"Cat Got Your Fish?"

There was a very interesting op-ed piece about the use of fish in animal feed in the NY Times that I've been meaning to comment on. You can read "Cat Got Your Fish?" by Paul Greenberg here.

Courtesy: Flickr

Noteworthy quotes from the article include...

'....most American cats ate fish. And a great deal of them — more in a year than the average African human, according to Jason Clay at the World Wildlife Fund.'

'The use of wild fish in animal feed is a serious problem for the world’s food systems. '

'...the removal of wild “forage” fish threatens to starve whales, seals and other predators'

'The pet food industry now uses about 10 percent of the global supply of forage fish. ...Poultry meanwhile takes as much as 22 percent, which means that even when Coco ate chicken, indirectly he was still eating fish.'


The author makes it clear that we should allow the true predators of fish eat them in order to preserve wild populations of fish. He also states that land animals should stick with a diet of land animals. Now that he is looking for a new pet (as his cat, Coco, passed), he plans to find a vegetarian.

This was very eye-opening. I'm not about to give Rufus up but I will do my best to avoid buying food and treats comprised of any part fish. There are so many different options available to Rufus, I am sure he won't even miss it!