Crazy cat ladies are less likely to land on their feet (when thrown from a vehicle)

Whatever the case may be, when opinions are like cattails, everybody gets wind of one...

Detection of Toxoplasma gondii in environmental air samples:
"Moreover, the presence of T. gondii oocysts was confirmed in one of the positive samples with the use of microscopy. The results showed that T. gondii may be present in environmental air samples and that respiratory tract infections may play a role in the high prevalence of toxoplasmosis in humans and animals. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first epidemiological evidence that oro-fecal and foodborne toxoplasmosis may be traceable to an airborne respiratory origin and that this may represent a new, previously unknown transmission route for this disease."

 

"When Koko was about 1 year old, she started learning sign language from Dr. Francine 'Penny' Patterson, who remained her trainer throughout her life. Over the years, Koko was able to understand and use more than 1,000 different signs — and famously asked for a cat for Christmas in 1983. Researchers initially gave her a stuffed animal, but Koko wouldn’t play with it and continuously signed 'sad.'

'She was terribly upset,' Ron Cohn, a biologist with the Gorilla Foundation, told the Los Angeles Times in a 1985 interview.

For her birthday that year, researchers brought her a litter of kittens and let her choose one. Koko chose a gray and white kitten that she named 'All Ball.' She treated the feline like one of her own — nurturing it, carrying it around like a baby and even trying to nurse it at one point.

'They would play chase with each other and she (Koko) would hold it and pet it,' Cohn said. 'The cat reacted to her as she would a human, but she was pretty independent and would bite Koko or wriggle loose when she got tired of being babied'... She went on to care for many cats throughout her life."

Koko lived longer than gorillas do in the wild, and having cat companions in captivity helped improve her quality of life there, it seems.

Not all cats transmit those parasites, which are also seeking cat companionship, in a strange way. But as long as a house cat stays in a house (a zoo, a highrise apartment, and the like), there wouldn't be the same kind of exposure, unless the pet food was prepared unsafely (or rodents were on the loose). It's mostly a problem of cats not being domesticated enough, and continuing to interact with wild animals, as predators, which continues the chain of infection from them. People eating the wildlife doesn't help them avoid this parasite either, as it is primarily a foodborne pathogen. Well, gorillas eat the plants, and pet the cats, so I think they are a healthier role model for humankind (than crazy cat ladies)...

 

Looking at a few gov sites, it doesn't seem that leash laws are often intended to prevent cats from spreading disease. Typically cats are not subject to leash laws, and in an example where they are, people are allowed to own up to 6 cats (even as keeping 3 cats could increase the risk of toxoplasmosis by 70 times, although leashes would help reduce that figure). The Department of Health in Hawaii has tried to get a cat leash law for a long time, and somehow the crazy cat people have protested it successfully (yet to the detriment of public health)...

"The most significant complaint from the public health perspective is the
unlawful deposition of cat feces that can serve as the source of infective Toxoplasma oocysts
on private and public property and the resultant exposure of an unsuspecting susceptible
individual to this source of infection. This is rated as a High Public Health Risk Factor
primarily because control of stray domestic cats has no legal basis. We already discussed
laws controlling feral cats in public parks and recommended that Vector Control Branch
pursue amending HAR Chapter 11-26 cautiously and logically. With respect to laws related
to 'domestication of cats', I visualize a 'Cat Leash Law' that is structured on the same lines
as the 'Dog Leash Law' and makes cats running loose in public areas subject to the same
penalties as unleashed dogs."

Stray cats also contribute to accidents directly. For instance, a school bus with 32 kids on board swerved to avoid a cat in the road and hit two parked cars before crashing into a tree... This happened in Portland, and they exclude domestic cats from having to be restrained by their owners, as "animals at large", unlike any other animal (as well as excluding cat owners from the duty to remove animal waste in public, since that's only if they are in physical control of them).

I'd guess this county wants more cats to be on the loose, in order to control rodents, but another article from Oregon says it causes more harm than good, according to ecologists, because pet cats hunt more of the other species, which aren't considered pests. A town in New Zealand, on the other hand, is trying to ban all domestic cats, for similar reasons (apparently they don't think a leash law will work there, or are proposing something more extreme, in order to get a leash law in place, at least).

 

What about getting thrown from a vehicle (after all)? Yeah, it looks like cats tend to land on their feet, while people are rolling over...

• Kitten thrown from vehicle found alive and well two weeks later
• Cat survives being hit by car going 70 mph
• Tailgating cat lady violently rolled-over after swerving into a commercial vehicle
• Missing Cat Found Safe A Week After Fleeing Scene Of Rollover Car Accident
• 2 injured in rollover wreck while heading to vet to neuter cat
• Cat transporter killed while vehicle overturned, driving rescued cats to sanctuary
• Cat got wedged under the feet of driver, car flipped
• Cat in a box causes crash when it hops on dash
• Cat loose from cage causes head-on collision in West Iceland
• Cat on woman's lap contributed to collision with school bus
• Driver whose cat distracted her touched off three wrecks, 18-wheeler jackknifes
• ♫ Roll on momma like I asked you to do...

Mechanic discovers cat stuck in car engine... this is when cats end up rolling over; they say it happens in winter, when cats sleep on top of tires, or crawl onto the engine while it's still warm (so there's another good reason to keep cats indoors or on a leash).

They recommend knocking on the hood to wake any cats up, although you might have to watch out for them afterward... Florida Woman Hit By Own Car While Escaping Angry Cat!