Peppermint Patti
For all the adorable images of cats that play the piano, flush the toilet, mew melodiously and find their way back home over hundreds of miles, scientists have identified a shocking new truth: cats are far deadlier than anyone realized.
The New York Times, January 29, 2013
By Peppermint Patti
What a relief, Sophie! We got off scot-free!
Geniuses at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have figured out that cats kill animals!
Ain’t that something?
And glory of glories, they left us dogs alone!
Whew!
What a relief, Sophie. Whatever they call those nasty things* that come out of the two-leggers’ bang-sticks, we dodged a big one.
If they knew what I — a lone wag-tail** — accomplished last summer in the way of rodenticide!
Let us just say, without specificity, that I knocked off some fluff-butts.***
Leave it at that, before the Smithsonian comes around checking.
What’s that?
Those scientists don’t actually count?
Yes, okay Sophie, I admit to two, as in 2, confirmed cotton-butt kills.
According to my two-legger.
Hah! I will gladly confirm two dead and leave it at that.
Nothing more delicious than fresh, raw fluff-butt, Sophie, as well you know.
Since you’re into outing me on fluff-tail mortality, Sophie, am I mistaken, or did I hear you ponderous black Labs brakking**** about feasting on whole extended families of fluff-tusches?
All of which is by way of preamble as I meander to my point: What did the Smithsonian and F & W folks actually count?
Oh, the numbers are eye-catching enough:
“2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat,” according to the Times.
Them’s a lot of sparrows and voles, Sophie.
Did you note the latent racism, Sophie?
I feel sorry for the poor Norway rat. His or her only sin was being brought to this country by two-leggers. What choice did the poor rat have?
What’s so great about “native” shrews, chipmunks and voles that they rate higher on the scale of conservation than the lowly Norway rat?
Do we need green cards for rats?
Shhh, Sophie — how many of us wag-butts are actually native to America?
And what about mice? Why no mention of mice?
Prejudice, Sophie. Two-leggers are always downgrading each other, and they do the same thing to us animals. Nothing we can do. Racism. Defect of the species.
Here’s the clincher, Sophie: How many of those billions of dead birds and mammals did the geniuses count?
How many shrew and vole and chipmunk corpses did they handle?
Zero!
Did they account for native vs. non-native species? Do we care how many sparrows got offed, given that they immigrated from Limey-land*****?
Those self-styled scientists made a computer model of other people’s body counts.
Except that the other people did not count corpses, either.
Nobody counted!
A model of models.
My study is better, Sophie.
I counted to two.
Let them guess the rest.
Editor’s note:
* It appears that Patti means “bullet.”
** Wag-tail = dog
*** Fluff-butt = rabbit
**** Brakking = bark bragging
***** Limey-land — England would appear to be the reference here.
