movie of this incident was made and Meryl Streep was cast as Lindy (why not an Aussie actress I don't know - I guess to ensure good box-office returns in the U.S.). Streep had never even heard of this case before she was approached to take on the role, and when she arrived here, what was the extent of her research?  Spending a whole one and a half hours talking with Lindy Chamberlain.

Bear in mind that this was after five years' worth of investigations and several Royal Commissions. There was (and still is) dubiously ambiguous evidence, inconsistencies in key witness' testimonies, and the fact that nobody saw anything untoward happen, let alone a dingo carrying a baby away. The reality is that to this day nobody really knows whether a dingo took the baby, or if not, what actually happened. Maybe the dingo scenario is correct, and to be fair, what evidence there is does lean that way (although it's still far from conclusive) but nobody knows for sure, and certainly nobody knew for sure in 1988 when the film was made.

The whole affair is still largely a mystery, and the body of proof pretty much amounts to Lindy Chamberlain's word for what happened. But along comes Ms. Streep and after less than two hours talking to Chamberlain, she made up her mind that Lindy was telling the truth (actors are never gullible or easily taken in, are they? ::))

Streep was entitled to her opinion. What she was not entitled to was to make a public declaration that all Australians should be ashamed of themselves for allowing Chamberlain to be wrongly convicted (hello Meryl, the entire population did not band together to determine Lindy's guilt, nor is it up to the general public to allow or disallow someone's sentence. What were we supposed to do - spring Lindy from prison?) She spoke with none of the investigators, police or forensic people and did little or no research, other than talk with the one-time prime suspect on the day she arrived. On the strength of that one short dialogue, and on the very next day, she took it upon herself to very publicly put the entire population on trial, found us all guilty, and sentenced us all.

To this day I haven't seen that film, and I will never watch it, nor any of Streep's films, on principle.

[Binnatics]

 ^-^ :-X

Leaves us one question; what to do with the stupid?

[mandru]

I don't know I'm not an expert (though I may pretend at times to be one).  Maybe the best way to handle stupid is with a mosh pit sort of approach.

When one of them comes reeling towards you just give them a sharp push so they and the chaos that surrounds them veer off in another direction.  Otherwise leave them alone to discover whatever happiness they can in life.

[Art Blade]

Japanese proverb: "Unless an idiot dies, he won't be cured."

Commonly known as "you can't fix stupid"

..not even with duct tape.. but you can accidentally back over it with your car :-D

[fragger]

 

"Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain" - Friedrich Schiller.

[Binnatics]

When one of them comes reeling towards you just give them a sharp push so they and the chaos that surrounds them veer off in another direction.  Otherwise leave them alone to discover whatever happiness they can in life.

I think you ARE and expert Mandru :) :-X

+1 for this wonderful approach of stupidity.

[mandru]

Thanks Binn.  :)

[fragger]

You are wise, mandru :)

[mandru]

OK fragger, I've been giving the feral cat situation there some serious consideration and I think I may have hit on an idea.

First off let's get the thought that I'm a cat hater out of the way. Skippable off topic personal story

Several years ago Mrs. mandru after years of hearing me opine over feeling seriously deficient of quality cat time (calms the nerves, lowers blood pressure, etc...  ;) ).  She secretly cleared it with our landlord to be able to surprise me Christmas morning with an IOU card promising me a cat.

(She likes IOU cards as gifts.  I got my Colt .45 through the same avenue.  That way I get to pick for myself and only have myself to blame if I make a poor choice.  )

We went to the local Humane Society adoption center so that I could choose from a fairly wide selection of perfectly good cats that no one else wanted.

I didn't want to make a snap decision so we toured the available adoptees to make note of the individual cats and gather first impressions of each of them that caught my attention.  Then we went home and I slept on it.  There was one forerunner that stood out.  He was a lovely Siamese that considering the conditions was was composed, serene, and friendly.  Most Siamese in that sort of situation would be screaming their bloody lungs out or go catatonic and listless so he impressed me.

I'd commented Mrs. mandru that "If I pick that Siamese I'll need to name him General Sum Ping."
"General Sum Ping? Why would you call him that? "
"Well I have to call him Sum-ping." (some-thing)  ^-^

The next day we returned to the adoption center.  I had my short list of favorites with the Siamese at the top so I planned on visiting him first.  I had planned to give a second look to the each of other cats on the list as well but as I was making my way around the bank of stacked cages looking for the Siamese another one of the candidates on the list reached out of his cage and snagged the sleeve of my jacket.

He's an intricately marked tobacco & black tabby whom I suspect was from a breeder working with mixing jungle cat into their breeding stock but as a runt of the litter he failed to make the cut and was neutered and sold as a non-breeding pet.  While I don't know his actual history I would guess he was first placed with a family and one thing led to another.  He arrived in our home fully cat box trained and craving human companionship (on his terms of course) though I suspect that his previous owners (because of his inability to know when in play it's time to put the claws away) his less experienced previous owners surrendered him to animal control which in turn led to him having the tip of his left ear clipped flat and being placed in a feral cat colony for rodent and pest control outside of the city.  I suspect that he didn't put up with those conditions for very long and wandered away from the feral colony which when recaptured bought him to the animal shelter where he targeted a mark, reached out and snagged my arm.

I never made it to the rest of the list.  Several years later as constant companions neither of us have any regrets.

*TL;DR - My Boeuf (French for beef- he's small but stocky  ;) ) was a feral who lucked out for both of us. *

If the feral cat problem in Australia could be marketed as a national campaign to "Save the Native Species!" it could be placed in the Australian's mind set that it is patriotic to wear hat bands or other appropriate fashion accessories made from Feral Feline Fur.  It would have to be certified "Authentic" and branded as "Feral Apparel" guaranteed to be actual wild caught by State approved licensed trappers collecting from feral sources so that there's no possibility of black market cheating by stealing peoples' pets off the porch to line their pockets.  Bounty per head and bonus for marketable fur.

I would bet establishing those conditions would knock the problem well into shape ahead of the 2020 project date.


As to responding to the two celebrity corn cobs in the first post of this thread (and any others who opt to emulate their protests).  That's easy.

Australians more than anywhere else I suspect are fully capable of firing back with "Bugger off! You ain't the boss of us!"

[fragger]

 

Practically all of the responses from readers of the news story consisted of words to that effect :-() Practically - there were a few who sided with the corn cobs, but their voices were pretty much drowned out.

Fine idea you came up with, mandru :-X Why can't people in the right positions come up with ideas like that? Oh, right...