In a bizarre cat vs. bird debate, cat lovers claim, 'At least cats don't cause planes to crash'
With a bird strike the subject of public speculation as one of the possible causes of the Jeju Air crash on Dec. 29 that claimed 179 lives, a YouTuber specializing in bird-related content has found himself in hot water.
The channel with 490,000 subscribers, "Bird Enthusiast," has seen a deluge of anti-bird comments, including "Birds caused people to die.”
While experts are skeptical that the bird strike was the sole cause of the crash, an investigation is ongoing. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport confirmed that the plane received a bird strike warning from the airport's control tower minutes before colliding with the perimeter fence.
Many of the comments are apparently from cat lovers. "If there had been cats there, they could have hunted the birds and prevented the plane crash," said one. "At least cats don’t kill people," another wrote.
The channel has a history of rubbing cat lovers the wrong way by criticizing cats for hunting birds for fun.
In one video uploaded in January 2023, the bird-focused content creator included a scene where one of the wild cats killed a Eurasian scops owl, a protected species in South Korea, and urged cat advocates, "If you can’t take these stray cats home, please stop feeding them outdoors."
Jeju Air's Boeing 737-800 that departed Bankgok with 181 passengers and crew on board clashed at the Muan International Airport in South Jeolla Province on Sunday. Only 2 survived.
cjh@heraldcorp.com
