Cats on Safehold?

Something I have wondered about ever since I first read OAR is whether terrestrial cats not make it to Safehold? I know dogs are there, hamsters made it in Shan-wei's personal baggage, horses, beef cattle, chickens, pigs and there are cat lizards which are obviously a native species but I was curious about domestic Terran cats.

Being very much a cat person vs a dog person, that point jumped out at me.

Cat lizards are the replacement for cats. From the description it sounds like they are just as aloof and self absorbed as terrestrial cats. The difference is they have 6 legs.

jlrice54 wrote:Something I have wondered about ever since I first read OAR is whether terrestrial cats not make it to Safehold? I know dogs are there, hamsters made it in Shan-wei's personal baggage, horses, beef cattle, chickens, pigs and there are cat lizards which are obviously a native species but I was curious about domestic Terran cats.

Being very much a cat person vs a dog person, that point jumped out at me.

bigrunt wrote:Cat lizards are the replacement for cats. From the description it sounds like they are just as aloof and self absorbed as terrestrial cats. The difference is they have 6 legs.

That was my take on it too but it surprised me that they apparently didn't bring cats or cat embryos with them.

jlrice54 wrote:

bigrunt wrote:Cat lizards are the replacement for cats. From the description it sounds like they are just as aloof and self absorbed as terrestrial cats. The difference is they have 6 legs.

That was my take on it too but it surprised me that they apparently didn't bring cats or cat embryos with them.

Maybe they did, but it's one of the species that didn't adapt.

Speaking as an Australian, it is possible that they considered the ecological impact.
Since our European settlement, domestic cats that have gone feral have caused untold damage to our native wildlife, with many extinctions of birds and small mammals attributed to them.

Daryl wrote:Speaking as an Australian, it is possible that they considered the ecological impact.
Since our European settlement, domestic cats that have gone feral have caused untold damage to our native wildlife, with many extinctions of birds and small mammals attributed to them.

Which would also meant they inspected everything put on board each ship, and before boarding by anything living fumigated the holy hell out of it to kill off any rats or mice (or other vermin/insects). The animals they brought generally (except for perhaps graze animals) do not pose a substantial risk of destroying ecosystems.

Erls wrote:

Daryl wrote:Speaking as an Australian, it is possible that they considered the ecological impact.
Since our European settlement, domestic cats that have gone feral have caused untold damage to our native wildlife, with many extinctions of birds and small mammals attributed to them.

Which would also meant they inspected everything put on board each ship, and before boarding by anything living fumigated the holy hell out of it to kill off any rats or mice (or other vermin/insects). The animals they brought generally (except for perhaps graze animals) do not pose a substantial risk of destroying ecosystems.

I love how we are talking about Agriculture and Customs work! It could very well be that part of the terraforming proses that they did showed that Terran animals would endanger the life already establish on the planet.

I always thought that the prosses they did to terraform Safehold was that they took a planet in the Goldie Locks zone and made it like earth, then populated it with animals and plants and as the plants and animals grew on the planet, they mutated into the forms we get. I always thought that the lizard cats were Terran cats that due to the effects of the terraforming process grew an extra set of legs and that many animals did the same. I guess I need to read the first book again.

But i like the idea of fumigating everything before it gets onto or off the transports. That would make smuggling a PICA that much harder to conceal.
-"we need to open the box to fumigate this container...Before we do, do you have any Fruits or Vegetables to declare?"

Predators tend to be the worst ecological vandals.
Humans obviously, but our country has had its share. Cats, foxes, dogs, pigs, rats, cane toads are all big problems. Then yes, grazing animals are also a problem, with feral camels, horses, donkeys, rabbits, hares, and more causing big problems. At one stage a big proportion of our arable land was overrun by prickly pear cactus, which was only beaten by a risky biological agent (cactoblastus grub).
Those in long established northern hemisphere countries can't comprehend just how dangerous introduced species can be.

Erls wrote:

Daryl wrote:Speaking as an Australian, it is possible that they considered the ecological impact.
Since our European settlement, domestic cats that have gone feral have caused untold damage to our native wildlife, with many extinctions of birds and small mammals attributed to them.

Which would also meant they inspected everything put on board each ship, and before boarding by anything living fumigated the holy hell out of it to kill off any rats or mice (or other vermin/insects). The animals they brought generally (except for perhaps graze animals) do not pose a substantial risk of destroying ecosystems.

most of the animals that they brought to safehold were ones necessary for humanity's survival. So unless someone brought cats along as part of their personal allotment it wouldn't happen/

i.e Shanwei's gerbils? or was it hamsters?

Morden wrote:most of the animals that they brought to safehold were ones necessary for humanity's survival. So unless someone brought cats along as part of their personal allotment it wouldn't happen/

i.e Shanwei's gerbils? or was it hamsters?

Hamsters, see _Midst Toil and Tribulation_ (chapter XI of the May 896 YoG section).