A recent article

...from my hometown newspaper. This is my first foray into this forum, but I thought I should share this.

Feral Article

Don't kill the messenger...

Yet another misinformed cat-hater (or at least a non-cat-lover!) trying to influence others' opinion. The worst part about this is that the article is a "column", meaning an editorial - his own opinion - but it is made to look like a serious article presenting both sides of the issue. It doesn't, at all.

I guess you can make statistics and studies say whatever you want to say, and this man made a point of making it detrimental to the cats.

I wouldn't think of killing the messenger, but would definitely think of it as an option for the idiot who wrote that article.

He makes a lot of statements, but I don't see any references given to published studies , it seems more anecdotal.

Originally posted by billchamb
Don't kill the messenger...

Click to expand...

I'm glad you said that or I might have jumped you! :-)

The reporter brings up a good point about non-native species taking over natural wildlife. Yep, it's a shame that we have feral colonies and they take over native wildlife. But I would challenge the reporter to offer an alternative option - he couldn't. Tell that reporter not to criticize unless he has better ideas.

We would all love to not have to deal with feral colonies, but the reality is that they exist, and if all you do is kill them off, there will be countless others to take their place. The reporter forgot the point about the endless cycle of ferals out there.....

I think that the BEST thing that comes from the TNR program is public awareness. If this awareness makes 1 of 10 people neuter their pets where they would normally not do it, or makes 1 of 10 people take the time to adopt their pet rather than throwing them out, then it has made a difference.

In the meantime, I will continue to TNR my colony. I have gotten mine down from about 20 to 8 in the last few years. Small difference, yes, but a difference none the less.

I hope I find the time to write to this person this weekend. There are quite a few published studies on cat predation - many of them come to different conclusions. Bottom line is, it is very difficult to study. It appears that if the researcher is pro-cats, the research supports TNR and feral cat colonies. If the researcher isn't, well....

I think the issues are the conditions of the study, the length of time, number of observations, the area - are the cats being fed or not, etc. etc. etc.

wow I'm from around there and haven't heard that yet.. Well actually I'm from Fayette but that's really close.. I didn't know we couldn't release--oops.. What exactly do they want us to do then? I love how animals always have to pay because of ignorant humans..