There are three kinds of strays. The ones who can be adopted as pets, the ones are dangerous people, and the others. Most cats are the first and last categories. Dogs tend to fall into first two. And largely into the first one.
My sister’s last dog was a stray who was trapped. She was imported from Puerto Rico, but only because the local strays had already been used up.
Half of our foster moms were strays who were tame, and could adopted. (And were, after they’d reared their last litter.)
So, mostly because the “neuter your pets” movement has been successful. But secondarily because stray dogs who are unadoptable tend to be dangerous.
No it is no puzzle but you still are not getting the point. No dog is re-released back into “the wild” … group one dogs are either chosen as a pet or they are killed. Because it is clear and obvious to humans what the harms are of stray and feral dogs (they are potentially directly dangerous to humans, even if attacks by dogs are in fact quite rare). The idea that the population of feral dogs cannot be controlled by trap and kill is rejected as the goofy nonsense it is because a single dog attack on a human is dramatic. There is a public drive to trap feral dogs and no public drive to re-release those cute doggies onto the streets, no matter how sweet the puppy dog eyes look at you. Rationality wins with dogs.
The danger and the harms that cats present is less direct. It is huge to our ecology, to native species, and as a potential reservoir of diseases, but no news broadcasts of cats directly killing people. The cat bites don’t get details at 10. So it is irrationality that wins.
Skunks are not an alien invasive species wreaking havoc on native species … oh yes, they are a native species and part of the native ecology. Skunks are not major reason for humans to have to have rabies post-exposure treatments. Skunks are not a major source of human exposure to toxoplasmosis.
But kittehs are cute, and the huge damage they cause is not the sort that can be sensationalized, so kittehs should be thrown out into the wild.
Skunks are the major rabies vector around here. No, they aren’t alien, but that doesn’t make them harmless.
Coyotes and raccoons and foxes sometimes carry rabies, but not as commonly as skunks. Cats and dogs almost never. That’s obviously not true everywhere, but it is here.
And yes, it’s not that uncommon for the animal control officer to have to put down a skunk because it acts rabid. Nor for her to pick up dead skunks that test positive for rabies.
Map of identified rabid cats and dogs in the United States. Note the predominance of cat cases.
No question that raccoons are positive for rabies most often (36.6% of all identified cases in animals) followed by bats and then skunks, but the feral cats are more often approached by those who think “Oh cute kitteh!” and bite and escape resulting in one third of all post-exposure prophylaxes. Relatively few are bit by raccoons or bats or skunks and relatively few human exposures are from those sources. Cats are the big human exposure source (CDC).
The good news is that people bit by feral cats usually get the rabies post-exposure protocol and thus the incidence of human rabies in the United States is extremely small.
Cool maps. They confirm that there are many more rabid skunks in my area than rabid cats. And yes, fortunately, we now have a good post-exposure vaccine and it’s very uncommon for humans to get rabies in the US.