Kill feral cats to control the population. This is advocated by many people. An equal number of people advocate the opposite. They advocate trap, neuter and return (TNR). The first group say that TNR does not work. The second group says that killing doesn't work. We have a feral cat problem that is a human problem because we don't have a clear method of humanely dealing with feral cats in the USA. I mention the USA because there would seem to be more in the USA than in the UK and mainland Europe. As for the Mediterranean countries such as Greece, they don't discuss the matter; they just kill them out of season.
TNR is the only way forward. Killing cats is cruel and it indirectly promotes irresponsible cat caretaking.
For me, TNR does not work if it is not done in a coordinated manner. If it is done in isolation people just dump cats in the TNR area in the knowledge that the TNR people will deal with them. That is one example of how it can't work effectively in the long term. If TNR was done on a large scale in coordination with better and more responsible cat caretaking it would work.
Killing feral cats by trapping them and gassing them is inhumane and cannot work because the area from which the cats are removed will be replenished by more feral cats.
Killing feral cats is instant success and pleasure for some people. It looks like something is being done and quickly. Politically, it is a good policy, for a while. That is probably why it happens.
The more sensible, non-politically minded and experienced people who carry out TNR know better but probably don't have the resources to make it work on a large scale.
TNR-Advocates "Vacuum Effect" is an absolute 100% LIE ... or The DEADLY Cat-Attractor Equation
ردحذفThere's an interesting study done by the Texas A&M University on TNR practices. They started out with about 12 sterilized cats. At the end of 9 months they had over 30. An increase of more than 200%, all moved in of their own volition. This isn't due to any mythical "vacuum effect" that cat-advocates spread and lie about so often. For that to have happened you would have had to remove cats to create a vacuum for others to replace them. The exact opposite happened in this study.
Simple reason being: CATS ATTRACT CATS
Cat scents attract cats. This is why they spray everything, to attract mates and rivals and mark territory. Cat sounds attract cats. Mewing kittens will even attract stray toms who will kill the kittens if they are not their own (basic feline behavior of any cat species). I even put this to good use to shoot the most wary of them on my land, to attract them close enough to shoot. By using an MP3 player and battery-powered pocket-speakers to make an inexpensive and effective "cat call". Loaded up with mewing kitten and cats in heat sounds, freely available everywhere online from cat-lovers' sites. (It's true! Curiosity DOES kill the cat. But only if you have a gun pointed to where they are being curious.)
If you want more cats, keep some around. More will find you. Get rid of them all and there's no reason for other cats to come to that area. I proved this myself by getting rid of every last cat on my own land. ZERO cats moved in to replace them. When you get rid of an invasive-species predator (cats), then all the original native species predators move back in, as it was before cats destroyed all their food-sources and displaced them. (The original source of all these cats? Demented cat-lovers that were releasing them all in the area which only attracted more of them from areas much further away. Any stray or feral cat is just a magnetic "seed cat".)
Another interesting finding about how TNR practices are so counterproductive to their psychotically proclaimed advantages ... sterilized cats do not defend their territory. Any new cats see this as easy-pickings and move in to take over. If that cat-colony is being fed, then non-sterilized cats will actually overtake the sterilized colony because they are not as docile and complacent -- taking over the sterilized cats' food sources.
Here's another fun kicker. The common Toxoplasma gondii parasite that cats spread everywhere through their feces is actually meant to infect rodents. This cat-parasite alters the mind of any animal it infests (including humans). Any rodents infected with this cat-parasite lose their fear of cats and are actually attracted to cat urine. So not only do cats attract more cats, but they also attract more rodents to the area with their whole slew of flea-borne and other rodent diseases. If cats eat rodents, then they contract those rodent diseases to spread those diseases to humans. The attractor-equation is not just CATS = CATS + CATS, it's actually CATS = CATS + CATS + RODENTS + DISEASES.
TNR IS 100% FAILURE -- no matter which way you try to spin that sorry hole-filled story.
ANY cat -- stray, feral, sterilized, or fertile -- is just a magnetic "seed cat". No matter how they are there or in what state of reproductive-viability that they are in, you'll attract and grow more of them. Even worse -- then you attract cat-advocates that want to turn your life into a living hell too. They're all part of the same life-destroying equation.
The FULL cat-attractor equation is actually: CATS = CATS + CATS + RODENTS + DISEASES + LIFE-DESTROYING CAT-ADVOCATES.
This is why you MUST destroy all cats on your land. So cat-advocates will never be able to control or rule your life ever again. It's THAT simple.
I did it on my land. Now it's YOUR turn.
If you do the research, as I did using data from the most "successful" TNR programs, you'll easily find that no TNR program has EVER trapped more than 0.4% of existing cats in any one area for over a decade now. (Even Oregon's amazing 50,000 TNR'ed cats, at the end of this year will have only trapped 0.35% of them in Oregon.) They simply cannot trap them faster than they breed out of control, no matter what they do. And those cats that learn to evade traps go on to produce offspring that now also know how to evade any trapping method used. So not only are >99.6% still and ALWAYS breeding out of control, and spreading their diseases everywhere, and still destroying ALL wildlife (native prey becomes tortured play-toys, native predators starve to death from cats destroying their ONLY food), but TNR fools are also ensuring that any future generations of these devastating invasive-species won't even be able to be trapped. This is why, due to TNR-Advocates' insistence that they have "the answer", that their feral-cat population has now climbed to an ecologically-deadly 150 MILLION feral-cats across the USA. Soon to turn into 1.5 BILLION cats within the year if you apply cats' breeding rates to previous population numbers. (That's actually a low low estimate. The real number from calculations spit out by their reproduction rates is closer to 2.4 BILLION.)
ردحذفFind whatever way that you can to destroy all feral and stray cats on-site. Avoid using traps if at all possible because trapping is what slowed everything down to where cat populations have now sky-rocketed out of control. TNR advocates are at least right about one thing; trap and kill doesn't work either because it is based on the very same flawed method that they use -- slow, random-chance, inefficient, easily outfoxed traps. 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 out-breed and adapt to.
On advice of the local sheriff where I live I used a .22 equipped with a good illuminated-reticle scope and a laser-sight for use when they are most active, dusk to dawn; as well as to afford precision aim for a humane kill. I shot every last one of them on my property to restore all the native wildlife to proper balance. Mission accomplished! 100% total success! This is even a more humane method than terrorizing trapping and animal-shelter methods; and why it is the preferred feral-cat management policy in so many areas today. One moment the cats are happily stalking defenseless animals to cruelly torture again, the next they are dead and don't even know what happened, they don't even have time to make a sound. Making your land 100% cat-free is something that cat advocates haven't been able to solve nation-wide for 30-40 years. On my land only 1 person in only 2 seasons was able to accomplish what they couldn't attain in decades. Why is that? The cost per cat was also only 0.3 CENT, 3 cats PER PENNY, a ONE-TIME expense (5000 rounds on sale for only $15). All cats gone for the price of a few cups of coffee. And contrary to another famous TNR-Advocate's bald-faced "vacuum effect" LIE ... NO CATS REPLACED THEM. The NATIVE predators and their required NATIVE prey that WAS here and BELONGS here is what replaced their lousy invasive-species cats that had destroyed the entire native food-chain.
May you have as much success as I did, and so quickly and inexpensively too.
p.s. Avoid the use of poisons if at all possible that, if released into the food-chain, would go on to harm the very wildlife that you are trying to save from destruction by cats. And please bury or incinerate the carcasses so all the highly toxic diseases that cats now carry won't go on to harm nor infect more wildlife nor humans.
Look up the term 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, road-kill, starvation, and any other means that drastically shortens cats' lives. They don't die from old-age, you know! ALL their cats suffering for how many months it takes to die that way. Just because they don't see how that cat lies there, gasping for air, dying for days, after it's been hit by a car or survived an animal attack means that it didn't die inhumanely? Is that how it works with TNR advocates? They didn't see it suffer to death so it didn't suffer? Are they THIS self-deluded? A cat dying from poisoning is even more humane than a cat dying from TNR's "attrition" (of which poisoning by any means; plant, snake, insect, or chemical; is one of the many methods that falls under the definition of "attrition"). In most parts of this country and the world TNR practices clearly falls under the guidelines for cruelty to animals, animal-abuse, animal-neglect, animal-endangerment, and animal-abandonment laws. Including being in direct violation of every invasive-species law in existence.
ردحذفLet's not forget how TNR advocates don't hesitate to carve up cats with scalpels as well as cutting off parts of their ears, from which they have to heal-up for weeks before they try to survive again. As if letting them die of "attrition" wasn't bad enough, TNR-advocates start them off by terrorizing them with traps, cages, and sticking knives into them first. (Which is also precisely why they can't trap them a 2nd time to keep them vaccinated.)
Not only are they cruelly torturing cats, but also all wildlife they inflict their cats upon. Their cats literally ripping the skin off of and clawing the guts out of any wildlife to use it as an agonizingly and slowly dying twitching play-toy for their cats. And as soon as all the "fun" has drained out of their play-toy, they go on and find another one to torture. This is no different than if cat-owners went to a pet-store and bought canaries and hamsters then threw them at their cats to watch their cats tear them apart for their amusement. What about all the native predators that depend on all those animals for their ONLY food? Their cats cause all those animals to STARVE TO DEATH. TNR-advocates' cruelty knows no bounds.
If you want to raise revenue for your towns and cities in order to deal with this invasive-species ecological-disaster properly and effectively, start charging all these TNR advocates with severe fines and imprisonment for CRUELTY TO ANIMALS AND VIOLATION OF INVASIVE-SPECIES LAWS.
They're not doing this out of any goodness of their hearts. THEY DON'T HAVE HEARTS, nor minds. Proved, 100%.
I disagree totally with you. Your comments are extreme and biased. They show a hate for cats. The best way is TNR but it needs wider coordination. At the moment individuals with kind hearts do it. It needs public funding, I think. But these are good people. The people who make these comments are promoting killing of cats. You guys have a problem.
ردحذفM,
ردحذفDestroying cats is NOT "hating cats".
Why do mentally-unbalanced and psychotic cat-advocates always presume that if someone is removing a highly destructive, deadly disease spreading, human-engineered invasive-species from the native habitat to restore it back into natural balance that they must hate that organism? Does someone who destroys Zebra Mussels, Kudzu, Burmese Pythons, African Cichlids, or any of the other myriad destructive invasive-species have some personal problem with that species? (Many of which are escaped PETS that don't even spread any harmful diseases, unlike cats.) Your ignorance and blatant biases are revealed in your declaring that people who destroy cats must somehow hate or fear cats. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is people who spread a destructive invasive-species that tortures-to-death all other wildlife; and they don't even care about their cats dying a slow torturous death from exposure, animal attacks, diseases, starvation, dehydration, becoming road-kill, poisonous plants animals or chemicals found in their environment, etc. etc., the way that ALL stray cats suffer to death; it is THOSE people that have ZERO respect for life. They don't even respect their fellow human being. This speaks more than volumes about your disgusting character. People like you should be locked up in prison for life for your cruelty to animals. If you let cats roam free you are violating every animal-abandonment, animal-cruelty, animal-neglect, animal-endangerment, and animal-abuse law in existence. Not to mention being in direct violation of every invasive-species law worldwide. Imprisonment for life is too good for people like you.
If people DO hate cats today, have LEARNED to hate cats today, you have nobody but yourself and everyone just like you to blame. YOU are the reason people are now realizing that all excess cats must be destroyed. You've done so much to make people care about cats, haven't you. THIS IS YOUR FAULT and THE FAULT OF EVERYONE JUST LIKE YOU. You have NOBODY but yourselves to blame. You can take that all the way to the next shot-dead cat's grave.
Here's a little information to help you understand the behaviors of "cat-lovers" and their cats. Something I discovered when local "cat-lovers" (an oxymoron if there ever was one) were using cats to overtake my land and woods, eventually even by moving my property markers when using their cats had failed -- failed because I got the legal go-ahead to shoot them all on my land. (An expensive many $1000s lesson for these property-thieves, surveyors are not cheap.) I often wondered why they kept releasing new cats onto my land even long AFTER they already knew that all their cats were being shot to death, they were told this is what was going to happen, and was happening. They didn't care about cats AT ALL! Clearly something else was motivating these people. How many so-called "cat-lovers" do you know that keep releasing cats and letting them roam free even after seeing many of them become road-kill, harmed by cat and animal attacks, die of diseases, killed by poisonous plants or animals they encounter outdoors, etc.? (Like every last TNR-advocate for starters.) They don't care about cats, not in the least!
ردحذفNow you'll know exactly why cat-lovers do what they do. It really has nothing at all to do with their concern for cats, nor even the lives of anyone nor anything else, quite the opposite.
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 destructive invasive-species roam free, and especially those that defend the rights of feral cats to overtake private and 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 loud music to stake-out a territory for themselves. Whether this behavior is done consciously or subconsciously, the underlying motive is the same. As long as they can have one of their cats defecate in another's yard or destroy their property, animals, and wildlife; and the land-owner not have any recourse; the cat-owner/caretaker 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 they're using underhanded, disrespectful, and manipulative means. By putting (and sacrificing) live animals in the path of their envy and greed. "Cat-lovers" only really want your yard, garden, 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, nor even other humans, get harmed by their goals and (lack of) values in life.
Property owners: Start charging "Cat-Recreation Land-Use Fees" to all cat-owners that use your land. I suggest a fee of $10,000 per day per cat. You have the right to charge any amount you want for someone using your land for any purpose. If they can't pay then you get to legally own their property from debts incurred, just like they have stolen your property illegally with their cats.
There's an interesting news report about a community in Florida recently where cat-advocates are trying to get a court to allow them to use a local shopping-center where they can keep their cats (to act as speed-bumps and car-accidents waiting to happen I presume). We can now add "Shopping Centers" to the kinds of property they want to steal and control. It never ends with them! Destroy all cats before they and their advocates can and WILL destroy you.
They can't be stopped from their behavior. They psychotically believe they are doing "god's work" for themselves. So you must destroy their cats. It's the ONLY solution.
Okay Advanced PSer, so there was too many cats on your property and you shot them all and had to fight with local animal groups over it. That’s why your blasting the internet with irrelevant studies and distorted calculations.
ردحذفThe reason cats are able to breed out of control on your land is because YOU killed all the coyotes, wolves, etc. Please don't make cats out to be anything other than another creature in our ecosystem. The links you post citing studies about fleas, etc, are meaningless. All wild animals have fleas, ticks, etc.
People cannot just go around shooting everything that inconveniences them. And "cat-lovers" are not all lunatics. Though some are. (I prefer dogs myself). But what happens when my neighbor decides there's too many owls bothering his chickens? Too many fish breeding in his river? Etc.
Most people who promote TNR are on the same side as you (trying to reduce cat populations). However, they realize that allowing people to just shoot them is a mistake because a large percent of people are simply ignorant jerks, who will abuse such rights.
Many of these cats are domestic cats that ignorant jerks have released. Also, there’s a lot of photos and videos online of feral cats being domesticated and making their owners very happy. An example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V0c3shTi-A
Think ahead a bit... if TNR programs are allowed to continue and grow, eventually science will find a more effective way to mass sterilze cats (via biotech or perhaps some sort of dna-altering substances which can be fed to them and will not affect other species). This sort of breakthrough would drastically reduce the problem for you and "cat lovers" who just want to end their suffering. But the basic concept of TNR instead of shooting needs to continue for that pat