George Perkins Marsh Institute, Clark University, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA, 01610, U.S.A.
Francisco Santiago-Ávila, Carnivore Coexistence Lab, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 70 Science Hall, 550 North Park Street, Madison, WI, 53706, U.S.A.
Conserv Biol. 2019 Aug;33(4):769-776. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13346. Epub 2019 Jun 3.
Some conservationists believe that free-ranging cats pose an enormous risk to biodiversity and public health and therefore should be eliminated from the landscape by any means necessary. They further claim that those who question the science or ethics behind their arguments are science deniers (merchants of doubt) seeking to mislead the public. As much as we share a commitment to conservation of biodiversity and wild nature, we believe these ideas are wrong and fuel an unwarranted moral panic over cats. Those who question the ecological or epidemiological status of cats are not science deniers, and it is a false analogy to compare them with corporate and right-wing special interests that perpetrate disinformation campaigns over issues, such as smoking and climate change. There are good conservation and public-health reasons and evidence to be skeptical that free-ranging cats constitute a disaster for biodiversity and human health in all circumstances. Further, there are significant and largely unaddressed ethical and policy issues (e.g., the ethics and efficacy of lethal management) relative to how people ought to value and coexist with cats and native wildlife. Society is better served by a collaborative approach to produce better scientific and ethical knowledge about free-ranging cats.
一些自然资源保护主义者认为，自由放养的猫对生物多样性和公共健康构成了巨大威胁，因此应通过任何必要的手段将其从景观中消除。他们进一步声称，那些质疑其论点背后的科学或伦理依据的人是科学否认者（质疑者），试图误导公众。尽管我们都致力于保护生物多样性和野生自然，但我们认为这些观点是错误的，并加剧了对猫的无端道德恐慌。那些质疑猫的生态或流行病学状况的人并不是科学否认者，将他们与在吸烟和气候变化等问题上传播虚假信息的企业和右翼特殊利益集团进行类比是错误的。在所有情况下，自由放养的猫是否对生物多样性和人类健康构成灾难，这是有充分的保护和公共卫生理由和证据值得怀疑的。此外，相对于人们应该如何重视和与猫及本地野生动物共存，还存在着重大且在很大程度上未得到解决的伦理和政策问题（例如，对猫进行致命管理的伦理和效果）。通过合作的方式来产生关于流浪猫的更好的科学和伦理知识，更有利于社会。
