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FeedWe need a season on feral cats
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I was down on my land in Iowa recently with some other family members and while a bunch of us were milling around near the pole barn a feral cat poked his head out of a nearby patch of corn. A couple of my young nephews immediately started conjuring up ways to catch the feline. My immediate advice to them was to leave it alone. With some luck that cat would show himself later when one of us was in a position to dispatch it with a well-placed shot.
There is no shortage of feral cats on the 170 acres where the family congregates each year for turkey, deer and upland bird hunting. I began to wonder if shooting a feral cat might get one in trouble. There are countless stories about individuals who are prosecuted under the anti-cruelty laws (click here for link to one article on this subject) when they are found ridding the world of one of these pests. The answer for many who choose to exterminate a free-roaming feline is to pull the trigger, let it lay and keep quiet about it. The problem with this attitude is that hunters - the ultimate conservationists as far as I’m concerned - need to showcase the problems feral cats cause to the environment to those that are ignorant of the mayhem these feral cats create on other wildlife.
Not only do feral cats have a huge negative impact on bird and small-animal populations, they are also disease carriers. Check out this report by the American Bird Conservancy for proof.
The only good solution to the feral cat dilemma is a season on them. We have seasons on coyotes, fox and prairie dogs. Why not cats? Then a hunter would not question for a second if it was legal to pull the trigger. When in the field if a cat pokes it’s nose out, shoot it and the rest of it’s head off and consider it part of the bag limit.
Who knows. It might become a fairly popular sport. Small towns in the Dakotas would have a Dead Cat Days celebration where big groups of hunters would take to the countryside on cat hunts. People would bring the day’s hunt back with big cats being weighed and displayed. Boone and Crocket would allow skull measurements for their record book. Taxidermists would display their best head mounts.
OK, so that’s not going to happen. And the chances of getting cats to be part of a hunting season is a remote possibility at best. But at some point the states need to look at their laws regarding feral cats and make sure that someone who chooses to rid the world of one of these free-roaming cats is not penalized for their action. For now I guess, there will be no bragging rights for the hunters that have figured out there is more that one way to kill a cat.
The law in the USA is that it is perfectly legal to destroy any animal, someone's pet or not, that is threatening the health, well-being, and safety of yourself, your family, your animals, or even your property. Also true even in most densely populated cities, firearms laws permitting, if not then 700-1200fps air-rifles are commonly used. The only animals exempt from you taking immediate action, legally, are those listed on endangered or threatened species lists, and any bird species under protection of MBTA (the Migratory Bird Treaty Act). Even then variances can be given should there be sufficient problem but this requires further study by authorities. Since cats are listed in the TOP 40 WORST invasive species of the world in the "Global Invasive Species Database" ( www.issg.org/database/species/ecology.asp?si=24&fr=1&sts=sss ), this means they have no protection whatsoever from being shot on sight, they are not on any protected species list anywhere in the world. Quite the opposite as a matter of fact.
Shoot to maim is punishable under the laws that define animal-cruelty (these are the ONLY cases that cat-lovers cite to try to manipulate and scare everyone from shooting their only favorite animal). But shoot to kill is a perfectly legal way to humanely destroy an animal. The same laws and principles that apply to methods of humanely hunting animals also applies to cats. Unlike cat-lovers' psychotic beliefs, the reality is that a cat is just another animal. It's NOT their baby, their child, their offspring. Even if they do view their cats that way, letting them roam free is no less criminally irresponsible than them telling their child to go play in the freeway and then blaming the cars for their child's death. If they let their cat roam free, NO MATTER HOW IT DIES, that is THEIR fault and they can be charged with all laws that clearly define animal-neglect, animal-abandonment, and animal-endangerment.
How do I know the regulations about legally shooting cats? Because I had to shoot and bury HUNDREDS of these invasive species vermin to stop them from destroying every last native animal on my lands. From smallest of prey gutted alive and skinned alive for their cats' senseless play-toys up to and including the top predators that starved to death from cats destroying their only food sources.
On whose advice was this all done? THE SHERIFF'S SOUNDS AND SAGE ADVICE. Absolutely nothing else works. There is no other method known to man that is faster than cats breeding rates and their ability to out-adapt to any other method used.
In fact, here's a publication from a study done by the University of Nebraska on the best ways to HUMANELY deal with a feral-cat problem wherever you live. This documentation INCLUDES the best firearms, ammo, and air-rifles required to HUMANELY destroy cats. deenawinter.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/ec1781.pdf
Besides, what difference does it make if the cat gets shot or ran over by a car, attacked by another cat or animal, drowned, or poisoned by plants animals or chemicals (inexpensive 1-adult-strength generic acetaminophen (a.k.a. paracetamol) pain-relievers gaining in popularity, for being so species specific). The result is the same. The cause is the same -- the fault of the criminally irresponsible cat-lover that let their invasive-species pet roam free. They've already proved that their animal is 100% expendable. You can either destroy their cat for them humanely, or let their lack of care cause it to inevitably die inhumanely. They don't care one bit how their cat might cruelly suffer to death if they let it roam free. Humanely destroy their cat for them before that can happen. A bullet is one of the MOST humane ways that any stray or feral cat will eventually and inevitably meet its death.
Cat-lovers might also enjoy knowing ...
If you advocate for cats as rodent-control on farms and ranches you've already doomed them to being destroyed by drowning or shooting when it becomes a financial liability more than any asset. Ranchers and farmers worldwide are fully aware that cats' Toxoplasma gondii parasite can cause the very same birth defects (hydrocephaly and microcephaly), still-births, and miscarriages in their livestock and important wildlife as it can in pregnant women. Consequently, this is also how this cats' brain-parasite gets into your meats and onto your dinner-tables, from herbivores ingesting this cat-parasites' oocysts in the soils, transferred to the plants and grains that they eat. Not even washing your hands in bleach will destroy this parasites' oocysts if you have contracted it from your garden or yard that a cat has defecated in.
This is why any cats are ROUTINELY destroyed around gestating livestock and wildlife-management areas in the most efficient, humane, and least-expensive method available. Common rural practice everywhere. The risk of financial loss from dead livestock and important native wildlife from an invasive-species cat is far too great to do otherwise. This cats' parasite is now even killing off rare marine-mammals along all coastal regions from run-off containing this cat-parasites' oocysts.
The next time you bite into that whole-grain veggie-muffin or McBurger, you need to just envision biting down on a shot-dead or drowned kitten or cat. For that's precisely how that food supply got to your mouth -- whether you want to face up to it or not. It's not going to change reality no matter how much you twist your mind away from the truth of your world.
If you want to blame someone for the drowning and shooting of cats, you need to prosecute yourself -- every time you eat.
This brings up a similar problem I have been having on my land. My neighbors have hunting dogs that keep running over here and bothering my feral cats. Following the superior logic of your article - isn't it time I was allowed to shoot hunting dogs?
Gee, did you ever think to ask your selves why there might be so many feral cats? Maybe because you and your fellow human beings think it is ok to breed and let breed anything!!!! Instead of teaching such terrible hate towards another species why the hell don't you stop the problem and show some damn compassion. We don't need you trigger happy people. Deal with the source not the symptom and do it in a humane way that holds HUMANS responsible.
hahah to me, in all truth, sounds like youre a little girl whinning that cats have more rights in killing birds than you, hence, i need to shoot it. ahah the american way of doing things...but hey, whatever floats your boat buddy, one day we will give account.
It is illegal to shoot a cat in Pennsylvania. They do not transmit disease. Get your facts straight. If people would be responsible by spaying and neutering their pets, we wouldn't have this problem.
Very scary these ignorant people have guns in their hands in the first place!
You are a disgrace to the Humane race!