# Duck Season! Wabbit Season! Putty Tat Season! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 12, 2005, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893 "2005-04-12T01:23:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/1 "2005-04-12T01:23:49Z")
[Wisconsinites to vote to allow cats to be shot.](http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=35616&ntpid=2) > [@](#): > > The proposal, known as Question 62, asks whether the state Department of Natural Resources should define free- roaming, feral domestic cats as an “unprotected species” that can be shot by anyone with a small-game hunting license. The proposal would affect any cat not under an owner’s direct control or without a collar. Now, admittedly, Wisconsin does have a problem with something like 2 million wild cats, but I have to think that as soon as someone’s family pet get’s killed, there’s going to be lawsuit’s aplenty. ---
**Author:** ![inkleberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f17d59/32.png) [@inkleberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inkleberry)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/2 "2005-04-12T01:28:53Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > [Wisconsinites to vote to allow cats to be shot.](http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=35616&ntpid=2)Now, admittedly, Wisconsin does have a problem with something like 2 million wild cats, but I have to think that as soon as someone’s family pet get’s killed, there’s going to be lawsuit’s aplenty. Why not import a bunch of coyotes? Recycle those cats! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/3 "2005-04-12T01:50:38Z")
That kind of environmental tinkering just about never works, the Goddess is oftimes cruel in Her application of the Law of Unintended Fuckover. If all of the coyote were imported from Arizona, for instance, the resultant population explosion amongst roadrunners might threaten interstate commerce. I see little to complain about in a decision to thin the ranks of the most successful species of human-hosted parasites. Cats are beyond merely useless, they are a rebuke in their insolent lassitude. They dont rush with affectionate enthusiasm to greet you on your return from the mail box, they are entirely unacceptable as aroma enhancing agents. If Timmy falls down the well, the cat will take a nap. The target is agile and quick, such a program might well go a long way to preserving and improving American marksmanship, especially if automatic weapons are not permitted. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/4 "2005-04-12T02:06:03Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > If Timmy falls down the well, the cat will take a nap. That’s a good SNL-type parody of LASSIE. Let’s call it, oh, “Up-Your-Assie” featuring a series of vignettes (Timmy down the well, Grandpa with a broken leg on a mountaintop, etc.) and the friggin’ cat licking its fur, snoozing in a sunbeam and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/5 "2005-04-12T02:13:05Z")
Being a Wisconsin native (expatriate cheesehead living south of the border now), I can say with confidence that not only are there coyotes there now, they’ve been there for decades. The problem is that if you could get them in sufficient numbers to deal with the stray cats, you’d have hysterical folks screaming about coyotes drooling over their toy dogs/little kids/whatever. Then you’d have people lining up to kill the coyotes as well. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/6 "2005-04-12T02:17:50Z")
> [@](#): > > The proposal would affect any cat not under an owner’s direct control or without a collar. “Collar? What collar? I swear the cat wasn’t wearing a collar.” ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/7 "2005-04-12T02:20:01Z")
As long as it’s a Lt. Col. Nguyn Ngoc Loan-style bullet-to-the head and not, say, beating the cat to death with a coat hanger or placing it in a cage and submerging it in icy river this sounds reasonable enough to me. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/8 "2005-04-12T02:20:16Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > That’s a good SNL-type parody of LASSIE. Let’s call it, oh, “Up-Your-Assie” featuring a series of vignettes (Timmy down the well, Grandpa with a broken leg on a mountaintop, etc.) and the friggin’ cat licking its fur, snoozing in a sunbeam and so on. I fail to see why the cat not responding is a _bad_ thing. Timmy was always getting his ass in some kind of trouble that any idiot with a lick of sense would have been able to avoid. So, you see, it’s natural selection to _let Timmy die!_ Shooting the cats will only enable you to bag the slow and stupid ones, thus enabling the more intelligent ones to become dominant. [Hemingway was working on breeding a race of cats with opposable thumbs when he died.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=292615) Eventually, you’ll have super-intelligent cats with opposable thumbs running amok. Is that _really_ what you want? Especially, if Timmys keep being saved from wells, abandoned mineshafts and the like, humans will have reduced themselves to slackjawed drooling idiots, who will make easy pickings. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/9 "2005-04-12T02:46:09Z")
I can see the movie scene in my mind, the _Twilight Zone_ style trick ending, when Charlton Heston realizes that the Kzinti evolved on Earth! ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/10 "2005-04-12T02:51:59Z")
And you know, stray cats have the annoying habit of hanging out around dumpsters, trash cans, and just places of human habitation in general. Better hope that kitty exterminator’s a crack shot, and using a fairly low powered weapon, otherwise who knows where a stray round could end up? ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/11 "2005-04-12T03:06:25Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I see little to complain about in a decision to thin the ranks of the most successful species of human-hosted parasites. Cats are beyond merely useless, they are a rebuke in their insolent lassitude. They dont rush with affectionate enthusiasm to greet you on your return from the mail box Mine does. He’s waiting by the door for me when I get home. He waits outside the bathroom door for me to come out (or comes in if I don’t shut the door tightly enough). He sits on me if I sit on the couch for more than 30 seconds. He puts his feet on my knee when I’m at the computer (he’s learned not to climb on me then). Etc. The only thing he doesn’t do is sleep with me, and that’s only because I have asthma. It’s bad enough me having a furred pet at all. ---
**Author:** ![MysteryFellow63427](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/12 "2005-04-12T03:15:04Z")
Recent pit thread in which cat drowning is discussed intensively: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=308619&highlight=drowning](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=308619&highlight=drowning) ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/13 "2005-04-12T03:35:06Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Now, admittedly, Wisconsin does have a problem with something like 2 million wild cats, but I have to think that as soon as someone’s family pet get’s killed, there’s going to be lawsuit’s aplenty. Won’t do any good. The WI supreme court has [ruled](http://www.nabr.org/AnimalLaw/EmotionalDistress/#CLWId) that pet owners pretty much can’t recover damages for the killing of a pet beyond the monetary value of the pet. Since the average cat is worth about $3 there likely won’t be any lawsuits. To clarify one point, the question that was voted on tonight is only a recommendation to the state legislature. The Conservation Congress can’t change the law to allow the hunting of feral cats on its own. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/14 "2005-04-12T03:35:36Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > …otherwise who knows where a stray round could end up? All red-blooded Americans will insist on preserving the right to return fire. We can expect a vigorous round of Social Darwinism. > [@Kat](#): > > Mine does. …pet at all. The animal is lulling your suspicions while plotting an impending outrage. Be warned. ---
**Author:** ![Unregistered\_Bull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3da27b/32.png) [@Unregistered\_Bull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unregistered_Bull)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/15 "2005-04-12T03:54:53Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > As long as it’s a Lt. Col. Nguyn Ngoc Loan-style bullet-to-the head and not, say, beating the cat to death with a coat hanger or placing it in a cage and submerging it in icy river this sounds reasonable enough to me. That’s a compromise that I could live with even though the beating is the only thing that I find objectionable. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/16 "2005-04-12T04:01:42Z")
1. There is more than one way to skin a cat 2. Some ways are more entertaining than others. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/17 "2005-04-12T04:01:52Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > As long as it’s a Lt. Col. Nguyn Ngoc Loan-style bullet-to-the head and not, say, beating the cat to death with a coat hanger or placing it in a cage and submerging it in icy river this sounds reasonable enough to me. Oh gee, who on EARTh would do a thing like that? You just KNOW that Wisconsin is going to be hit with bubonic plague, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/18 "2005-04-12T04:14:17Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Oh gee, who on EARTh would do a thing like that? > > You just KNOW that Wisconsin is going to be hit with bubonic plague, perhaps? Nah, they’ll be overran with flying rats flying NYC’s pidgeon control programs. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/19 "2005-04-12T04:22:27Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > All red-blooded Americans will insist on preserving the right to return fire. We can expect a vigorous round of Social Darwinism. That started when Timmy fell down the well and the cat wisely went about its business. Wisconsinites don’t need any klutzes in their midst. The cat knows this. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893/20 "2005-04-12T04:31:36Z")
Well, yeah, but after a couple days, that well ain’t gonna be of much use to anybody. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/duck-season-wabbit-season-putty-tat-season/298893.md?page=2)