I just realized why, for the first time, we have all kinds of neighborhood cats hanging out, passing through or meeting to fight in our backyard… We don’t have a dog in our yard right now. I’ve stopped feeding the birds, because it’s like setting a trap. Yesterday we found a dead robin in the yard and could hear a nest full of babies high up in the tree, chirping for food. I hope there’s another parent around. Ironically, the cat we suspect belongs to the neighbors across the street and they mix and sell wild bird seed for a living.
Wisconsin is considering making it legal to shoot domestic cats that are roaming free. I don’t know if I’d go that far - mostly because I don’t like the idea of people discharging firearms in the city. But I understand the idea of it. Other non-native species - especially those that predate on native species - are usually considered varmints and are fair game.
I thought the law specifically went after feral cats?
If you apply a leash law to cats and keep them inside or otherwise secured to your property, then there is nothing to worry about.
This issue is mainly contested by folks who wish to continue to be irresponsible pet owner with disregard of the over depredation of wildlife, are anti-gun / anti-hunters, or have some bizzare fetish for cat. Or some combination of the 4.
The proposal address both feral cats and free-roaming domestic cats. (emphasis mine)
So, if your cat escapes, which is not irresponsible ownership, someone could shoot your cat. Escaped pet cats aren’t feral cats. The proposal does not just address feral cats.
There’s also a question as to whether or not the DNR has jurisdiction in this situation. Cats are a domestic species, and the DNR doesn’t have the power to make rules governing domestic species. It’s a bit of a quibble, but an important one.
I agree that something must be done about irresponsible pet owners, but I don’t think shooting said pets is a humane solution or even a solution at all. A female cat and her kittens can produce over 400,000 more cats in a seven year period. Unless the DNR is planning a systematic sweep of all “feral” cats in the state, this plan is short-sighted.
The same hunting rules would apply to cats as to other unprotected feral nuisance species. So since shooting skunks and raccoons, etc is illegal in the city, and within municipalities, the same would apply to cats. Local towns and villages could decide to prohibit hunting within their borders, just as they do now. One would need a valid hunting license to hunt them.
This proposal is going nowhere in Wisconsin. It was not a binding vote. It was an advisory referendum. A committee of the Dept. of Natural Resources is to weigh the vote, and other public testimony, then advise the DNR whether or not to recommend feral cats be hunted to the state legislature. The head of the DNR would then decide, only if it was recommended that they be hunted. If the head of the DNR then got on board and agreed to recommend that feral cats could be hunted, the gummint would be advised about the recommendation. Then it would be up to the legislature to propose it, and if passed, get the governor to sign it.
The gov has already gone on record as saying he’d veto it if it ever got that far. I doubt it gets out of committee, frankly.
My chief fear is that the backlash will be such that more people will provide food and shelter for the feral colonies, without providing neutering.
Not much of a difference. Both feral and free domestic cats are nuisances that prey on native wildlife. Letting a cat loose is irresponsible unless someone breaks in and “catnaps” it. It’s under your care, and you shouldn’t have let it happen. I know. I’ve had a dog shot because I was not responsible enough to have secured properly. Your plea sounds like another irresponsible owner - apathy about wildlife over predation - bizzare fetish bit. Probably with a strong anti-gun / anit-hunting bias as well.
Your braggadocio about the breeding prowess of cats really points out that State Wildlife officials should start an official extermination program for the pests.
My plea sounds like another irresponsible cat owner? With a strong anti-gun/anti-hunting bias as well? Fetish? I promise you that I do not require a cat to receive sexual gratification. Please, sir, do not put words in my mouth. You are making sweeping assumptions about my viewpoints.
Sometimes cats escape on accident and by the very nature of an accident, blame/responsibility cannot be reasonably assigned. What do you propose cat-owners do? Lock their cats in a special cat-safe? Get tiny kitty straitjackets? What to you is totally responsible pet-ownership?
Braggadocio? No, not at all. It merely points out that eliminating the threat of feral cats is infeasible by the current proposal. Cats have been hunted in both Minnesota and South Dakota for quite some time, and they’re still a problem in those states, despite the decades that those programs have been in place. This is not a reasonable solution. A more reasonable approach, for owner responsibility especially, would be cat licensure laws which require cats to be spayed/neutered unless they are breeding stock or the owner wishes to pay a substantially higher licensing fee. For feral cats, a trap and euthanasia program, allowing the issue to be addressed in urban areas (which have a much higher concentration of the animals than rural areas, where they can actually be hunted) would be a reasonable approach. The current proposal would be ineffective. There are better solutions.
Truthfully nobody seems to have the will to take care of the cat problem in the United States. Being allowed to shoot cats might help me out on my property but it isn’t going to make a dent in municipalities. If we wanted to seriously combat the cat problem we’d set traps and kill any uncollared cat that was found.
Here in Iowa I really don’t see feral domestic cats as a problem. There are plenty of songbirds to go around.
What is happening though is the appearance of large cats,read bobcats and cougars, in the area.There is no hunting season on these cats because they were extinct in Iowa for years. Some say the DNR has released them to help control the deer problem.
I see the big cats potentially a much greater problem than any tabby.
I’ve heard of big cats in the area of Wisconsin bordered by Iowa . I wonder if this tabbycat law isn’t a precursor to big cat hunting.
And how would you characterize proponents of this measure? It seems that there are an awful lot of people who just hate cats, and are looking for any excuse to exterminate them. These are not people who give a damn about the environment or the precious birdies or rodents in their back yards.
The only solution to this problem (if it is, indeed, a problem) is responsible pet ownership and neutering. The cats that are already out there have found their niche in the natural order of things, and should be respected for that.
Just like other species (rabbits in Australia, mongooses in the Caribbean, etc.), domestic cats do not have a niche and screw up the natural order of things. Again, I don’t think cats should be shot. I do think live traps in my yard might be an option, and then a call to the Humane Society.
I am a pet owner and I love cats. It doesn’t make any difference if you neuter them. They are hunters. In the wild, predators have their own territories and their numbers naturally are culled by the availability of sources of food. There are dozens of cats in my neighborhood. They all get fed at home and they all kill wildlife if they can get their paws on them.
On the bright side, I saw a Great Horned Owl in a neighbor’s tree last year. According to the sources I checked, one of their favorite foods is domestic cats. That’s at least a LITTLE more like the “natural order of things.”
Responsible pet ownership includes making sure that your pet doesn’t run wild. I am liable for what my dog does if he gets loose. I take precautions to prevent him running free, like a locked chainlink fence. The same applies to cats. I don’t want my dog eating the garter snakes in my garden so I fence it off from him. If I wanted the “precious” garter snakes eaten I’d get a cat. Ditto the birds I feed.
Why should we ‘respect’ feral cats any more than we ‘respect’ zebra mussels, snakehead fish, nutria, starlings or any other introduced species that is interfering with the eco system?
Yes, cats are cute, but when their population numbers get too great for an area they suffer like any other animal tht doesn’t have sufficient resources. I think it’s more humane to shoot a cute little feral kitten than let it starve to death.
Lest you think I’m just pulling this out of my ass, I ride my bike through a wooded river bottom parkway to get to work. I see starving feral cats everyday. Sometimes I see their dead carcasses.
Feral cats are a big environmental problem, and the only way to fix it is to euthanize or otherwise kill them in large numbers.
I think leash laws for cats are a little impractical, though. For one, unless provoked by the most deliberate of means, they’re essentially no danger to people; and secondly, most cats are simply not very amenable to leashing. Besides, they’re small, quick, elusive, and do a lot of their prowling at night, when the civil servants are snoozing. You may as well ban their ownership outright, as I think feline leash laws would be virtually unenforcible and impracticable.
Here’s my solution: If you let your cat roam free, it must be collared, and bear a license tag. Otherwise, it’s fair game. Humane and non-injurious trapping gets around the problem of accidentally killing or maiming large numbers of legitimate pets. You can inspect the animal after capture, and set it free if you need to, before destroying it. Folks who don’t properly license and tag their cats face not only losing their pet, but also hefty fines.
I don’t know if this violates the constitution or something, but I also might try to pass laws requiring cat owners pay some “breeder’s license” fee if they want to keep their pet whole. Otherwise, neutering/spaying would be mandatory.
I’m not opposed to euthanizing cats if they are indeed a problem, so long as it’s done humanely, and not by any sicko with a gun who would gleefully engage in feline target practice.
And yes, licensing and spaying/neutering should be mandatory for pets that are allowed to roam free.
I think this whole issue is absolutely startling and a little insane, to be perfectly honest. I guess I say that because I am a cat owner and all-around general animal-lover.
panache45 - I agree with what you’re saying completely.
Would you accept it if I said I just like plinking pussies? :EEK: Actually, I love cats and would have a houseful if I weren’t allergic but even when I had four I practiced good cat-owning and got VERY fast at catching them (gently) behind the head with my ankle as they tried to scoot out the door. My current dogs, who are bigger, clumsier, and slower, don’t stand a chance.
So, let’s try one of those bird-hugging organizations, the National Audobon Society:
[quote]
[ul]
[li]Feral and free-ranging cats kill millions of native birds and other small animals annually;[/li][li]Birds constitute approximately 20%-30% of the prey of feral and free-ranging domestic cats;[/li][li]The American Ornithologists’ Union, American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians, International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians, Inc., and the Cooper Ornithological Society have concluded that feral, homeless, lost, abandoned, or free-ranging domestic cats are proven to have serious negative impacts on bird populations, and have contributed to the decline of many bird species. Worldwide, cats may have been involved in the extinction of more bird species than any other cause, except habitat destruction;[/li][li]Feral cat colony management programs known by the acronym TTVNR (Trapped, Tested, Vaccinated, Neutered, Released) are not effective solutions to the problem. In fact, these cat colonies are usually fed by very well-meaning cat welfare groups. The unnatural colonies form around food sources and grow to the limits of the food supply. Feeding these strays does not prevent them from hunting; it only maintains high densities of cats that dramatically increase predation on and competition with native wildlife populations; [/li][li]Free-roaming cats are likely to come in contact with rabid wild animals and thus spread the disease to people. They pose a risk to the general public through transmission of other diseases like toxoplasmosis, feline leukemia, distemper, and roundworm.[/ul] [/li][/quote]
The lesson? Keep kitty locked up or else you might find it taking a permanent nap at the side of the road.
I think some of those risks to humanity are a bit overstated in their importance. I don’t have any statistics, but I imagine the number of people infected by rabid housecats, or pregnancies ruined by feline-vectored toxoplasmosis, per year, is comfortably close to zero, or it would be all over Fox News by now.
[QUOTE=dropzone]
And done so well, too! ;)(trying to get the image of Granny swatting Sylvester with a broom while Tweety makes faces at him out of my head)
bold
and after only one practice post
After my earlier post I went outside and noticed the birds chirping.
one morning dove. one cardinal and several raucaus sparrows.
If we could just get Sylvester to see spatsies as a delicasy…
