u/IArgead

I need to preface this by saying that I do not hate cats. I have never owned a cat, but I have family members who do, and for the most part they have been loving and wonderful animals (except for my cousin's first cat Cinderella, who was an asshole. Literally every other cat she's had has been lovely)

But I live in an area of the world where, just like every other, feral and "outdoor" cats are a major issue. I see them prowling around every day -- I hear them fighting at night, and I see the consequences of their introduction in the corpses they leave behind.

Domestic cats kill, by the estimates of recent study, literal billions of native mammals and birds yearly in the United States alone. This is not even considering their impacts on reptile, amphibian, or invertebrate populations, which are generally poorly studied and understood. They are the number one human-caused driver of biodiversity loss we are aware of.

And yet, we do nothing about it. We let them roam free and any attempt to stop them is seen as fundamentally inhumane and immoral. Any attempt to get cat owners to keep their animals inside, like literally every other pet, is rejected as unnatural. It annoys the fuck out of me.

These cats are unadoptable and even if there were, there are literally not enough households which would take them in. Catch-and-release sterilization has been tried and it is entirely uneffective and cost-prohibitive. I do not like the idea of killing any animal, big or small, but when given the choice between our native animals and the cats we introduced through carelessness and negligence, I choose them.

So we should be exterminating feral and "outdoor" cats. We should fix the problem we created.

Don't get me wrong, if a female mosquito lands on me, I'm killing it -- the risk of disease is too high not to, but I think people need to stop pretending mosquitoes are these gross, vile, horrible things.

They have such cute little faces, stupid little eyes, fuzzy antennae... I love the way their legs curve when they land, their big feet, and the silly way they carry them underneath their bodies when they fly. They look so funny when they clean their proboscis!!! I dont understand how anyone can look at God's funniest little guy and go "omg Abomination!!!"

Again, I do not like them sucking blood and will not allow it, but I'm fascinated by their appearance and I think putting them in the same category as bedbugs or ticks is stupid. They're little guys too!!! Even Asian tiger mosquitoes -- I do not like them, but their stripes are so distinctive and awesome.

I am new to cycling long distance, and hunger for escape from my Long Island shackles, so I may ambush my girlfriend across the Sound without the use of a car. However, the accursed Throgs Neck, which I pay for the 'privilege' to suffer generally upon my visitation, has no lanes for anything but infernal machines of the Devil and extremely inconveniently timed construction.

Is there a way to escape Long Island without crossing through what we in this wretched place refer to simply as The City, despite it only being one part of such? Or am I doomed to never make such a trip without significant inconvenience?

Came back from a three-day trip to find one of my males (named Creep) curled up in an 'I'm very dead' pose on his back. Wouldn't move at all, freaked me out... until I tried my usual strategy when they do this, which is flipping them onto their fronts (sometimes difficult) and VERY LIGHTLY pressing on his back repeatedly. Eventually he just got up and walked away like nothing had happened.

I have no idea if this works for all beetles, but it works for all five of mine, so give it a whirl if for whatever reason they refuse to stop pretending to be dead!