UCT researchers' vendetta against cats gets personal

UCT researcher Dr Rob Simmons' and colleagues' vendetta against cats and their households got personal. In response I challenged them to either lay charges against us for having nine cats that he alleges kill over 800 prey a year, or shut up after he made the false statement in Daily Maverick yesterday.

Following Daily Maverick's sensationalising Simmons' and others' paper in Global Ecology and Conservation about cats allegedly "slaughtering" 200 000 wildlife on Table Mountain National Park and my emailed response, which DM didn't publish (no right of reply), he told Tiara Walters:

"The City of Cape Town could reduce the present limit of four cats per household to two or even one. We learned of a person who has nine cats in their house." "He said, it translated into a possible fatality rate of over 800 prey per year from one household alone" (emphasis added).

He was referring to me because I wrote to him and DM that we had nine cats that rarely killed. Walters did not ask me to respond to Simmons' false statement. His falsehood and mistake was he statistically extrapolated from a very small sample - 14 cats in Newlands only.

I responded in an email to DM, Simmons and others including the director of UCT's Percy Fitzpatrick Institute of Ornithology where Simmons works and dean of science and said Simmons must either prove his false and defamatory statement a nine-cat household - ours - or fewer kills 800, or retract. 

He alleges or implies illegality for [us] having many cats knowing the by-law limits it to three. He, co-authors and UCT department must have the courage of their convictions and lay a charge with the city's Law Enforcement against us and other households for having more than the one or three cats they deem fitting. Either that or they must stick to esoteric research few except their academic colleagues read. The world is really not as they perceive it beyond their protected academic environment." 

I'm irritated because Simmons' et al findings are a dangerous generalisation; they're politicising their hatred of cats and it's bad science. He particularly has an anti-cat agenda and is not objective.

And as I've warned before, South Africa's credulous media typically appeal to authorities like academics, so-called experts and government and mostly don't interrogate what they read or hear. DM's journalists are no exception as I've complained about to them before, and other mistakes. 

So, I've issued a challenge to Rob Simmons and his colleagues: don't be like a eunuch at an orgy; if you feel so strongly we're breaking the law and culpable for the alleged wildlife massacre by having  more than one or two cats that you deem fit, lay a charge. 

If not, you're a dishonest coward and bully who hides behind friendly media and in your ivory tower. And a poor academic who has found an easy, controversial topic you're academically milking for all its worth.

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In 2019 Stellenbosch University  researcher's - all women - study found "coloured' women have increased risk of lower than average cognitive functioning due to low education levels and unhealthy lifestyles. 

The researchers used a sample of 60 women out of a population over two million most of whom had only school leaving or lower education. The study was It was met with outrage, and discredited. The paper was subsequently withdrawn and university said it would review its study criteria. 

Similarly, Simmons et al used a sample initially of 14 cats in one suburb - Newlands - which they extrapolated to the Cape Town population living adjacent Table Mountain National Park. And similar to the Stellenbosch study's methodology, used only cats that predate and ignored the rest - sampling bias.

Both are examples of bad research and science. But this is the standard at South African universities as typical articles in The Conversation Africa indicate.