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by FridayNightTV 1004 days ago
Amusingly, Scottish Wildcats are rare, going extinct because they are interbreeding with feral domestic cats.

Your very post (and Wikipedia link) undermines the argument you are tying to make.

1 comments

What point do you think I am trying to make, exactly? Native fauna is defined as animals which historically have naturally occurred in the local area [1], and wild cats are by definition native fauna in Scotland, and across much of Europe.

You are letting your very obvious personal bias determine your interpretation of what is an objective fact.

[1] https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/native-fauna#:~:text=N....

It's a faulty comparison, though. Domestic cats are by definition not the same as any native cat. They are domesticated animals, more equivalent to dogs, cows, and chickens.

So the discussion to have here is 'do we accept having domesticated animals in environments they didn't originate from'.

It is in no way a faulty comparison. We did not domesticate cats in the same way that we did dogs, cows or chickens [1]. Wild cats found human populations useful because they attracted rodents. Humans found cats useful because dealt with rodents. A mutually beneficial relationship lasting thousands of years during which time, cats essentially domesticated themselves.

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/domestica...

> domesticated themselves

... so they are domesticated and not native... ???

Whatever do you mean? Something being domesticated has no bearing on wether or not is it native to an area.
Domesticated animals are different species than native flora and fauna. The domestic cat is taxonomically and genetically not the same as a any wild cat. The same goes for dogs, cattle, etc.

By definition, domestic animals and plants have no native home except with humans. This is why we call domestic cats who escape and live in the wild "feral," not "wild," because a feral animal is specifically a domestic animal not living with humans, not a non-domestic native animal. It does not matter whether they 'domesticated themselves' or not, they are a domestic species and therefore not equatable with a wild one.

As a result, your point simply makes no sense. Domestic cats have no 'native lands' because they are not and cannot be 'native' anywhere except in human settlements.