Pigeons and kittens

[conuly]

Often, I hear people talking about how we need to get our cats fixed because kittens die young or are abandoned to overcrowded shelters, like a kitten-genocide. We need to keep the kittens and cats indoors because they get run over by cars, and die of disease. We need, even, to save feral cats who BY DEFINITION are very much wild animals.

This is all true. I have no argument with any of that.

Today, I fed the pigeons in the ferry. They crowded around the food like... well, like kittens. And some were plump and healthy looking, and some were scrawny and dirty. No doubt pigeons die from poor nutrition and cars as often as cats do. Cats kill pigeons, even, or they can. And no doubt baby pigeons die as quickly as kittens. Certainly *I've* never seen any young pigeons.

Pigeons, like cats, are smart and individual animals. But nobody goes out of their way to mount pigeon rescue efforts, or tries to save the poor homeless pigeons. I'm actually being dead serious here. This is going to trouble me until somebody explains why.

Comments

Re: hello random person I don't know...

[thelonetiel.livejournal.com]

There is something biological. Humans and other mammals are programmed to respond to anything "cute", defined as large head to body ration, large eyes, large foreheads, and jerky movements among other things, with strong maternal/paternal instincts. Pidgeons dont fall into that catagory. When people see kittens they automatically respond with parenting instincts and feel obligated to protect and care for them. We have no such instincts for birds, unless we "install" them ourselves by condition us. Its complicated...

It bugs me too Uly.

People keep cats as pets and see them as clean animals. Pidgeons are usually seen as wild creatures who are flithy and disgusting. They consider this a good reason to hate pidgeons. *shrugs*

So why is there such a difference? Because people are idiots, plain and simple.