The intolerant and unreasonable humans

I’d like to share a story by a friend recently:

There is this colony of cats in my neighborhood here. This area used to be bare land, and the colony was already here. Over the years, some people dumped their cats here as well. I was told that there were about 20 cats many years back. Then the developer built the building I am living in, and a small park next to it. The cats continued to live here (where else were they going to go?) and humans moved in. Many things happened in the past years or so, with residents complaining about the cats and feeders standing up for them. The cats were actually all neutered by the feeders so the population was controlled.

Right now, there is only one cat left. People moved in, moved out. The neutering actually succeeded in controlling the population and that is good. But very few people know the history of this colony. What they DO know, is that “there is a stray cat that sometimes comes into OUR park. OUR area. So there has been multiple complaints from residents against the cat (ONE CAT, mind you), and management has tried many ways to stop the cat from entering OUR area.

OUR area? Excuse me, the cats were here first. Who says it’s YOUR area?

So I keep an eye on the cat, together with some other feeders. This is a building with many apartments. Hardly anybody uses the park except for foreign maids who congregate there on their days off. Yet, some people cannot stand having ONE CAT in such a big park. And by the way, the cat is very skittish and usually runs away from people that he is not familiar with, so he doesn’t even disturb any one!

We don’t know what else those cat haters would do. We can only continue to monitor and observe. But that goes to show you how unreasonable and illogical and evil humans can be. Sigh.

Isn’t this a familiar story?

It is, isn’t it? I live amongst unreasonable animal-haters too. And sometimes my patience also wears thin.

To the people who complain about the existence of street animals in “our” environment. You want to blame someone? Blame your own ancestors.

They were the ones who domesticated the animals for selfish reasons (using dogs as guards and cats as rat-catchers); they were the ones who left food scraps behind when they led nomadic lifestyles and these food scraps attracted the animals out from the jungle. Or, they were the ones who decided they needed companions and animals were definitely more loyal friends than humans.

That is how the wolves and wild cats evolved over thousands of years to be the dogs and cats who live amongst us now.

So, you want to blame someone? There, do some research and go blame your own (human) ancestors.

Do NOT blame the animals. Its is NOT their fault.

And please do not expect the animals to understand that that piece of land “belongs” to you and that they aren’t supposed to go in. Do not expect animals not to urinate or defecate wherever their instincts tell them to; they do not the concept of “public toilets”. Do not expect a cat not to scratch at your car tyres or sit atop your cars – it is their natural behaviour.

Do not be unreasonable. Do not be foolish.

In my neighbourhood, the poor civet cats (musang) often get blamed for many things too, and without proof as well. And why are the civet cats here? It is only because we cleared the land to build our concrete homes and by doing so, we destroyed their natural habitat. So whose fault is it? It’s ours, isn’t it? The civet cats are not dangerous to humans. They just want to live peacefully and find food, which is mostly fruits.

Live and let live. The earth doesn’t only belong to humans. The animals were here first.