Here we go again, trying to find an equitable solution to the ecological deadlock of the growing population of both pet and feral outdoor cats that destroy birds and other wildlife. Some cat owners say, “Hey! They’re cats, and cats hunt birds, for crying out loud.”
On the other side of the argument are those concerned by the number of birds destroyed by outdoor cats and would rather see cats indoors – or dead. There is no question that cats kill birds and other wildlife; I see it daily (up close and personal at my bird feeder) where I live at Sun Mountain. Others are out in the backyard, going after sagebrush lizards, bluebirds and cottontail rabbits. On top of that, I regularly receive phone calls and emails from alarmed Source readers and fellow birders who witness cats killing (or stalking) birds and other wildlife. The quote, “They’re cats, and cats hunt birds,” is irrefutable.The American Bird Conservancy, co-mother of the newly formed East Cascade Audubon Society, reports there are more than 90 million pet cats in the U.S., the majority of which roam outside at least part of the time. In addition, millions of stray and feral cats are prowling our cities, suburbs and rural areas.
Scientists estimate that each year free-roaming cats – well-fed pets as well as feral cats – kill hundreds of millions of birds, small mammals, reptiles and amphibians. Cat predation is an added stress to wildlife populations already struggling to survive habitat loss, pollution, pesticides and other human impacts.
On the other hand, free-roaming killer-cats are exposed to injury, disease, parasites, and motor vehicles, in addition to becoming lost, stolen or poisoned. Outdoor cats also transmit diseases and parasites, such as rabies, cat-scratch fever and toxoplasmosis to other cats, wildlife and people.
Right here in Deschutes County, most of the more than 158,000 residents have pet cats; a fact that makes the many pet-supply businesses in Redmond, Bend, Sisters and LaPine purr with joy. How many are outdoor cats and how many are indoor cats is hard to determine, but it’s probably safe to say that most are outdoor cats.
There are two distinct ways to look at outdoor cats. One side thinks that a cat cannot enjoy a “full life” without going outdoors, while others disagree and quote statistics about the tragedy of outdoor cats killed by motor vehicles and coyotes, those suffering (and dying) from infectious diseases, and the short life of most outdoor cats. I once had a man in Sisters say to me, “I love my cats too much to let them go outside alone.”
One cat-owner, considering the dilemma of whether to allow her cat to roam outside, said, “One must consider that the average life-span of a totally outdoor cat is about a year and a half, while the totally indoor cat is expected to live upwards to 15 years.”
There are the obvious dangers facing outdoor cats. One threat is the cat that sits on its owner’s warm car engine in winter for warmth, and is then torn to pieces by the fan belt when the engine is started. Add to that accidental and planned poisonings, cruel people, coyotes, tougher cats and diseases, and dangers to outdoor cats begin to grow alarmingly.
A type of Feline AIDS has popped up, along with heartworms (transmitted by mosquitoes) and the insatiable appetite cats have for antifreeze. Its sweet taste is irresistible to most cats and just walking through spilled antifreeze and licking its paws will often be enough to kill a cat. Skin cancer is another killer that attacks cat’s ears, which also freeze in winter.
Unaltered tomcats fighting other toms spread disease and untreated abscesses can kill a cat and spread the infection. Toxoplasmosis – a parasite cats ingest from eating prey – can kill cats. It is also contagious to humans and can result in tragic birth defects. Not too many years back, there was a report of a child infected with the Black Death when her cat dragged in a ground squirrel it had caught and the infected fleas jumped from the dead squirrel to the cat’s owner.
Then there’s the business of your outdoor cat burying its feces in the neighbor’s garden. Just imagine what will happen when the gardener next door digs that stuff up!
The Humane Society of Redmond neuters and spays all the feral cats it gets then fosters them out, all on donated dollars. Years back, the manager of the Humane Society of Central Oregon told me: “I do not allow my house cat to do anything I do not approve of.” That means it is possible to “train” a kitty without destroying its “quality of life.” With the myriad of furniture and toys available to cat owners, it is possible for Tabby-the-Cat to live a long and wonderful life indoors, but if Tabby must go outdoors, it’s probably a good idea to keep him on a leash.
This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2010.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Stats for our 10 house cul-de-sac: 12 cats total, of which 7 are indoor and 5 are outdoor. Of the outdoor cats, I know at least one has a bell collar to let the prey know it’s coming. Mine are strictly indoor.
One of the more annoying habits of outdoor cats, which I didn’t see mentioned in your article, is the spraying. The neighborhood outdoor cats take every opportunity to come into my garage and spray everything, spray my front door, and spray my car. Not fun to clean up.
Also if you have a 100% indoor cat, you are spared many of the “necessary” vaccines (or can at least reduce their frequency) I believe.
As much as I appreciated your article delineating the morality of where I should and should not incarcerate my own pet, I have a rejoinder to add…
…And, actually. Wait. No, I didn't appreciate your judgmental profusion at all.
I have plenty of dear friends with indoor-only cats. And you know what? They all piss in their owners' purses, in their shoes, rip apart curtains and are generally a little insane. And you know why?
Because they're freaking PRISONERS.
Yes, when any pet is allowed outdoors, there are inherent risks. Cars, disease, all of the lovelies you mentioned. (I especially liked the part about the cat being torn to pieces by a fan belt. Nice dramatic touch.) But life is frought with risk.
I have owned cats for three decades and all have been allowed outdoors. And all of my cats have lived between 15 to 20 years. I wonder where your 1.5 year-average life span statistic comes from. A “cat-owner”? Fascinating.
And finally, yes, I'm sure it would be unpleasant for my neighbor to unearth some feces my cat neatly buried in her yard. However, I don't think it matches the unpleasantness of the massive canine cow-patties that are frequently deposited directly on front lawns and in back alleys all across Bend. Because I guess it's just that difficult for their owners to bend the hell over and pick them up.
Let's talk about that next time.
-A. Hughes
Am I a fan of cats in busy neighborhoods roaming around? Not really, mostly because I had my cat Keyser and he got hit by a car because I was living at my parent’s house, which was on a main road. That killed me. Then I lived in an apt with my now husband with our 2 cats Aurora and Pilot, never even considered letting them out.
Then we bought a house in a cul-de-sac and in the woods. We were going to talk about letting them out but then Pilot kept sneaking out. So we let them out and gave in. I must say, you will never see a cat as happy as they are outside. Yes, it can torture me when he stays out for like 24 hours and I question it but then I am reminded how happy outside makes him.
While I am sad I lost my Keyser to being hit by a car I know those few times he got to be outside it was pure joy to him.
I think cats can have good long lives indoors but I think cats have possibly shorter but definitely full of joy lives outdoors. It’s a hard decision to make though.
Don’t, for even one moment, fall for the song and dance about cat-lovers being animal-lovers, they are anything but that. They don’t give one damn about any other animals nor even other humans. Cat-lovers are just like cats, the only thing they care about are themselves. Nobody else and nothing else matters to them.
Their TNR (trap, neuter, release) programs are a dismal failure too. A smokescreen and time & money waster. Don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. Do a search online for the truth about all TNR failures.
Those cats that are released will still be decimating the native food-chain for all wildlife. And if you feed a TNR cat colony they kill even more wildlife. A well-fed cat kills more animals than a starving one. They don’t stop killing other animals just because they’re no longer hungry. The healthier they are the more they kill. It’s what they do, it’s what they are. Lousy little killing machines, nothing more.
The problem is just not the loss of bird populations either. Feral cats and neighboring farmers that let theirs roam free have decimated the natural food-chain in my woods. The resident foxes, owls, and other predatory animals no longer had a food source, the feral cats destroyed all the smaller animals that all the larger ones depended on. The native species all starved to death. That’s what cats do to ALL native animals.
I found out that where I live it is perfectly legal to defend your own property and animals from destruction by others’ animals. I lost count after dispatching the first 20 piece-of-sh!t vermin with a good .22, outfitted with a laser-sight and good zoom rifle-scope. I didn’t have to waste even one bullet, making this solution highly economical as well. Just think of how many dollars and hours of your lives that you have spent trapping, transporting, calling, complaining, restoring damaged property, et.al. … and still all the problems that these useless cat-lovers have caused remains. If your aim is good this is even a far more humane method than what animal-humane societies use. Instead of dying an agonizingly slow death by animal-shelter methods, they don’t even know they’ve been shot. This is why it is the prefered method of disposing of feral cats in many states.
It’s time to give cats and cat-lovers the same consideration and respect that they have for all other humans and all other wildlife–that means NONE. Don’t bother wasting your time arguing with disrespectful, inconsiderate, and ignorant cat-lovers either, as I stupidly tried to do too many times in the past. Just do what needs to be done and there’ll be nothing to argue about.
This year owls and foxes have returned to my woods. Through a large effort of my own, including raising and releasing native mice and voles to help repopulate the species that their piece-of-sh!t cats destroyed. Their lousy cats are finally gone. But I’ll shoot again on first-sight the first chance I get (and anyone who tries to stop me from doing what needs to be done). The rewards for ridding one’s land of ALL cats and restoring the native wildlife population are far too great.
And if you don’t live in an area where a firearm can be discharged legally, then I offer another valuable and humane method to counter the myriad problems that all disrespectful and inconsiderate cat-lovers cause for everyone and all wildlife.
Anytime you see a cat off of an owner’s property, use a pot-modded laser on it. Google for: pot mod laser. You get them for about 5$-$10 off of ebay from Hong Kong and China suppliers and easily increase their output to 100mw or more. I find that filing a small hole in the side of the barrel makes it easier to reach the potentiometer than disassembly and risking ruining it.
If you blind a cat in one eye they’ll lose their depth perception and won’t be able to hunt as effectively. If you blind them in both eyes they’ll stay home near their food dish. This is instant and painless. It’s even far more humane than declawing. It is also anonymous. In daytime nobody will even know it happened or who did it–for those of you who don’t want to deal with or confront the ignorant and inconsiderate cat-lovers. I find that the blue lasers are more powerful and effective than the green ones when pot-modded, lighting a match much more quickly. I keep one of each in my pocket for those cats that are too difficult to shoot cleanly with a .22. I don’t like to see any animal suffer. If I can’t get a clean shot then they get blinded.
The drastic problems that cat-lovers have created for everyone and all animals now require drastic actions by all who actually care.
A little insight to help you with your war on cat-lovers and their cats. Maybe if you explain this to them you won’t have to use more drastic means.
Human Territorial Behavior By Expendable Proxy
I have come to the inexorable conclusion that the vast majority of cat-lovers and cat-owners that let their destructively invasive-species roam free, and those that defend the rights for feral cats to overtake public property and wildlife areas, are only (cowardly) using cats as a proxy for their own territorial behavior. Not unlike uneducated inner-city youth that will disrespectfully and inconsiderately use a boom-box to stake-out a territory for themselves with loud music. As long as they can have one of their possessions defecate in another’s yard and the yard-owner not have any recourse to do anything about it, the cat-owner owns that territory. It’s time to put a stop to them using their “cute kitty” excuse for usurping and stealing others’ property. If they want territory they can damn well buy it just like anyone else. Instead of using their underhanded, disrespectful, and manipulative means, putting (and sacrificing) live animals in the path of their envy and greed. Again proving why they don’t care about cats nor anyone else at all. Cat-lovers only really want your lawn, yard, or forest while making all others and all other animals suffer for what they can’t have nor own. Bottom line–they want to control you and your property. That’s all that “cat-lovers” are really after. It’s why they don’t care at all if their cat nor any other animals get harmed by their goals and (lack of) values in life.
Cats pass disease to wildlife, even in remote areas.
Dear members of Vox Felina, members of Alley Cat Allies, and any other feral-cat advocates and feral-cat relocation groups,
Here's something that you really need to read:
biological warfare n. (Abbr. BW) The use of disease-producing microorganisms, toxic biological products, or organic biocides to cause death or injury to humans, animals, or plants.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/biological-warfare
Given the above information about cats harboring dangerous biological agents that are harmful to wildlife and humans (of which you all were previously aware), as well as the cats themselves being just as harmful if not more-so (this too of which you were all aware), and the information about your TRUE territorial motives (if you weren’t aware of it before, you most certainly are now); the fact that you want to infest public and private properties with these harmful biological agents means that EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU CAN AND WILL eventually be held responsible for the crimes that you are committing against all of humanity and all of nature.
May you all rot in prisons as soon as possible.
Why TNR and Cat Advocates Even Exist …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Behavioral_changes
It has been found that Toxoplasma gondii parasite is capable of changing the brains of whatever organism it infests. In mice, they lose the fear of cats and fear response to cat-urine. Making the asexual portion of the Toxoplasma gondii life-cycle faster to complete in order to replicate more quickly into its sexual reproduction phase in all host cats. This loss of fear and apprehension manifesting itself in humans in a similar manner, even when common sense tells them they should depend on that sense of fear or doubt for their own survival.
Here are other ways that this parasite have been known to alter the thinking patterns of humans: http://wildlifeprofessional.org/blog/?p=3929
I strongly suspect that it might even be responsible for all cat-lovers’ wholly contradictory behavior of putting cats, all other animals, and even all humans in harms way through their adamant insistence of promoting TNR programs, just to ensure the survival and spread of more Toxoplasma gondii parasites throughout the food-chain and in more humans. They are, in effect, being controlled against all reason and common sense by the very parasite that is reproducing in their cats.
The stuff that sci-fi used to be made of come to reality. Real-life “pod-people”. They can’t think nor reason beyond the need of ensuring the survival of Toxoplasma gondii. It won’t let them.
Trapping as a solution is a failed concept from Day-1. Considering that there are now about 150 million feral-cats just in the USA alone, and 86 million pet-cats (60 million of which are allowed to still kill wildlife), this means that the cat-population is already oversaturated for a long time now. There’s only 311 million people in the USA, 2 cats now exist for every 3 people, from infant to senior. All thanks to those who outlawed destroying them in a faster, more efficient, often more-humane, and more cost-effective manner by shooting them. While they also promoted their slow, inefficient, and failed trapping programs.
Nobody wants more than 86 million cats for pets. Now take into consideration their exponential yearly growth-rate of x^5.4. An average litter of 5 new cats every 5-6 months. 2 cats can become 42 in only a year’s time. Increasing at the rate of powers of 5.4 EVERY YEAR. No amount of people trapping them (if you could even get them all to enter traps), nor valuable resources (materials for traps, transport costs, vet costs, etc.), man-hours, nor money will ever catch up to their growth rate. You now have an ecological, human-health, animal-welfare, social, and financial disaster on your hands, ALL thanks to cat-lovers and TNR proponents. The faster that cats can be destroyed the better it MIGHT be. Even when using guns and having all stray and feral cats shot on-sight we might still not be able to catch up to their exponential growth rate. Not even until every last land animal (including humans) is gone from this earth, due to cats destroying the whole food-chain, with nothing but cannibalistic cats left walking the land. Just ask any TNR group how many cats they’ve trapped this year. They haven’t even scratched the surface of the problem that they are exacerbating with their lies.
Your best bet is to make cat-ownership AND care-taking of feral-cats a FELONY with hefty fines or prison sentences for anyone failing to comply — until this problem that they created is brought under control by any and all means possible. Though avoid non-discriminatory poisons if at all possible, that once entered into the food-chain, will go on to destroy more of the very wildlife that you are hoping to save from destruction by cats.
Here is an interesting post from someone who believed in all the lies she was told about TNR practices, found at http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/05/the-secret-lives-of-feral-cats/
“I have been battling a feral cat population explosion on my farmette for 7 years. TNR does not work, as the trapped and neutered cats do not keep new cats from moving in and adding kittens. I have trapped over 25 kittens, tamed them, and found homes for them, but every spring there are dozens more. I have spent countless dollars neutering females and males, but they just keep coming! I have few wild birds now, fewer snakes, and there are bunny parts all over my property (cats must not particularly like the back feet). I wish there was a birth-control feed available, since many of these feral cats don't come near the traps even when hungry. I wish every pet owner would neuter their cats so that these colonies weren't added to.
These are not happy feral cats, they frequently have infected eyes, worms, and are skinny and mangey. I don't know what the answer is, but even in the country, a feral cat doesn't live a secure, comfortable life.
Comment by Dawn Hawes – June 21, 2011 @ 9:38 am”
And YOU TOO can have a financially-stressed life ruled by cats and cat-lovers JUST like this if you also believe in TNR.
Here’s another Fun-Fact that trap-advocates fail to realize, in their infinite ignorance of how animal-behavior and evolution works.
Those cats that have learned to avoid and evade all trapping methods are the next generation to survive. Ever hear the old adage, “If you invent a better mousetrap nature will just invent a better mouse.”?
So now, thanks to the supreme stupidity and ignorance of trap-advocates, we have a race of freely roaming cats in all countrysides of every continent which are passing on their “how to survive” behavior to all their offspring, both genetically and behaviorally. Now the next phase of millions of feral-cats won’t even be able to be trapped. This is just how amazingly stupid trap-advocates are. You thought 150,000,000 feral cats was bad? In colloquial terms, “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!”
There’s a reason the phrase “hunted to extinction” is so well-known in all cultures across all lands. It is the ONLY method that is faster than a species can breed and adapt to.
Stick that in your TNR-pipe of deceptive and deceitful ignorance and smoke it. You might as well, because you all have obviously been smoking something.
By the way, look up the term these TNR advocates just LOVE to use on how they reduce their feral-cat numbers, their candy-coating feel-good term of “Death by Attrition”. This means that their cats will die from disease, cat-attacks, animal-attacks, exposure to the elements, being road-kill, starvation, and any other means that drastically shortens the life of those cats. ALL their cats suffering for how many months or years it takes to die that way. In many parts of this country and the world this clearly falls under the guidelines for cruelty to animals, animal-abuse, and animal-abandonment laws.
If you want to raise revenue for your towns and cities in order to deal with this invasive-species ecological-disaster properly, start charging all these TNR advocates with severe fines and imprisonment for CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. Not only are they cruelly torturing cats, but also all the wildlife that they inflict their cats upon.
They’re not doing this out of any goodness of their hearts. THEY DON’T HAVE HEARTS. Proved, 100%.
What are my rights and options in Redmond as far as far as keeping cats off my property?