Cat Cruelty UK Nov 2011

Cat cruelty caught on camera. This was on the TV about 30 minutes ago (November 10th 2011). It is the story of a young man who wantonly and without a care in the world grabs a black cat by his tail, and while walking down the road swings the cat around vigorously. He was stopped eventually. The cat, Mowgli, was understandably traumatized and is reluctant to go out. His female human companion wants the youth caught. We all do. This cruel behavior could have easily resulted in a spinal injury to Mowgli or much worse. Fortunately it seems that the injury is only psychological.


Mindless Cat Cruelty UK Style 2011 from Michael Broad on Vimeo.

I think it is symptomatic of the disaffected, badly raised youth of the UK today. There are many like him. There are many who have little prospect of employment or living a constructive life. It's a life on benefits for many of these youths.  It needs to be said that there are also many good young people.

On conviction of animal cruelty the maximum penalty under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 is a £20,000 fine and/or not more than 51 weeks in prison. The police are looking for the man.

Update 12th Nov. 2011: The person who committed this act, 20-year-old Riain Richards, has handed himself into the police. We shall see what happens.

Finally, I want to make a comment about Steve Allen of the radio station LBC 97.3. This morning he dismissed this act of animal cruelty as something that was not that bad. Steve Allen, you have completely lost me as a listener. In my opinion, you are very wrong to make that comment.

How sensitive are cats to heat?

The answer lies in the type of heat: ambient or directional. Cats like to lie in front of a fire. It feels too hot for us but our cat finds it acceptable. This is because the cat's coat protects the cat from the heat directed at her/him. Clive Dalton on Knol, a Google website subdomain, says that cats are not very sensitive to heat and then refers to the cat lying besides the fire at over 50ºC.  A fair point.

He is correct, but cats do not tolerate high ambient temperatures as well as people. Cats don't sweat that much. They sweat on their paws. Cats lose heat by panting and licking fur to use the latent heat of evaporation of their saliva to cool themselves.

Cats can overheat - heatstroke - which leads to rapid breathing, very red mucous membranes, and vomiting.  The cat's body temperature rises to over 106º F (41º C). If left untreated heat stroke can lead to coma and death.

Therefore, cats are more sensitive to high temperatures than us. That, I think, makes them sensitive to heat.

Do feral cats make good pets?

No, feral cats do not make good pets. But they can make good pets once domesticated. The amount of work needed to domesticate a feral cat depends on the cat and the person. A true adult feral cat is a wild animal and may be impossible to domesticate. Please note that I am using the word "pet" to mean an animal kept for companionship. The key part of this is the word "kept" meaning looked after full-time, almost always in the home.

However, some feral cats are semi-feral or strays. These cats will be easier to tame and domesticate. Kittens born to a feral cat mother can be tamed relatively easily if immediately socialized to the human environment.

There are some nice stories on PoC of feral cats being tamed. If not tamed, feral cats can make lovely companions at a distance. There are many charming relationships between human and feral cat where each respects the other and gives each other the space they require.

Associated selected pages. There are many more.

• My Feral Cats - by Bob Tucker (Helena, Ar). Please read this. It is a charming story.
• ADELE: A FERAL CAT STORY  - another really good story from Bob Tucker
• Yellow Cat - by Dorothy (Central Coast of California)

Are feral cats a problem?

The answer depends on your point of view and where you live. A lot of people see feral cats as a problem; usually a health problem. They say that feral cats spread disease and so on. Or the bird conservationists make exaggerated claims about how feral cats decimate bird populations. Some of these people have an axe to grind. They have a hidden agenda. Others are genuine. These people usually live in North America or Australia.

In the UK, feral cats are not seen as a problem and are often appreciated. We hardly see them. Throughout Europe the situation is probably similar.

In Asia there are lots of feral cats that would seem to be tolerated. In warmer climates feral cats are more visible and culled sometimes.

Feral cats have, in isolated cases, caused the loss of a high percentage of a single species of animal on small islands. 

There is a feral cat problem even if there is not a problem because a lot of people think there is a problem. This leads them to killing feral cats. Accordingly, for the feral cat, there is a problem - a big problem. An alternative view is that feral cats are beneficial but we don't know it.

It could be argued that we should be asking the question, "are people a problem?" People have created the feral cat problem.

Are feral cats considered wild animals?

The answer has to be a qualified, Yes. Feral cats are born to other feral cats. They are born in the wild or in a non-domestic environment (the human home). Their behavior is geared to living outside the human home and human interaction.

The complication comes when feral cats live in urban environments. Urban feral cats might feed on restaurant scraps and waste food from hospitals, for example. These cats may well meet with people. People may interact with them and feed them. These cats are semi-feral or semi-domesticated.

There is a gradation from true domestic to true feral cat. In between are stray cats and semi-feral cats to varying degrees of wildness.

Feral cats that can be called wild animals are those living, for example,  in the outback in Australia with large territories and which have an ecology and behavior that is in tune with a small wild cat species such as the African wildcat, which looks like a tabby feral cat in fact.