>>Cats too, mine is fond of catching rats and mice — rats and mice that will eat up stored grains and plants garden. The feral cat population was rounded up at my school and we had an immediate rat/mouse infestation — one even jumped out of a file cabinet (almost had a heart attack), they became brazen once the cats were gone, thankfully the cats are returning.<<
IIRC (unless it is a fable) that when witch hunting was at its highest points, cats were slaughtered wholesale, which led to the increase of the rodent population which carried the Black Plague that all but destroyed Europe...
During the times of the plague in London, someone put out the word that CATS carried the plague and hired cat killers to eradicate the cat population.
Little did they understand that killing off the cats made the problem 100X worse because the plague is carried by fleas found on rats.
What a mistake!