Re: New jersey, listen up!

I had trouble finding anything, but I think this is what they're talking about.

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/2...-shooting-cats

You two must not visit other parts of the forum much http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=213506 It was discussed there a few days ago.

Nope, didn't see it. It doesn't look like the starter of the thread participated in that discussion or saw it either. Maybe the mods will combine them.

Did you read many of the comments on the link? There's some scary folks out there.

^Cats get viewed as pests here. If they're outside in the wrong area they'll be shot or poisoned. I grew up listening to people talk about some pretty mean stuff, so nothing surprises me anymore.

They are talking about legalising hunting of roaming cats, with a hunting permit (filling the coffers of the fish and gaming dept).

They have been bringing up the issue since 2007 at the meetings of the Fish and Gaming Council, who were the ones who made a resolution saying cats do not belong in the wild in NJ although they have no say over animal control so its not completely their choice, they have to report to the DEP who will have to accept the recommendation

You can contact the NJ Dept of Fish & Wildlife here:

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/contactform.htm

There are far too many legal problems regarding the reclassification of cats. This is not what is at stake IMO: what is at stake is whether or not the State will support or allow TNR programs.

As pointed out, NJ Fish & Game Council passed a resolution in 2007 that condemns free-ranging cats (actually, far broader than cats in the wild). This is the text of the Resolution:

I'm working on a response with research, addressing each point.

Actually, there was a report written by the NJ Animal Welfare Task Force in 2004. It recommends supporting TNR: (1.2 MB PDF File): http://www.state.nj.us/animalwelfaretaskforcereport.pdf

In January 2009, Assemblywoman Addiego introduced two important bills that would help pave the way for State-sponsored TNR programs in NJ. They have been "hung up" in Committee (Agriculture and Resources) for over a year.

To help regarding this issue, the best way (in addition to contacting the Department of Environmental Protection and/or the Division of Fish & Wildlife to let them know you do not support the reclassification of cats) is to sign the petition!

http://www.njferals.org/petition.html

The thing that's going to make it hard is, about some of those points, they're not wrong (health risks in particular). I don't agree with the conclusion either, but I don't think anyone here would disagree with the basic premise that cat overpopulation is a problem, or even with their next logical step, that TNR doesn't do enough (perfect TNR would be enough with a few years to let it work, but there is no perfect TNR).

From their standpoint, it's just an attempt at fixing a problem, and to be completely honest, I'm hard-pressed to say why shooting feral cats would be less moral than euthanizing healthy cats in a shelter. I don't like either, but we accept kill shelters as an unfortunate necessity...

But in shelters in NJ the cats are kept for 7 days for their owners to come forward and claim them, for the ones that did just escape when something was being delivered etc - there is no going back on shooting something, hunters are not waiting 7 days

This is legal in most areas of the US : even the ones where you normally arent allowed to fire a weapon in city limits.... Here it is common practice for dogs and cats as is posioning ./... Only after someone shot and killed the neighbors dog on its property did the law get involved ... Oh and thanks to some new laws the idiot shooter is in the federal prison

OMG! I'll never gamble in AC again!

Actually, Atlantic City has a succesful TNR program.

http://www.njferals.org/results.html

I stand corrected! Good for AC! I didn't really want to stop gambling in AC, but I would do it in a minute if they were allowing people to shoot cats.

Actually, with observation of normal hygiene practice, free-ranging domestic cats pose little threat of transmission of zoonotic diseases to humans (and really, who actually handles feral cats?).

Rabies is the one that scares people most (because if untreated it results in death). Over the last 14 years, 28 people in the U.S. have died from rabies. Bats are the primary cause, though dogs (all bites occurred out of the country), foxes and a raccoon are the cause. The last death by rabies from a cat bite was in 1958. Cats are not a "natural" reservoir of rabies because there is no cat variant of the disease. They can transmit bat, skunk or raccoon rabies variants, but no such case has actually been documented.

Further, according to research published in the Journal of Feline Medicine & Surgery (Luria et al., 2004), feral cats have similar or lower prevalence rates of infections than those published for pet cats in the U.S.: feral cats appear to be of no greater risk to human beings or other cats than pets.

Further research in other locations in the U.S. have confirmed this study.

I'm not sure what other points you think they're "not wrong" about, but having done extensive research on cat predation, one has to wonder why they're not creating issues with NJ policies on land development, given it is the number one problem to wildlife in this state:

New Jersey is the nation’s fourth smallest state (5 million acres). With 8.7 million residents (2009 U.S. Census estimates), New Jersey is the 11th most populous state in the U.S., which means New Jersey is the most densely populated state with 1,171 people per square mile. A 2008 report, “Tracking New Jersey’s Dynamic Landscape: Urban Growth and Open Space Loss 1986-1995-2002,” published by Dr. John Hasse (Department of Geography at Rowan University) and Dr. Richard Lathrop (Rutgers University Center for Remote Sensing & Spatial Analysis) indicates that:

Urban development between 1985-2002 was nearly a quarter million acres. That is roughly equivalent to adding the entire developed land area in New Jersey’s four most urbanized counties (Bergen, Union, Essex, and Hudson) to the state every 16 years;

Urban development in New Jersey increased statewide by 105,988 acres during 1995-2002. This equates to development of approximately 15,140 acres per year; a conversion rate equivalent to over 30 football fields of development every day;

Urban growth between 1995-2002 consumed 58,495 acres of upland forest, a rate of 8,356 acres per year; that is a conversion rate equivalent to 17 football fields of forest lost every day;

Urban growth between 1995-2002 consumed 1,573 acres per year; that is a conversion rate equivalent of 3.3 football fields of wetlands lost every day;

During 1995-2002, 5,116 acres per year were paved (the creation of “impervious surfaces”); this is the equivalent of paving 1,742 parking spaces every day;

New Jersey is on track to become the first state in the country to reach build-out within the next several decades. (“Build-out” is a condition where all available land has been either preserved as open space or consumed for development).

Finally - New Jersey is “home” to 187 Superfund sites as detailed on the EPA’s National Priorities List – more than any other State.

As to the other points:

There is no strong support for the viewpoint that cats are a serious threat to wildlife, except where there are fragile (prey) populations in isolated or fragmented ecosystems (O’Keefe, 2003- Cat Predation Studies Reviewed).

The effect of humans on sensitive ecosystems and declining/disappearing species is often ignored (see above).

The role of other predators and their impact on the wildlife and environment, including wolves, coyotes, red foxes (a non-native species), dogs (a non-native species), and some bird species (especially several non-native invasive species), has not been adequately addressed.

Without further study, it cannot be concluded that free-ranging domestic cats in New Jersey have any negative impact on wildlife in the State.

In fact, it may well be that the benefits of free-ranging cats on the environment actually outweigh any potential negative impact. According to “Cats Protecting Birds Revisited,” (Fan, Kuang, Feng, published in the Bulletin of Mathemtical Biology, 2005), “in a prey-mesopredator-superpredator trophic food web, eradication of introduced superpredators such as feral domestic cats in the BRC model is not always the best solution to protect endemic insular prey. The presence of a superpredator may have a beneficial effect in such systems.” Given that cats do prey on small mammals, and the Norway rat (the common brown rat), the house mouse, the European house sparrow, and the European starling are all non-native species that arguably do meet the USDA Invasive Species Advisory Committee criteria for being defined as “invasive,” without further study of the diet of free-ranging cats in New Jersey, no conclusions whatsoever can be made. The free-ranging cat may be doing NJ a great service in helping to deplete those populations.

Domestic cats, though non-native, do not meet the USDA ISAC definition of “invasive species;”

Cats are obligate carnivores, but are opportunistic feeders and information provided in the Resolution as it relates to their diet and predation habits is at best misleading.

Success or failure of trap-neuter-release programs depends upon their management: there are many examples of successful TNR programs from small townships, to University campuses and large cities such as San Francisco (and including many in New Jersey, such as Atlantic City). When supplemented with low-cost spay/neuter programs, TNR programs are quite successful in lowering and stabilizing feral cat populations.

Food provided for free-ranging cats poses no more threat of attracting skunks, raccoons or bears than does providing food for dogs on one’s property; further, proper feeding routines and use of proper feeding stations eliminates the risk altogether.

Actually, the guy that pushed for and introduced the resolution (and is a member of the NJ Fish & Game Council) - his family by marriage owns a large facility that has local contracts with animal control to pick up and euthanize cats.

...and, as already pointed out, the State requires a 7-day holding period prior to euthanization. There would be no way for hunters to observe this law.

TNR isn't perfect - no one argues that it is. But NJ proponents are suggesting that it be used to supplement current animal control, not replace it. The idea is that it is simply not practical to think that ALL free-roaming cats can be eliminated from the environment, so work with cat advocates and support local townships in implementing TNR programs to reduce the number of free-roaming cats.