The Institute of Nature Conservation in Poland has declared war on a furry enemy: Felis catus, or the domestic cat. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the venerable establishment, a branch of the Polish Academy of Sciences, moved to classify domestic cats as an “invasive alien species” this month. Their addition to a list of 1,786 other animals considered foreign to the nation caused an immediate backlash among cat-lovers in Poland. In response, the institute published a blog post addressing the “controversy,” seeking to clarify that the organization was not calling for the destruction of a beloved household pet. Instead, the institute argued, the domestic cat is an alien “from a purely scientific perspective,” having emerged from the Middle East roughly 10,000 years ago. In addition to being non-native to Europe, cats are considered by experts to have a highly destructive impact on local biodiversity, institute biologist Wojciech Solarz told the AP. In a televised debate with Solarz last week, a local veterinarian pushed back on the criteria for classification, asking him to consider “if man is on the list of non-invasive alien species.”
