...lizards, and other beneficial animals and now this.

Cats are destructive.

Sorry cat lovers.

Some people just hate cats.

You don't want them in your yard, pooping just like the birds, the bunnies, the raccoons, and all the other wildlife. You don't want them eating the birds just like the Cooper's hawks, kestrels, and other raptor and mammalian predators already in your back yard.

Every animal has its parasites, diseases, etc. that affects something else. Big whoop. Cats aren't more of a problem than any other animal out in the environment.

That said, it's disingenuous to blame just cats for the loss of songbirds rather than also placing the blame on loss of habitat through construction, diversion, and other human actions as well as on predation by other nonnative species.

Next

Beluga whales don't eat cats. Don't even have anything to do with cats.

I'll bet those whales have been harbouring those parasites for decades and people just didn't know it.

Cats can carry the parasite sometimes in their feces but it is also found in raw meat.

cats are the only animals it can sexually reproduce in. It can infect and asexually reproduce in pretty much anything with warm blood.

Even if cats ceased to exist, the stuff would keep spreading between predators and prey and through contaminated water.

Who knows how it got to the whales. Rats off a ship? Someone on a ship with an infected cat chucking a litterbox overboard?

In our country alone, 60 million people are infected with Toxoplasmosis. That's almost 20% of the US population. We're the ones dumping our crap into the water, whether off ships or down water channels laden with our ever increasing fecal products. So quit blaming the rats and the cats. WE are the problem.

http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/toxoplasmosis/gen_info/faqs.html

This parasite specifically evolved to take advantage of rats and cats. This is the one that makes rats attracted to cat urine so it can get into a cat, because getting in a cat is the only way it can sexually reproduce.

It spreads by oocysts in fecal matter (Which only come from cats) and eating infected tissue (zoitocysts).

People got it from eating animals that weren't cooked well enough and from contaminated cat fecal matter.

Found worldwide, T. gondii is capable of infecting virtually all warm-blooded animals.[2] In humans, it is one of the most common parasites;[3] serological studies estimate that up to a third of the global population has been exposed to and may be chronically infected with T. gondii, although infection rates differ significantly from country to country.[4] Although mild, flu-like symptoms occasionally occur during the first few weeks following exposure, infection with T. gondii generally produces no symptoms in healthy human adults.[5][6] However, in infants, HIV/AIDS patients, and others with weakened immunity, infection can cause serious and occasionally fatal illness (toxoplasmosis).[5][6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii

Parasite causes humans to cuddle, feed, and take care of cats. Had it all my life, as well as lots of cats.

Can whales keep cats?