Noisy No More

This noisy miner is no longer noisy, its chirping call forever stilled by the action of one of my neighbours. A neighbour who apparently cares little for us or our environment. This lack of care is demonstrated by this sad sight, a dismal scene of scattered feathers seen in our park recently which once constituted a breathing, living, chirping noisy miner bird.

The morbid silence can only have been caused by a neighbours disregard for this poor birds life. In this locality devoid of predatory animals, one of the most evolved hunting beasts has been let loose. A cat. My neighbours cat. My neighbour who presumably cares little for the beauty of the natural environment that we are fortunate to inhabit, a beauty enriched by the sound of birds who grace us with their presence.

As for myself, I love cats. I have shared most of my life with a variety of cats who have brightened my life with constant affection. Our current companion is Millie whose distinctive arrival into our lives I have written about before on these pages. Millie was found abandoned on the streets and obviously survived through her innate hunting capability even as a kitten. However she is now restricted to a life solely indoors where her food, toiletry and companionship needs are completely catered for. Still she does at times express her desire to return to the outside life. But for the benefit of our environment, and indeed for Millie herself, we have decided that she needs to stay indoors.

Yes, it is for Millie’s benefit that we keep her indoors. Studies have shown that the life expectancy of domestic cats is greatly enhanced by living solely indoors. There are many articles available online that provide reasoned arguments on this topic and I have included a selection of links below to support this premise. It really comes down to this, we love our cat Millie and we don’t want any harm to come to her. The risks from an outdoor life include infection from fights with other cats, catching diseases from other wildlife, being run over by vehicles. As one writer put it, you wouldn’t let a toddler roam outside unsupervised. We also respect and appreciate our neighbours so we don’t want her fouling our neighbours yards either and we certainly don’t want her killing birds.

This poor noisy miner was killed by the actions of one of our neighbours who does not care about their cat nor about our community nor about our environment. To that neighbour I say, do us all a favour, keep your cat indoors.