New welder !

If you delete NY Times cookies you'll likely find the paywall goes away, I don't see it and can read the article fine.

Bob - you asked about cats re. bird population. As far as I know the problem is domestic cats. You have a cat - you will not have birds in your garden, where they used to be your delightful companion before. That is compounded here because of the density of population, so density of presence of domestic cats.

I worked in Turkey, where they do not (?) have domestic pets but do do have a lot of dogs and cats. They consider that the cities would be / would have been awash with rats and vermin without the dogs and cats. To this day they provide food for the dogs and cats. There is a health system for them. Dogs which have been "looked at" are ringed. The cats are used to humans and will leave their kittens with human hosts - eg. they will leave them in a box in an office workplace. Someone showed me he could pick up a sleeping kitten's paw and it wouldn't wake up.

We've seen a marked decrease in rodents of all types since we were adopted by some semi-feral cats . That's why we feed them to keep them around .

I don't have a cat here in the UK but plenty of my neighbours do and there are quite a lot of birds in my garden and other ones in the area even though the cats do come into my garden regularly. Maybe they prefer the rats, mice, and voles as easier pray.

hit a paywall and I ain't payin'

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RFK strongly opposes vaccines. I don't know enough about medicine to form a valid scientific opinion, I defer to a relative who was a senior researcher at CDC.

The politics of vaccine distrust are less one-sided than the media will admit:

As far as the covid vaccine , I've seen too much evidence of people dying from stuff that was almost nonexistent in the recent past . Other vaccines , well I've seen evidence of problems such as autism that were a lot less prevalent before many of them were in common usage . Not any "scientific evidence" , just empirical evidence of a possible causal link .

As far as the covid vaccine , I've seen too much evidence of people dying from stuff that was almost nonexistent in the recent past . Other vaccines , well I've seen evidence of problems such as autism that were a lot less prevalent before many of them were in common usage . Not any "scientific evidence" , just empirical evidence of a possible causal link . Snag

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In medicine it's extremely difficult and EXPEN$IVE to disprove an alleged cause and effect, especially a rare one, so the limited funding mostly goes to more productive efforts. That's why so many fad diets can persist. The COVID vaccine certainly does have a bad effect on some people, my sister for instance, but I believe without proof that her strong immune response was the culprit and the disease would have been much worse.

Here is an example of the uncertainty:

"However, there was no apparent difference in risk for women for any of these dietary groups."

A possible cause the study didn't mention checking for is the high temperature breakdown products of fats etc, as in rare, medium or well done. The prof warned us about carcinogenic PAHs (tar, char) in Chemistry class in the 1960's, and since then I've cook meat at lower temperature.

"Population studies have not established a definitive link between HCA and PAH exposure from cooked meats and cancer in humans. One difficulty with conducting such studies is that it can be difficult to determine the exact level of HCA and/or PAH exposure a person gets from cooked meats."

Beware of studies that find what they were paid to look for. Researchers who don't may risk unemployment.

If you want to go down a rabbit hole do some research on pthalates. One theory is that they fundamentally changed society today on a biological level. I am not making an argument here. Just pointing out the rabbit hole.

I could be mistaken of course, and since I don't live there its all hearsay to me. I had been lead to believe that the UK had a feral or semi feral domestic cat breed population that was the dominant predator due to the eradication historically of most if not all larger predators. That it was this not naturally checked population that had nearly eradicated song birds in the UK.

I could be mistaken of course, and since I don't live there its all hearsay to me. I had been lead to believe that the UK had a feral or semi feral domestic cat breed population that was the dominant predator due to the eradication historically of most if not all larger predators. That it was this not naturally checked population that had nearly eradicated song birds in the UK.

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I was curious.

I rather liked that first picture.

Having trapped fox (grey and kit) I suspect it may also be a matter of breed and opportunity. A healthy adult male kit fox would be sadly under powered against a healthy adult male tom cat, but a grey fox is larger and smarter. The thing is grey foxes are more wary and less populous, so unless you have a country kitty surrounded by fox treats the chance of an encounter is slim. I really know little or nothing of other fox breeds. That was a fun read Jim. Thanks.

I think this varies with location, I'm not aware of a feral cat population here in the south west of the UK but a friend lives near Huntingdon and there are quite a lot of feral cats around there which is apparently largely attributed to US service personnel in the area  abandoning their cats when they go home. Near me many years ago animal protestors broke into a local mink farm and let them free and that did decimate the local bird and small animal population for a while.

Mink (and other weasels) are certain very efficient killing machines. We had pet ferrets for a while back in the 90s, and when a much larger cat squared off with one that cat usually went crying for momma. There was a truce in our house between the ferrets and the cats. I watched them hunt. One ferret named McDuff had a passion for stuff animals. Teddy bears. We would periodically place a teddy bear in a difficult location to see how long it would take him to make the kill. I've seen McDuff make leaps that would astound a full grown cat. Ferrets are not known for their ability to jump. Why I do not know. Their bodies are like little springs. They bend in half and let go like a bow with a broken string.

No as I know of. The wild ancestor of the domestic cat still exists in far-out wilds in Scotland, apparently.

David - I am far down the West Country now. Anywhere near?

Near Bath, where are you.

Wow. I am very misinformed. I'd been lead to believe the oldest known direct ancestors of the modern domestic cat breeds were from Egypt. That seems to make sense to me since a native African Wildcat looks a lot like a domestic grey tabby.

Wow. I am very misinformed. I'd been lead to believe the oldest known direct ancestors of the modern domestic cat breeds were from Egypt. That seems to make sense to me since a native African Wildcat looks a lot like a domestic grey tabby. Bob La Londe

-------------------------- Apparently it's hard to be sure, because modern wild populations have interbred with domestic cats. Egypt has the advantage of very ancient records preserved on stone, while Scotland's written history doesn't go back far at all, for instance we don't know what the Picts (Latin for Painted, with woad and tattoos) called themselves, or what happened to them.

Pictish raiding caused the Britons to call on the Saxons of Germany for military aid after Rome declined, and the Saxons soon took over much of the island. King Arthur may have opposed them.

Near Truro, Camborne / Redruth