So you don't like her, leave the cats out of it.

The BBQ Pit
1

I can’t understand how anyone, least of all so-called professionals, can let personality get in the way of their judgement like this.

I work in a jail, jails have cats, it’s just one of those things.

Some of us try to keep them in a reasonable state of health, trapping them and getting them neutered and feeding them and generally looking out for them.

Considering what prisoners have done to earn their time in jail, I think the cats are more deserving of kindness, but I digress.

One of the staff who looks out for the cats is a very pretty woman, who, despite her apparent delicate appearance, will absolutely not take any crap from inmates nor from any of the typical rowdy male comments that comes from males working in a close environment, like in a prison, or the police, or the military.
Result is that when offensive comments or slyly slanted statements are made, she makes official complaints.

This has not endeared her too much to some of the ‘dinasaurs’.

There have been some noises coming from security staff that they didn’t like the cats, just a common or garden general irrational hatred rather than anything specific, but add this to their general dislike of this female member of staff who is known to care for the jail cats…well you can see the problem.

One female cat although feral was actually virtually tame, she would follow you around all over, let you stroke her, a nice cat all round, so the female officer found someone prepared to give this cat a good home.
Unfortunately she grabbed the cat in a way that made it panic and she was bitten on her hand, resulting in an infection and thus some time off work.

The cat has been succesfully homed.

The result of that time off work gave security an excuse to categorise the cats as a hazard to health and safety, which gives them an excuse to have them caught and terminated, plus the added bonus of being nasty to the female officer.

We’ve been given a few weeks to try find a way to rehome these feral cats, actually thats a bit generous, what has happened is that security have been trying to get animal welfare charites to do this for nothing, without saying anything, and since none will trap and kill healthy animals, they will have to pay an agency to do it. Aparrently this agency will arrive sometime late June.
We found out by the back door, knowing some of the staff who had to put the tender document out, some of those admins staff are cat lovers too unbeknownst to security.

So now we are stuck, I’ve already got 4 moggies, if I can offload 2 of them I’ll give a couple of ferals a home, but I know that taming them is a long drawn out process.

I had to grab one ill looking specimen, get it treated at the vets, and now I’ll be stuck with it. I can’t rationalise the logic of getting it treated for its ills, to return it to the jail, to have it be trapped and killed in a couple of weeks.

All this is largely to ‘get at’ that female member of staff.
Destroyng the cats on site, and there are only 5 of them since we have been very good at controlling their numbers, it is pointless because in time other cats will move in as there is a steady and reliable source of food.

By controlling thier numbers we have been able to ensure that the ones living here are healthy and keep out others that probably are carrying a few diseases.

So far in the last 5 years we have homed around 20 or more kittens, and got all those here neutered, we will not be overrun with them.

All this shit because of a personality clash.

The feral cat I’m stuck with hasn’t got a name yet, he upstairs in the spare bedroom looking a bit shell shocked.

2

Good for you for taking care of the cats - what’s happening to them really sucks. You may be able to get some useful help and/or advice from Alley Cat Allies. They have a fact sheet on relocating ferals, if you absolutely must do so.

3

Are you sure it’s a personality issue?

How does keeping animals out of a work environment “get back” at one particular person?

WTF? What a bizarre assertion.

4

Are you sure it’s a personality issue?

How does keeping animals out of a work environment “get back” at one particular person?

WTF? What a bizarre assertion.

5

Are you sure it’s a personality issue?

How does keeping animals out of a work environment “get back” at one particular person?

WTF? What a bizarre assertion.

6

I do apologize for the triple post-- I’ve never seen Opera report a timeout after the request has gone through before.

7

Tell that fat lady to stop singing into a canyon.
:smiley:

8

I’d have to say that having cats in a prison would not fly here in the US. It would not be allowed by government regulations; and often for real concerns like allergy, and the risk of cat-bite injuries. I’ve seen people lose limbs and even die from overwhelming infection from feline bites.

Sorry your arrangement had to come to an unpleasant end, tho.

9

In the UK most jails have cats.

Cons throw uneaten food from the cell windows, this is attractive to the cats either directly, or by the pigeons, rats and assorted vermin that come to feed off it.

Since many UK jails are located near town centres, cats are pretty much part of the package.

The risk of a bite from a jail cat is small, they leave you alone if you leave them alone.

I wonder if execution by cat bite would work ?

I can think of some who would merit it.

10

Wow, that’s just bizarre. Kinda cool though.

11

That sounds so… dirty.

12

I regret to inform you that you are quite mistaken. Cats are very common in lower security level, open and older prisons. Even in the U.S. This is not such a bold assertion by the OP.

I personally work in a 72 acre, Level-2 facility and we have approximately 20-30 cats at anytime. Our cats, however, are not very tame. There are quite a few inmates who have befriended them, but, for the most part, the cats run away from humans if you try and approach them.

Any stray animal will naturely go to a location of secured food and shelter. Prisons are a perfect place for this. In Level 4 facilities, less cats are around because the prisoners are most of the time indoors (prisoners are their main source of food). But cats will still raid dumpsters, get hand fed and eat small rodents.

We have tried to address the issue before by catching the cats, but they just keep coming back (different ones). Some of them breed there and there are generations of cats living in the old buildings and on the grounds.

As for the personal motivation for the action at the OP’s prison, I cannot comment. But I can say there are a fair amount of personnel at my prison who do not think the cats should be there. Nor the pigeons. Nor the rats. Nor the cockroaches. Nor the… well whatever else you can think of.

These animals are all part of the reality of large institutions. I am sure if we committed permanent resources to “cat eradication” and “anti-cat maintenance” we could get rid of them, for the most part. But I would rather spend resources on securing the facility and maintaining prisoner control.

“Mr. Lissa”

13

Interesting, Mr. Lissa. I had been thinking more along the lines as cats indoors as unofficial pets, but I see I didn’t think about the issue widely enough to include the (mostly) outdoor feral variety. Silly of me.

I’ve a few inmates I would recommend as feline chow! :smiley:

14

Good for you, casdave, for taking care of the kitties. I wish you the best of luck, and please keep us informed as to how successful you end up being.

Poor kitties! I wish I could take some, but it’s not possible, of course.

15

Further update, and a distinctly unpleasant one at that.

I managed to catch the female that had been responsible for most of the kittens, this was quite a coup as she is generally too wise to go in traps or enclosed rooms.

I managed to back her into a series of smaller rooms until she was herded into a small rest room, so there I was stuck with an anxious cat in a small space.

I let her climb up the walls, the window frames and pretty much anything she could, after a few minutes of this she was puffing, panting and exhausted so she went into the cat box without too much fuss, and no scratches to myself either, considerable success I was fairly pleased with myself.

Took her down to the vet in York (the real one not some Johnny-come-lately York) there she was speyed courtesy of the RSPCA animal charity, and I took her home for the weekend to recover.
I had thought of returning her back to jail, where she seems happy enough, but stuff happens.

She had chewed her stitches so I had to get her to my local vet for patching up on Saturday, meaning I couldn’t take her back to work on Monday as she now has a cone coller and staples in.

Monday arrived, beautiful day, apart from the damage the cons had done from their three day rooftop protest (a whole 'nuther story)

I was asked by one of the female staff to look at something urgently, it was one of the remaining cats, a big light grey striped male tabby with a lovely coat.
She had him laid out in a cardboard box, dead, he was still warm.

Looking closer I could see his gums were much too purple, and so he was around his genital area and between his paws plus there was a bile coloured stain around his mouth, he had been poisoned.

He had been seen lying out on the grass with his head looking around in a lazy way as if basking in the sun, the reality was that he was dying, this was only half an hour previous.

Although I cannot be absolutely certain, it looks like a warfarin based rat poison, having seen the effect this has on rats.

I’d thought it was odd when I’d first come into work in the morning, usually whatever cats are around come out and take up the food I leave for them, and that morning there was only one, and it seemed anxious and upset.

Asking around I discovered that one of the main cat hating protagonists had been seen lurking around the area where the cats take shelter, under a portacabin type structure.

Since it takes a while for Warfarin to be effective, it appears that this was laid down on the Friday evening, which is when cat hater was lurking.

This is quite illegal and dangerous on a few counts,

one - there are uncontrolled poisons exposed which could be taken up by other animals, say drug dogs, badgers etc. There is a specific way to bait for rats so that such poisons are not taken up except by the intended target.

two - apart from an unpleasant death to the animal, you need a licence to use this kind of poison.

three - there is a strong liklehood that at least one other, possibly two other cats have taken the poison, have then crept under the portacabin and died. The place where they are likely to be is inaccesible without stripping away various panels so they will become fly blown and present a health hazard.
When this happens their rotting remains will have to be cleared out, and this will probably have to be done by a specialist company as there could be all sort of nasties down there, which will require protective suits and breathing masks.

This is likely to be expensive, certainly far more expensive than getting in Rentokil to trap the cats and have them euthanised in a humane, legal manner.

Although I ‘know’ who was responsible and the ‘how it was done’, I cannot prove a damn thing.

Given that jails are part of the law system, you might expect those who work within them to behave both professionally and legally, it seems not, my respect for those staff responsible has declined somewhat, to such a degree that I lack trust in them, maybe I just will forget to report back on any conversations I overhear between cons to the security department, things that they might like to know such as who is doing the drug dealing etc.

Reality check here, I have to remind myself that prison intelligence saves lives so I guess that is not an option.

It does mean that the female I have at home recovering can never be returned here, so now I have six cats!

She is a few years older than the others, fairly talkative and nosy, and surpringly tame and tolerant.
I think she will be quite a character, I do know she is a mean hunter, having seen the evidence in pigeon feathers around the place.

Ranting against the scumbags with the poison here is worthless, such folk are beneath my contempt horizon, I expect cons to behave better than this.

16

You DID report the poison, didn’t you?

:eek:

17

The folk to whom I would have to report the poison, are the poisoners themselves.

With little evidence where else is there to take it ?

18

Could you go above those people? There must be levels of bureaucracy above their heads. That’s a terrible thing to do! There are obviously much better ways to deal with the cats. (I suspect that if they DO manage to get rid of the current cats, more will move in anyway. Such are cats.)

I mean, good Lord, if the cats are POISONED, how are problem prisoners treated??? These people maybe should not be in any sort of a position of power.

19

While having problem prisoners poisened doesn’t sound that bad to me, doing to innocent cats is way too much. There has to be someone higher up you can talk too.

20

casdave wrote:

I don’t know whether you can make an anonymous report, but you could try getting an external agency involved. Could you contact the rspca (http://www.rspca.org.uk)? If you’ve still got the body of the cat and they can find warfarin in it, its some proof. Also, some boroughs have bylaws against poisoning which could result in a full investigation by the council if it was reported to them.

Also, for rehoming, there’s a list of cat sanctuaries in Yorkshire at http://www.catchat.org/adoption/yorks.html