WARSAW, Poland: A respected Polish scientific institute has classified domestic cats as an “invasive alien species,” citing the damage they cause to birds and other wildlife.
Some cat lovers have reacted emotionally to this month’s decision and put the key scientist behind it on the defensive.
Wojciech Solarz, a biologist at the state-run Polish Academy of Sciences, wasn’t prepared for the disapproving public response when he entered “Felis catus,” the scientific name for the common house cat, into a national database run by the academy’s Institute of Nature Conservation.
The database already had 1,786 other species listed with no objections, Solarz told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The uproar over invasive alien species No. 1,787, he said, may have resulted from some media reports that created the false impression his institute was calling for feral and other cats to be euthanized.
Solarz described the growing scientific consensus that domestic cats have a harmful impact on biodiversity given the number of birds and mammals they hunt and kill.
The criteria for including the cat among alien invasive species, “are 100 percent met by the cat,” he said.
In a television segment aired by independent broadcaster TVN, the biologist faced off last week against a veterinarian who challenged Solarz’s conclusion on the dangers cats pose to wildlife.
Dorota Suminska, the author of a book titled “The Happy Cat,” pointed to other causes of shrinking biodiversity, including a polluted environment and urban building facades that can kill birds in flight.
“Ask if man is on the list of non-invasive alien species,” Suminska said, arguing that cats were unfairly assigned too much blame.
Solarz pushed back, arguing that cats kill about 140 million birds in Poland each year.
Earlier this month, the Polish Academy institute published a post on its website citing the “controversy” and seeking to clarify its position. The institute stressed that it was “opposed to any cruelty toward animals.” It also argued that its classification was in line with European Union guidelines.
As far as categorizing cats as “alien,” the institute noted that “Felis catus” was domesticated probably around 10,000 years ago in the cradle of the great civilizations of the ancient Middle East, making the species alien to Europe from a strictly scientific point of view.
The institute also stressed that all it was recommending was for cat owners to limit the time their pets spend outdoors during bird breeding season.
“I have a dog, but I don’t have anything against cats,” Solarz said.
Polish institute classifies cats as alien invasive species
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Polish institute classifies cats as alien invasive species
- Some cat lovers have reacted emotionally to this month’s decision and put the key scientist behind it on the defensive
Italian cooking and its rituals get UN designation as world heritage
- UNESCO added the rituals surrounding Italian food preparation and consumption to its list of the world’s traditional practices and expressions
ROME: Italian food is known and loved around the world for its fresh ingredients and palate-pleasing tastes, but on Wednesday, the UN’s cultural agency gave foodies another reason to celebrate their pizza, pasta and tiramisu by listing Italian cooking as part of the world’s “intangible” cultural heritage.
UNESCO added the rituals surrounding Italian food preparation and consumption to its list of the world’s traditional practices and expressions. It’s a designation celebrated alongside the more well-known UNESCO list of world heritage sites, on which Italy is well represented with locations like the Rome’s Colosseum and the ancient city of Pompeii.
The citation didn’t mention specific dishes, recipes or regional specialties, but highlighted the cultural importance Italians place on the rituals of cooking and eating: the Sunday family lunch, the tradition of grandmothers teaching grandchildren how to fold tortellini dough just so, even the act of coming together to share a meal.
“Cooking is a gesture of love, a way in which we tell something about ourselves to others and how we take care of others,” said Pier Luigi Petrillo, a member of the Italian UNESCO campaign and professor of comparative law at Rome’s La Sapienza University.
“This tradition of being at the table, of stopping for a while at lunch, a bit longer at dinner, and even longer for big occasions, it’s not very common around the world,” he said.
Premier Giorgia Meloni celebrated the designation, which she said honored Italians and their national identity.
“Because for us Italians, cuisine is not just food or a collection of recipes. It is much more: it is culture, tradition, work, wealth,” she said in a statement.
It’s by no means the first time a country’s cuisine has been recognized as a cultural expression: In 2010, UNESCO listed the “gastrnomic meal of the French” as part of the world’s intangible heritage, highlighting the French custom of celebrating important moments with food.
Other national cuisines and cultural practices surrounding them have also been added in recent years: the “cider culture” of Spain’s Asturian region, the Ceebu Jen culinary tradition of Senegal, the traditional way of making cheese in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
UNESCO meets every year to consider adding new cultural practices or expressions onto its lists of so-called “intangible heritage.” There are three types: One is a representative list, another is a list of practices that are in “urgent” need of safeguarding and the third is a list of good safeguarding practices.
This year, the committee meeting in New Delhi considered 53 nominations for the representative list, which already had 788 items. Other nominees included the Swiss yodelling, the handloom weaving technique used to make Bangladesh’s Tangail sarees, and Chile’s family circuses.
In its submission, Italy emphasized the “sustainability and biocultural diversity” of its food. Its campaign noted how Italy’s simple cuisine valued seasonality, fresh produce and limiting waste, while its variety highlighted its regional culinary differences and influences from migrants and others.
“For me, Italian cuisine is the best, top of the range. Number one. Nothing comes close,” said Francesco Lenzi, a pasta maker at Rome’s Osteria da Fortunata restaurant, near the Piazza Navona. “There are people who say ‘No, spaghetti comes from China.’ Okay, fine, but here we have turned noodles into a global phenomenon. Today, wherever you go in the world, everyone knows the word spaghetti. Everyone knows pizza.”
Lenzi credited his passion to his grandmother, the “queen of this big house by the sea” in Camogli, a small village on the Ligurian coast where he grew up. “I remember that on Sundays she would make ravioli with a rolling pin.”
“This stayed with me for many years,” he said in the restaurant’s kitchen.
Mirella Pozzoli, a tourist visiting Rome’s Pantheon from the Lombardy region in northern Italy, said the mere act of dining together was special to Italians:
“Sitting at the table with family or friends is something that we Italians cherish and care about deeply. It’s a tradition of conviviality that you won’t find anywhere else in the world.”
Italy already has 13 other cultural items on the UNESCO intangible list, including Sicilian puppet theater, Cremona’s violin craftsmanship and the practice moving of livestock along seasonal migratory routes known as transhumance.
Italy appeared in two previous food-related listings: a 2013 citation for the “Mediterranean diet” that included Italy and half a dozen other countries, and the 2017 recognition of Naples’ pizza makers.
Petrillo, the Italian campaign member, said after 2017, the number of accredited schools to train Neapolitan pizza makers increased by more than 400 percent.
“After the UNESCO recognition, there were significant economic effects, both on tourism and and the sales of products and on education and training,” he said.
