National Parks Service wants to get rid of the cats of Puerto Rico's historic seaside capital

NEWS AND COMMENT: I am going to stick my neck out and say that the National Park Service is incorrect in their reasoning in their desire to get rid of the stray cats that roam Puerto Rico's historic seaside capital. I'm told by The New York Post that there are about 200 of them and they have a long history.

A stray ginger tabby cat of the capital of Puerto Rico, a US administered territory.

It is said that they had descended from the colonial-era kittens. They are unique to San Juan according to Darnell Wakefield, a solar contractor who visits the cats every week. They love to see them along their walk. They say that it would be a boring walk without seeing the cats.

The cats occupy a 75-acre historic site surrounding the El Morro fortress home and have become part of the tourist landscape.

However, in going against the grain of popular opinion it seems to me, the National Park Service say that the cats spread diseases to people. They are a nuisance and "inconsistent with the cultural landscape".

They want to get rid of them all and have announced a six-month plan to trap the cats. A spokesperson said that: "visitors will benefit from the removal of a potential disease vector from the park".

A "disease vector"! Comment: they are incorrect. The possibility of a stray cat passing on a disease to a visitor is remote. There are very few zoonosis i.e. zoonotic diseases which can be transferred from cat to person. And, in any case, if you don't touch them there is no possibility.

The park service also states that the cats deposit urine and faeces around the place which is unhygienic et cetera. I would bet my bottom dollar that nobody sees faeces or urine.

It is common knowledge that stray cats at tourist locations enhance the location from the tourists' perspective. You will see stray cats in pretty well all the Mediterranean cities and towns and they remain there as a tourist attraction. Nobody complains about spreading disease.

The National Park Service superintendent said that: "The situation that these animals experience at the park, specifically at the Paseo del Morro, is not ideal for them and is inconsistent with National Park Service policies regarding the feeding of animals and invasive species."

That seems to me to be the voice of a person who doesn't like cats who wants to try and 'clean up the place'. The problem as I see it is that you can't simply just get rid of the cats because they return.

You have to tackle the so-called "feral cat problem" holistically. That means dealing with the source of stray cats which will be ultimately be irresponsible cat ownership. You have to educate people about cat ownership and caregiving. You have to ensure that there is no informal breeding of domestic cats in the area surrounding the targeted area.

My understanding is that they're going to try and trap them and then rehome them but no doubt there will be many who are euthanised. And simply killing stray cats does not work out well because you inevitably receive criticism from animal advocates and also inevitably cats gradually creep back into the cleaned up area and so you have to start again.

They will have to do something slightly different and I would suggest a fully funded TNR program over many years (a permanent program in fact) to gradually decrease the population size humanely. These cats are in a defined area and therefore a well-managed TNR program should be effective over time. It's going to require patience.

It may surprise some people to know that Puerto Rico is an American territory. It is a special sort of territory described as an unincorporated territory of the United States officially known as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

When you shoot feral cats, you psychologically harm the people who care for them

Even in Australia where the feral cat is a pest to be killed in any way possible (irrespective of whether it's cruel or not), often by shooting, there are volunteers who operate TNR programs to manage feral cat colonies. One of these is in Newcastle, Australia and this study refers to them as the 'Stockton Breakwall' cats. Under the orders of the local authority the feral cats were shot at. The intention was to kill them but when you shoot at feral cats you don't always kill them cleanly; in fact probably hardly ever. You leave them severely injured and dying slowly. Barbaric, I say. Unforgivable.

When you shoot feral cats, you psychologically harm the people who care for them. Image: MikeB

This study says that the culling process was mismanaged. They say that it was mismanaged in two ways both in the intended euthanasia (laugh) of the feral cats concerned and in the psychological harm that this process caused to the TNR volunteers.

And I love this study because it looks at the effects of shooting feral cats from the standpoint of the people who want to care for them and who do the right thing. TNR volunteers are great people because they deal with feral cats humanely.

Nathan Winograd, one of America's great animal advocates, sets out six reasons why TNR programs are good for the community. A TNR program:

1. Improves the health of community cats;
2. Reduces intake and killing of community cats;
3. Reduces complaint calls to animal control;
4. Reduces illness in the shelter;
5. Reduces waste of taxpayer money on impound and killing; and, 
6. Increases opportunities to expand the lifesaving of other animals.

By contrast, he says that "lethal methods not only harm cats, they also harm people". The study I'm referring to is "The Impact of Lethal, Enforcement-Centred Cat Management on Human Wellbeing". Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13020271

In summary, they found that the bond between caregivers and cats was "as strong as the bonds with their own pets" and that the "the cats looked to them (the caregivers) to keep them safe and fed".

“I had a favourite called (Nala) and she was one of the ones that got killed… There’s people that really, really had such strong feelings for these animals… They are very loved.”

“They’re not feral. They’re pets waiting to go home, they really are. They’ve proven that to all of us that care for them. They just deserve better.”

“…the worst area. There was blood everywhere. All over the rocks, all over the pathway, like drag marks. So, once I’d sat with them, I’m going, ‘far out!’—something horrendous has happened here… I just started crying because the realization that out of the cats that were there, they probably only spotted about five. It was like, oh my God, what the hell has happened out here?”

“… two men came back in sort of like council suits, and they had some wheelie bins with them. They proceeded to scrub the blood away. They had cleaning products, and they were cleaning up the mess. We asked them what they were doing, and they laughed at us. That’s when we knew that this was something way bigger than we ever imagined.” 

We know that TNR volunteers give names to the semi-domesticated feral cats. They treat them as domestic cats and some of them are. They are adoptable. But they are living good lives in a feral cat community. The arrangement is beneficial for the human and the cat community. Why destroy that? And why destroy it in such a brutal and insensitive way?

I'll tell you why. It is because the Australian authorities across the continent have got it into their heads that they have to eradicate feral cats because they are preying upon their small mammal and marsupial native species. They want to conserve these small native species and of course I strongly agree with that objective.

But they can do far better in their objective if they looked to themselves and their behaviour. Human behaviour is far more destructive of Australia's native species then feral cat behaviour. Prioritise the most damaging cause of the gradual extirpation of native species which is human activity both in building new settlements as Australia is always doing to improve the economy and in terms of their contribution to global warming through the exportation of vast amounts of coal to China.

Australia has suffered from horrendous global warming events such as massive floods and intolerable heat waves. Look to yourselves I say and stop harming the kind and generous people who care for feral cats that were put there by human negligence.

It is unsurprising that feral cat caregivers suffer psychologically when their cats are shot brutally. The suffering was described as "significant". It led to "grief, trauma, poor physical health, and long-term psychological distress, including profound guilt, loss and the ability to eat" in the words of Nathan Winograd. Stop it!! You are insensitive and frankly ignorant when you order shooters to kill feral cats.

And what about the mistakes? Shooting someone's pet cat which must happen. Then you harm the owner psychologically as well. 

And what about shooting millions of kangaroos?