I am writing this piece in the wake of having had to deal with the trauma of putting a beloved family pet, our cat, to sleep or, in more coldly stark terms, "euthanized". In the wake of my grief, I couldn't help but notice the cats in our area, some of which were alllowed to roam freely but were clearly tame. There were the others, the few feral cats I see lurking near the dumpsters behind the grocery store, slinking into the sewer entrances and steering clear of human contact. Usually.
In the October 1st issue of People magazine, I noticed that there was an article about a birdlover who heads the Galveston Onrithological Society. He had long believed that feral cats threatened tghe bird population, including some endangered species. So he finally became upset enough to shoot one, setting of a huge controversy and outraging citizens who fed the cats.
I'd like to know how Gather members feel about this. How should feral cats be handled? Are they dangerous or a health hazard to people and/or other animals? Which is worse, capturing them and taking them to a Humane Society, where they be put down due to their wildness - or leaving them in the wild, exposed to the cold and other wild animals, including coyotes and other predators (in our area, hawks and coyotes have been seen eating wild cats as well as some domesticated ones).
It makes me sad to see these creatures, some of which look as though they are starving. I know there are people who go out of their way to feed them but realize that some of the cats will never be truly tamed and a few are actually aggressive towards humans. A child might innocently try to pet one and get scratched or bitten and immediately put at risk for rabies (even though a feral cat might not ever willingly approach a child, they might be cornered by a group of children and bitten, as a local child was bitten by one). I've told my children to leave them alone and to inform adults of any they see.
What is the best way to deal with feral cats? Live and let live? Or try to catch them and get them immunized and take care of, perhaps on a farm or permanent shelter? Are any of you birdwatchers who consider them a menace or do you think the actions taken by this particular birdwatcher (as noted above) to be extreme? I'm genuinely curious here.
P.S. I wanted to offer a heartfelt Thank You to all those who responded to my article about the loss of our cat. I would request that anyone else who wishes to respond to that article please do so by Gather mail because I really do not want points for that article. It was written with a different purpose than many of my articles, reaching out to the Gather community for comfort - and, wow, did people respond and comfort our family! Our hearts are still touched. Thank you.
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Comments: 41
Unless they become pests, say threatening native species with extinction, I'm not for killing them.
cats are good for 2 things,killing mice and sharkbait,lol
hope i answered your question
i am sorry about your loss though,i know how it is to lose a pet
I have seen some cities where they set up a "rescue" program to catch, immunize and spay and neuter all they can find. I don't know how effective it is but it sure seems the most humane way of dealing with the problem.
I thought I was a dog person growing up, but, no, I'm a cat person. Love 'em. Much more, I'm afraid, than birds and way more than mice and rats.
I have first hand suffered a bite from a feral cat when i worked in an animal refuge in Melbourne Aust and instantly fell to the ground. The bite was savage and a cat's bite is worse than a dog bite. We are lucky that there is no rabies in australia. All too often feral cats where brought into the refuge and euthanased. It was always a sad moment, thinking that no one cared about these cats.
As for cats killing birds. I'm afraid I am one that believes in letting mother nature take her course. let the people be responsible for their own. GET YOUR CATS DESEXED.
on a lighter note: i hope my neighbours read this. Every morning i have from 3-9 of their cats waiting at my back door wanting fed. three of which are expecting kittens again. I have lost count of how many they have and I consider them very irresponsible people.
I have always had cats even as a little girl. We weren't allowed dogs as they were too expensive to feed. So I dearly love cats. But the plight of feral cats hurts my heart. Cats have long been domesticated and should have remained so. I just do not understand how people can abandon them.
Now, that said, my experience is limited to rural living. I've never been in a really big city and do not know much about the problems of feral cats in the cities. Our country cats could always hunt rodents in fields and shelter in barns and sheds and remain healthy. Most people I knew treated them well. But I can understand the spread of disease and cats being undernurished. It would break my heart to be personally involved in seeing them in that condition.
I probably would even want to see the more pitiful ones captured and euthanized. Living in disease and squalor is not right. I don't mean to be sitting on a fence here, but I can understand when this action must be taken. I had a cat die of feline leukemia. I cried all during her suffering. That was before I had even known about leukemia in cats. If I had suspected, I would have preferred that her suffering would have been ended as quickly as possible.
As for cats threatening species of birds...I haven't seen that happen personally. Our cat of 14 years was a good mouser and caught an occasional bird. But they were always the type of "weed bird" that too aggressively took over habitats needed by the less prolific birds in our area. So we cheered her on. But that's another topic altogether...
As to the person who feel shooting the cats for the protection of birds is a @#@#*%*& to say the least. How can you be any kind of animal lover and want to kill one who is just following its instinct. I'm a Cat lover, but would never kill a bird of prey because it kills other animals.
Thanks for your precious comments on my wedding article
We had one of the ferals sleeping on our porch a few months back... She slowly warmed up to us (we never fed her), we caught her, a friend without toddlers kept her until she had her kittens, and we snuck her in (through an employee) to another city's shelter... She and all her kittens were quickly adopted out into loving homes. My neighbors are still looking for her, but she's safe, healthy, happy, and part of a family now... They'd be mad if they knew, but they weren't doing anything other than feeding her, because they really don't care about her welfare... Oh it just makes me so mad....
Sorry, done ranting now...
Don't worry about the rant as I truly wonder what to do about these cats. One child was bitten and the cats often succumb to the cold or disease, as they aren't able to deal with winters here, no matter how resourceful some of them are. At a certain point, the cat population starts to endanger people and other wildlife and I write this as a cat lover. I truly enjoy cats and am still heartbroken about the death of our cat, a creature who lived her days in peace and comfort in our home. She would never have survived outside, being deaf.
I LOVE birds and I LOVE cats. When it comes to feral cats, I have had to keep my child from being bitten by a rabid one, so I am truly ambivalent. Catch them, innoculate them but recognize that a cat without shots is likely to get ill or even rabid. A rabid animal is truly a danger to the community.
If you start trimming their claws when they're kittens you'll most likely be able to do it when they're adults. It's hard to believe but cats will eventually give up.
Under no circumstances should a declawed cat be let outdoors, in case that is still a question in anyone's mind. As for the alleged bird lover who killed a feral cat, that's no animal lover of any kind. I'd put that person much closer on the spectrum to "budding serial killer" than I would to "bird lover." I hope the authorities weren't fooled by that misleading term. Also, as someone else said earlier, if a group of children corner a feral cat, that's not a group of children that would get my sympathy under any conditions. That's a gang and should be viewed as such, regardless of age.
Unfortunately, feral cats are kind of the worst of both worlds. They are partly in nature in that they eat a lot of other animals. On the other hand, they are partly in our world, because many of them get part of their food from people. That means that feral cat populations can get far higher than populations of any natural predator, and they can make it very difficult for small birds and mammals to survive in an area.
Feral cats generally won't exterminate another species unless it's already on the edge. The exception to that is Australia, where the native animals developed without cat-type predators, and feral cats pretty much clean out an area of native species where they allowed to get a foothold.
Bottom line: If you are an animal lover, do you value the life of the feral cat over the lives of the several hundred or more animals that the feral cat kills every year to feed itself? Does the feral cat have more right to be there than the several species of small animals that are hard-pressed to survive locally when there is a large feral cat population? Tough, tough questions.
dale c. - author of Bear Country, a science fiction/suspense romance