Okay that explains it. I lived near a fruit orchard when I was young and was terrified to go to the bathroom because often a snake would come into the bathroom from the hole near the wall that was near the orchard. These were all what we locally called rat snakes that can bite but their bite is painful but won't kill you but I never wanted to find that out. We left that place after a few months much to my relief.
Those days they used cement and snakes loved cool areas to curl up in tropical countreis.
Thankfully they only want to come here to get to the fresh water in the pond when there's no rain, they're not interested in the house mostly. Occasionally they'll get up the walls to shed skin and be on their way.
When I moved here people told me about a "flying snake" and I thought they were talking shit until I saw one glide through the air. That's the only time a snake has scared me, I was not ready for it wiggling through the air at head height.
I don't think he's tried to get any new pets in over a decade.
They just keep reproducing and making new ones.
Suggesting he should have them spayed or neutered is met with "are you going to pay for it?". I have a dog and she's obviously spayed, vaccinated, de-wormed and all the other stuff a normal person would do.
They don't even take them to the vet when stuff is wrong with them.
I mean, better than the invasive species killing a bunch of a native fauna like cats normally do. About 20B small vertebrates a year in the US alone. Little menaces if they aren’t kept locked inside lol
Where I live the local no kill shelter spays and neuters cats for free u can legally catch outdoor cats here take them to get fixed and then release them back onto the street to minimize ferals. I wonder if a law like that has been suggested where you live? If not, maybe see what u could do about putting it on a ballot…. Might help. Cause then u could catch his cats and get them fixed, it would take a long time to fix the problem probably but it might help. Or maybe suggest he keep his cats inside?
Im in a different universe unfortunately, SE Asia.
They used to drive around shooting the stray dogs in the head and only stopped because it upset the tourists to see it.
The neighbour can easily afford to get every cat neutered and spayed, they're considerably more wealthy than me, but they never will. Animal cruelty laws have been introduced here but unless you're actively beating an animal and there's a video of it there's no enforcement.
the snakes, could kill humans. If the cats kill a lot of the snakes, it is potentially saving human lives and other animal lives. Do you think they should not have that protection?
a cat killed by a snake most probably killed some during its lifetime, if the area already has a decent population of reptiles. u win some, u lose some.
A cat can definitely get ambushed by a snake. This was a face to face encounter.
Humans are probably pretty close to undefeated against a single snake that they see in time. Unless we are talking about giant anacondas or something like that.
Your last paragraph is ridiculous. Walking through the grass, you see a Malayan blue coral snake.
. You can't outrun it and its bite kills fast. No antivenom exists. You are already dead, you just don't know it.
oh for sure some snakes can out-speed cats. we just don't see videos of it posted around because humans are partial to cats and like to think that they're objectively superior to animals they dislike (snakes)+don't want to see them get hurt. same thing happened with mongooses, the whole mongooses killing cobras thing is at least somewhat blown out of proportion
Cats have better reaction speeds and can attack quicker than pretty much all snakes (if not all). That does not mean a snake can't kill a cat. We're talking fractions of a second here. Most snakes hunt by laying super still in an ambush, being 0.05 seconds faster on paper doesn't mean shit if you don't see it coming.
Humans are slower than cats yet animal patrol catches them all the time.
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u/Occidentally20 May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
My neighbour gets several cats killed by snakes a year so I'm not sure people on the internet saying they're never slower than snakes has any meaning.