Cat Chit Chat

Saturday, 31 August 2024

Finland's new Animal Welfare Act prohibits unspayed female cats roaming freely outdoors

Finland has introduced a new Animal Welfare Act which deals with a number of problematic areas including what the Finnish call 'population cats' aka community cats or stray cats or feral cats. Here are some details about this new law...See below image for details.

Finland's new animal welfare prohibits unspayed female cats roaming freely outdoors

The new Animal Welfare Act in Finland introduced measures to prevent uncontrolled reproduction, especially in cats. The law emphasizes that the reproduction of mammals, including cats, must be controlled by their owners. This means that letting unspayed female cats roam freely outdoors is not permitted, as it risks unregulated breeding and contributes to the feral cat population. The new rules aim to tackle the issue of abandoned and stray cats, which is a significant problem in Finland.

In addition, there are strict regulations requiring cat owners to supervise their pets to prevent them from wandering freely. Cats left unsupervised outside of their owner’s property can be considered abandoned, which is against Finnish law.

Further, Finland's new Animal Welfare Act, which came into force in 2024, represents a significant update to the country's approach to general animal protection. This comprehensive legislation strengthens protections for various animals, from pets to farm animals, and introduces several new measures aimed at improving their welfare.

Key Features of the Act:

1. Breeding and Pets: The Act includes strict rules on breeding, particularly for pets. It prohibits breeding practices likely to produce offspring with serious health issues or those that would cause harm to the animals. For instance, animals with hereditary defects that impair their well-being can no longer be bred.

2. Restrictions on Animal Use: The use of wild animals in circuses and traveling exhibitions is now banned. This includes prohibitions on keeping animals like sea lions in circuses, effectively ending the practice in Finland.

3. Care Requirements: The Act mandates that all mammals and birds should have continuous access to drinking water, although certain exceptions are allowed for species like reindeer and sled dogs under specific conditions. The law also imposes stricter requirements on the care of pets, ensuring they have proper opportunities for physical exercise, rest, and social interactions.

4. Ban on Certain Practices: The sale and use of electric and spiked collars have been banned, although electric cattle prods for farm animals are still allowed. Additionally, cosmetic surgeries like ear cropping and tail docking for dogs are prohibited.

5. Farm Animal Protections: The construction of new tie stalls for cattle has been banned, though existing ones can still be used. There are also enhanced requirements for the outdoor exercise of dairy cows, extending the mandatory walking period.

6. Fur Farming: Despite public pressure, fur farming was not banned, but the Act did not introduce new restrictions on this practice. This remains a controversial issue, with many advocating for a complete ban.

While the new Act introduces significant improvements, it has faced criticism for not going far enough in some areas, such as fur farming and the long transitional periods for certain practices. Nonetheless, it is a step forward in enhancing animal welfare standards in Finland.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

Friday, 30 August 2024

What focal length is a 35mm lens on an APS-C camera?

When you use a 35mm lens on an APS-C camera, the effective focal length is determined by the camera's crop factor. The crop factor for most APS-C cameras is typically around 1.5x (for Nikon, Sony, and others) or 1.6x (for Canon).

To calculate the effective focal length:

Effective focal length = focal length X crop factor.

For a 35mm lens on a 1.5x crop factor APS-C camera:

35mm x 1.5 = 52.5mm

For a 35mm lens on a 1.6x crop factor APS-C camera:

35mm x 1.6 = 56mm

So, the effective focal length will be approximately 52.5mm on a 1.5x crop factor camera and 56mm on a 1.6x crop factor camera.

The simple reason why I have written this short post is because I just did a quick search on the Internet for the 35mm equivalent on an APS-C camera (popular on mirrorless cameras) and the answers that I got were confusing as far as I am concerned 😊. They were back to front. It looked chaotic to me. Maybe its me! It is the way you present the information and I hope this way is good.

In short, the answer has to be that if you use a 35mm lens designed for a full frame camera the effective focal length on a cropped sensor camera has to be longer because you're taking out the middle of the frame. It's a bit like a digital zoom. You are cropping the picture digitally in effect.

This means that you are zooming-in which means that the focal length is longer from 35mm on full-frame to to a little over 50 mm on APS-C.

So a 35mm lens on a full frame camera which is a wide-angle lens, becomes a standard lens on a cropped sensor camera such as the APS-C format.

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Veterinary nurse pleads guilty to owning dogs that worried livestock

This story is about a veterinary nurse, Evie Watson, who, it has been suggested, should have known better when going out into the countryside with her two dogs near to a farm called Hall Pastures Farm where there were sheep and lambs. She didn't have one of her dogs, Beans, on a lead and her other dog's lead was dropped as she tried to untangle him. That dog's name is Patcho.

In short, both her dogs became free and they ran off and worried, attacked and killed sheep and lambs. In all, it's reported by The Times that her dogs killed 15 ewes (adult female sheep) and lambs in an horrific attack. Further, the newspaper reports that she did not call the police until the following day.

It's been traumatic for the farmer as you might expect. Lynne Parnell, said that she felt "very sickened" by the attacks and mentioned that she had wished that Watson had told her what had happened straight away.

It's been traumatic for the ewes who lost their lambs. In a victim impact statement she said: "Farmers like us work hard, and our livelihood depends on us producing good quality livestock and [it] is a long term enterprise. A disruption such as this can take years to recover from".

Evie Watson attended Southern Derbyshire magistrates' court on May 17 and pleaded guilty to owning dogs that worried livestock. The magistrates told her that it had been an horrific incident but they recognised her efforts in trying to track down her dogs, one of which had collapsed. She took him to the vet. Watson had tried to follow her dogs and bruised herself as she scrambled in bushes but she lost sight of them. She asked her family and ex-partner for help and they assisted. She found her dogs after 3.5 hours.

So Watson did make some big efforts but she's been criticised by Derbyshire Police. Sergeant Chris Wilkinson of the rural crime team said: "No one ever wants to believe that their dog is capable of hurting other animals but as has been seen time and time again they can and do return to their predator instincts, and chase livestock if given the chance. That's why it is vital that dogs are always kept on leads around livestock."

That's the point: dogs revert to their grey wolf ancestors' instincts and become predators when given the chance. The same happens to domestic cats. The dog is a predator and as such they must be on a lead under the circumstances described.

Separately, a survey of 1,100 dog owners by NFU Mutual has found that 68% of people let their pets off the lead in the countryside last year. And almost 8% admitted that their dog had chased livestock. However, 46% believed that the dog was not capable of causing death or injury to farm animals. While 49% of the respondents in this survey said that the dog always came back when called. In other words 51% don't. And almost half of dog owners don't believe that their dog is a predator it seems to me!

As Watson was convicted of owning dogs that worried livestock, she was ordered to pay £750 which included a £475 fine, legal costs and a victim surcharge. The farmer said that the punishment was insulting but added that she at least received justice.

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UK's unhappy teenagers should deeply concern us all

The unhappy teenagers of the UK should be of deep concern to the country's leaders. It appears that the UK's teenagers are unhappy. They are experiencing what is described as a "happiness recession". They are more unhappy than their European counterparts. This is according to a charity, the "Children's Society". They say that their results are deeply worrying and indicate a trend of lower life satisfaction in Britain compared to other European countries.

They took their data from research over several years which indicated that the wellbeing of UK's teenagers was lower than neighbouring countries.

The most recent Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) survey for 2022 show that on average just over a quarter (26%) of 15-year-olds in the UK had low life satisfaction. The European average is 17%. This puts the UK at the bottom of 27 ranked countries.

Indeed this is very troubling. And they found that in the UK 30.9% of girls aged 15 reported low life satisfaction. This is more than for boys at 19.8%. It is also higher than the European average for girls which stands at 21%.

The also found that socio-economic inequalities continue to be important factor and worryingly the report also found that those aged between 10 and17 in households under financial strain were more likely than their peers to have low life satisfaction.

"Alarm bells are ringing: UK teenagers are facing a happiness recession, with 15-year-old's recording the lowest life satisfaction on average across 27 European nations. Particularly affected are girls and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Equally alarming is the high level of food poverty found among these young people. The UK ranks fourth highest for food poverty among 15-year-old's across 21 European countries, underscoring the severe impacts of societal inequalities on their well-being." - Mark Russell, the chief executive of the said charity.

The government said that "We understand the pressures teenagers are facing and that is why we are taking action to deliver our mission to break down barriers to opportunity and improve the life chances of every child."

Source: The Times newspaper - many thanks.

Reasons for their unhappiness?

I feel obliged to make some suggestive reasons as to why British teenagers are unhappy. I don't know the answers but this is what I think.

The world today is far more complicated. Today we have the Internet which speeds everything up. There is social media to which teenagers are often addicted or somewhat obsessed. This creates added pressures and expectations. People present themselves on social media as successful or iconic and a young man or girl wants to emulate what they see but what they are seeing is not real.

There are these unattainable expectations. And young people are a kind of litmus test as to what older people feel. Perhaps they are more sensitive than older people or more vulnerable to life's vicissitudes. I'm sure they observe the world and see Putin's invasion of Ukraine which is very troublesome. It is worrying as is climate change. These are things which are happening now but which affect the future greatly.

I believe that young people look to the future and too many don't have optimism about the future based upon as mentioned the Ukraine war and the possibility of China invading Taiwan. We've just had Covid which is still present and has undermined society. The legacy of Covid is being felt in society in many ways including education.

In addition I think young people see the breakdown of some societal norms in the UK. The breakdown of normal services like the NHS which is failing and education is pressured due to large classes due to increased population.

The justice system is broken pretty well. The prison system is overcrowded which feeds back to the justice system making it impossible for judges to sentence criminals properly.

There is this sense of a broken Britain which also makes it difficult to be optimistic about the future. Universities are in trouble in Britain. Degrees have become somewhat useless in many instances because they been dumbed down. Personally if I was a young person now I would not do a university degree but choose an apprenticeship instead; far more valuable and useful.

Jobs are more competitive. Once again these things feed into a lack of optimism for many youngsters regarding the future. There are other things I'm sure but of all these things I would point towards the damaging effects of social media, unrealistic and impractical expectations which cannot be met, a lack of desire to grind it out and progress through one's life in the long term.

To work hard for one's objectives and rewards. I sense that a lot of young people don't relish the idea of working hard in the conventional sense over many years to attain a reward which is a stable family life with some savings.

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Cat food should not be more expensive than human food but it often is

This is a cross-post. The title almost says it all. The truth is that in the UK and perhaps in other countries cat food can often be more expensive than human food. This is entirely wrong. I'm not saying that cats are not as important as humans. I am not saying that cats aren't equal to humans. But I don't think, in all fairness, that mass produced cat food should be more expensive than specific items of human food on weight-cost basis.

Hill's Prescription dry cat food is as expensive as steak by Michael Broad

I'm referring, in this instance, to Hill's Prescription Diet dry cat food which as far as I am concerned is inordinately expensive and as expensive as a sirloin steak in the UK on a weight per cost basis.

This is cat food produced en masse in a factory using the carcasses of diseased cows and other dubious sources. Some of these foods are probably based on better quality sources but dry cat food of all types I allege and believe is sourced from dead animals considered too unhealthy for humans and is therefore cheap.

If you shop at Sainsbury's you will find that sirloin steak costs the same.

And I would argue that the big dry cat food manufacturers such as Hill's are indirectly driving concerned cat owners to buying cheaper products. Cheap dry cat food served up all day long every day is not good for a domestic cat's health in my view particularly if the caregiver is away from home a lot.

In this instance (a fairly common one) you have a double whammy of problems: separation anxiety potentially which causes stress which can lead to a bladder infection and idiopathic cystitis combined with dry cat food which does not contain enough water which also exacerbates the potential for developing cystitis, a bacterial bladder infection.

You can see how things work and a lot of people go for the convenience of dry cat food and also for its cheapness provided they avoid the big manufacturers such as Hill's.

Hill's should take their leading role more seriously. They have a very heavy responsibility regarding protecting the health and welfare of domestic cats. They promote the concept that their dry cat food is veterinarian approved and based upon "prescriptions". It's a false narrative. I would allege that their foods promote the opposite in many domestic cats owned by people on tight budgets with not a lot of disposable income.

Only the relatively well off can, arguably, afford Hill's dry cat food. This is unfair on the vast majority of cat owners many of whom are single people on limited budgets trying to cope as best he can in a highly competitive world.

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