Please add your voice in support of feral kitties

[feralvr]

I added a reply to the blog. Still so

So I see "Birder" is really hot on this one and is replying to most posts. OF COURSE - SOME shelters that receive FERAL cats will try to reach out to the TNR organizations and the TNR foster network to come and take the cat out of the shelter when no other option will work. My point in my reply was that shelters DO NOT just haphazardly unload friendly cats into a feral colony or barn program as a way to decrease their population inside of the shelter. RIDICULOUS. Birder IS 100% INCORRECT and barn programs DO work for feral cats.

I just had to post this (unload it) here because I am not going to get into a battle in the blog, it is just not for me.

 

[Anne]

 

I added a reply to the blog. Still so

So I see "Birder" is really hot on this one and is replying to most posts. OF COURSE - SOME shelters that receive FERAL cats will try to reach out to the TNR organizations and the TNR foster network to come and take the cat out of the shelter when no other option will work. My point in my reply was that shelters DO NOT just haphazardly unload friendly cats into a feral colony or barn program as a way to decrease their population inside of the shelter. RIDICULOUS. Birder IS 100% INCORRECT and barn programs DO work for feral cats.

I just had to post this (unload it) here because I am not going to get into a battle in the blog, it is just not for me.

This would be a good place to vent 

 No point in trying to knock sense into that responder there. He knows nothing about cats, TNR and rescue operations. It's amazing how someone can argue so passionately about something, for years I presume, without having the most basic understanding of the core concepts.

 

[feralvr]

This would be a good place to vent   No point in trying to knock sense into that responder there. He knows nothing about cats, TNR and rescue operations. It's amazing how someone can argue so passionately about something, for years I presume, without having the most basic understanding of the core concepts.

Aw thanks, Anne. It is REALLY bugging me but I am just not good at those types of confrontations because I don't have the confidence nor the intellectual words to fight back. I infuriate myself at times because I want to so badly but just get intimidated. Plus, I stupidly used my full name so I prefer to hide and not get too noticed. :lol3: And, I also fear you are right that it would be an exercise in futile energy which will not bring about any change nor understanding on "their" part. Seems they want the fight and encourage it.

 

[catwoman707]

That is exactly how I read this too, they want the fight, yet will not have learned a damn thing regardless with their closed minds and their way of thinking so set in stone.

I have to admit, I get VERY upset and furious even, I have way too much passion for what I do, and believe in it whole-heartedly. I see results, I KNOW for a fact that in just my county shelter alone, we have already reduced the amt of euthanized cats by nearly 3,000 per year now, because of so many groups who are tnr'ing as well as a couple of big programs to help the public with spays/neuters costs.

That's just one high kill shelter.

That is a HUGE number of cats, for just one county?? Imagine in 10 years if tnr'ing was as popular all over as it is here, what an impact there would be.

How can anyone possibly say that it doesn't work? Simple math! 1 male, 1 female, fix them and how many kittens will they NOT be making in their lifetime? Sheeezz....

AND they are dewormed and vaccinated. Healthy cats no longer fighting, howling, spraying/marking........

 

[ldg]

...I'm getting the impression this whole anti-cat campaign is created by some very misguided people who know extremely little about feral cats and TNR.   It's scares me to think that such ignorance could end up costing the lives of innocent cats.

Anne, it IS a concerted campaign. This is the Partners in Flight Bird Conservation Needs Assessment (from the 4th International PIF Converence in 2008) P. 10, the section on addressing action to be taken for various anthropogenic impacts on birds:

http://www.partnersinflight.org/events/mcallen/PIF Bird Conservation Needs Assessment.pdf

Cats:
1) Help the American Bird Conservancy promote their Cats Indoors program through Partners in Flight educational outlets.
2) Provide links to the strongest statements re: feral cats from professional organizations, e.g. http://www.tnrrealitycheck.com/positions.asp. Consider developing a Partners in Flight message regarding feral cats.
3) Develop task force or interest group to assess current outreach products and their intended audiences. Is there a need to develop more products or different audiences? Information alone doesn’t change behavior, so consider using “community-based social marketing” as a way to communicate the important messages.
4) Develop messages that are clear, non-confrontational, but direct and forceful in regard to cats and their impacts on birds.
5) Develop a plan to direct messages to certain groups – bird educators, law enforcement agents, animal control agencies, humane societies, pet products companies. PetSmart and PetCo support “trap, neuter, and release” programs, but also sell wild bird products such as bird seed. Pressure these companies to either stop their support of “trap, neuter, and release”, or stop selling bird seed.
6) Work specifically with pet industry companies to deliver clear messages regarding proper pet care and not in any way to support feral cat colonies. This will be challenging because they sell products, e.g. pet/cat doors and radio collars for cats that encourage the public not to be responsible or delude the owners regarding safety.
7) Develop public service announcements (possibly from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) regarding feral cats and feral cat colonies.
8) Support, enact, develop, and enforce leash laws and spay and neuter programs for cats. Work to eliminate feral cat colonies.

I have a piece being published in the Mid-Atlantic Journal (Animal Welfare) addressing a specific published piece on the cost of cats as a non-native species This is part of the conclusion (pending publication)

VI. CONCLUSION

...In fact, in the United States, the fate of the feral cat is a battleground. National campaigns are waged to sway state and local policies and laws related to feral cat management. The sides are typically drawn between conservation societies and feral cat welfare advocates. Organizations such as the American Bird Conservancy (ABC Birds), the National Audubon Society, The Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center, The Wildlife Society, and individuals at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Division of Migratory Birds have targeted the feral cat for extermination (in the guise of language that denotes removal with implied euthanization) despite claims of using “the best available science” on which to base policy decisions. When Pimentel’s $17 billion [sic] cat predation valuation resurfaced in a University of Nebraska Extension School “literature review” on the topic of how to manage feral cats in 2010, the estimate drew widespread media attention. The estimate was highlighted in hundreds of mainstream media and conservation website publications, and was touted in an American Bird Conservancy press release, an Audubon Magazine article, and The Wildlife Society’s Spring 2011 magazine issue that focused on feral cats. And yet, using the same science, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, a conservation society based in the United Kingdom, draws a completely different conclusion...

It is all about media attention. These people are not misinformed. They are not lacking in education. They do not care about facts, and they create "facts" to support their position - or they twist the existing information to support their position. It is 100% a witch-hunt with feral cats in the sights. They are misguided, yes - but their misrepresentation and media presence is very, very intentional.

The author of the NY Times piece, Richard Conniff, writes for the Smithsonian (among others). It was researchers at the Smithsonian, along with one U.S. Fish & Wildlife employee, that published the headline-making meta-analysis last year that projects cats killing billions of mammals a year.

For anyone regularly following this anti-cat campaign, the same names and the same organizations appear over and over again.

Tom Will of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Division of Migratory Birds; (who has been so active in anti-TNR campaigns that the USFWS actually had to put out a notice that the USFWS does not have an official position on TNR: http://www.fws.gov/news/blog/index....nal-policy-on-feral-cats-or-trapneuterrelease );

Peter Marra and Scott Loss of the Smithsonian's Migratory Bird Center;
Travis Longcore of the Urban Wildlands Group (the group that led the suit against L.A. to stop the program that would fund TNR);
Nico Dauphine - though she's out of the picture now, having been found guilty of attempted animal cruelty - caught on film putting poison in feral cat food. But notably, she hails from the Warrnell School of Forestry, Univ of GA and her latest position (before being allowed to resign after the guilty verdict) was ... at the Smithsonian, working with Peter Marra. One of her professors is Robert Cooper; one of her graduate students is following in her footsteps, and we will probably see more of her work: Kerrie Anne Loyd (she's the one that published the kitty-cam killer "study." ).
Christopher Lepczyk, a prof of ecosystem management at the Univ of Hawaii.

And then, of course, there's George Fenwick, President of ABC Birds (the American Bird Conservancy) and Michael Hutchins, Executive Director/CEO of The Wildlife Society, which has the feral cat package titled: "Pick One: Outdoor Cats or Conservation" (because it's one or the other, of course, and if you support TNR, you are anti-bird and anti-conservation). Take a look at the names of contributing authors: http://wildlife.org/documents/twp/Feral.Cat.Package.Spring.2011.pdf Nico Dauphine, Robert Cooper, Pamela Jo Hatley (a lawyer from FL active in the anti-cat campaigns), and Christopher Lepczyk (among others).


This blog is written by Peter Wolf, who is also the Best Friends Cats Initiatives Analyst. Here's his post about Mr. Conniff and the NY Times piece:

http://www.voxfelina.com/2014/04/faith-misplaced-response-to-richard-conniff/

3 Apr 14
Faith Misplaced?

Old news: Richard Conniff’s March 23rd op-ed in the New York Times, in which he used his experience of losing a cat he cared for as an opportunity to misrepresent TNR, and vilify animal welfare organizations that support it. Although Conniff’s piece lacks the kind of focus one expects from an op-ed in the Times, it’s clear to anybody familiar with the issue: he’s using all the familiar “science” and scaremongering to justify lethal roundups.

And like so many others who have taken the same position, Conniff is happy to talk about anything except the evidence that lethal methods can do the trick.

The reason, of course, is because such evidence doesn’t exist.

More recently: The Dodo published a recap of Conniff’s op-ed on March 24th, followed by a response from cat behavior consultant and UC Berkeley PhD candidate Mikel Maria Delgado two days later and, yesterday, a response I wrote on behalf of Best Friends Animal Society.

The latter prompted a response from Conniff himself, via Twitter:

‪@dodo ‪@bestfriends Are you really pretending cats don’t kill wildlife? Have you ever owned a cat?

Which suggests that he didn’t actually read the piece. Or maybe he’s simply resorting to that tactic so often employed by people who’ve taken an indefensible position: try to change the subject.

Maybe it’s both.

In any case, Conniff apparently got enough pushback that he felt compelled to defend himself on his blog yesterday, with a post bearing the title “Sorry, Cat Lovers, TNR Simply Doesn’t Work.” Among the evidence Conniff cites as proof of TNR’s ineffectiveness, is an 11-year study (which he refers to as the “pick of the litter”) on the campus of the University of Central Florida in which nearly half (47 percent) of the 155 cats living on campus were adopted. In 2002, upon completion of a related six-year study, just 23 cats remained on campus. [1]

For Conniff, though, the project’s “intensive adoption program” is cheating somehow. “Another 11 percent was euthanized, and at least another six percent was killed by automobiles or moved off campus to nearby woods,” Conniff continues. “TNR itself appears to have accomplished almost nothing—and took 11 years to do it.”

At which point, one would expect Conniff to present his readers with an example or two of lethal roundups that have outperformed the UCF effort. He does no such thing—because, again, such evidence doesn’t exist.

If the UCF project “accomplished almost nothing,” then lethal methods—employed for generations now—have accomplished less than nothing.

The rest of Conniff’s post is more of the same. (Of course it is; what else has he got?)

His reference to the often-cited Rome study is interesting not so much for what he says about it, but what he doesn’t say. “The authors of that study,” writes Conniff, “concluded that, in the absence of a public education campaign to stop people from abandoning cats, “all these efforts” are “a waste of money, time and energy.”

Well sort of.

What the authors actually concluded was this:

“The spay/neuter campaigns brought about a general decrease in cat number but the percentage of cat immigration (due to abandonment and spontaneous arrival) is around 21 percent. This suggests that all these efforts without an effective education of people to control the reproduction of house cats (as a prevention for abandonment) are a waste of money, time and energy.” [2]

So, spay/neuter education and outreach. Exactly the sort of thing that’s an integral part of virtually every community cat program I’m aware of.

I think we can check that box.

“Trapping and neutering decreased the populations of 55 cat colonies there,” Conniff goes on to explain, “while the other 48 colonies either gained population or stayed the same.” (His description is very similar to the one used by the authors of the publicly funded, agenda-driven “Rabies Prevention and Management of Cats in the Context of Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Release Programmes,” published last year, which tells us something about Conniff’s reading list.)

What Conniff fails to mention, of course, is the degree of the program’s success.

Although some colonies experienced initial increases, numbers began to decrease significantly after three years of TNR: “colonies neutered 3, 4, 5 or 6 years before the survey showed progressive decreases of 16, 29, 28 and 32 percent, respectively.” [2]

True to form, Conniff has nothing to offer by way of trap-and-kill efforts demonstrating similar reductions.

The fact that Conniff is unable—neither in his NYT op-ed, nor in his blog post—to provide a single example of a community that has killed its way out of the “feral cat problem” says it all. Yet it’s “TNR proponents,” he complains—apparently without irony—who “just go on touting the same evidence, with an almost magical faith that it will somehow turn out to support their almost religious beliefs.

Already on the wrong side of science and public opinion, Conniff seems to have bids farewell to reason and common sense.

All of which we’ve come to expect from the American Bird Conservancy, The Wildlife Society, various purveyors of junk science on the subject, and others who persist in their efforts to keep the witch-hunt going. But Conniff, I’d like to think, is not one of them. He writes for National Geographic, Smithsonian, the New York Times, and other highly regarded publications.

And science writers—though they can’t be expected to have all the answers—are very good at asking the right kind of questions.

Or maybe that’s just my magical faith talking.
Literature Review

1. Levy, J.K., D.W. Gale, and L.A. Gale, Evaluation of the effect of a long-term trap-neuter-return and adoption program on a free-roaming cat population. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 2003. 222(1): p. 42–46. http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/abs/10.2460/javma.2003.222.42

2. Natoli, E., et al., Management of feral domestic cats in the urban environment of Rome (Italy). Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 2006. 77(3-4): p. 180–185. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TBK-4M33VSW-1/2/0abfc80f245ab50e602f93060f88e6f9

http://www.kiccc.org.au/pics/FeralCatsRome2006.pdf

His direct response to Mr. Conniff: https://www.thedodo.com/community/PeterWolf/trap-neuter-return-may-be-best-492785813.html


So when it comes to comments to blogs, news articles, etc. don't bother to try to change anyone's mind, don't frustrate yourselves in "dialogue." They are completely uninterested in dialogue. Say what needs to be said - put the information out there - so that people who are new to the debate have actual information, not just ideology. Speak to those who are not on one side of the fence or the other.

The bottom line is that these people, these organization offer NO solution. We are where we are because the traditional animal control methods of trap-and-kill don't work. As Mark Kumpf - a former expert forum host here at TCS and former President of the National Animal Control Association said - nature just keeps on having more babies. There isn't an animal control department in this country that has enough money to trap and kill all the feral cats. It's like bailing the ocean with a thimble.

TNR is a battle ground - one that TNR is winning, because even *most* people that don't really like cats don't want to just see them rounded up and killed - and because communities using TNR ARE seeing results.

 

[Anne]

@LDG  great post, Laurie, as always. What I don't get is this. If they're all so educated and smart, how can they not see that mass killing can't be a feasible solution? There are tens of millions of pet cats and no matter how many feral cats they kill there will always be new ones coming from non-spayed pet females. Their non-solution isn't just inhumane, it's just not practical. I just can't understand their line of thinking at all, even if we put aside our love for cats. 

 

[feralvr]

Laurie - thank you very much for taking the time to post this wealth of information on this subject. I was certain that you would be able to explain this "war" more clearly to us. It is going to be a never-ending battle but I also think the facts are there, right in front of us, that TNR IS working. I know that TNR will always be a battle to fight for against these groups but one so worth the effort. Again, thank you for your post here!! :bigthumb:

 

[ldg]

@LDG
 great post, Laurie, as always. What I don't get is this. If they're all so educated and smart, how can they not see that mass killing can't be a feasible solution? There are tens of millions of pet cats and no matter how many feral cats they kill there will alwaysbe new ones coming from non-spayed pet females. Their non-solution isn't just inhumane, it's just not practical. I just can't understand their line of thinking at all, even if we put aside our love for cats. :dk:

Anne, it defies logic, doesn't it? I have no answer for that. When the Audubon Society published an article on the cost of cats back in 2011, Travis Longcore engaged in the comments section. Peter and I kept trying to get an answer from him: they want feral cats gone. How do they propose this be accomplished? What is their plan? They don't want cats in the environment: what do they proffer as a solution for accomplishing this?

There is never an answer (as Peter points out in his blog post, above). It's simply an indefensible position, because there simply are no examples of where trap-and-kill has worked. In the meantime, Alley Cat Allies and other groups do help to remove cats from sensitive wildlife areas when these people go on the rampage and insist on trapping programs to have the cats killed. It's not like the cat community are raving lunatics, dug into an ideological position that insists all feral cats remain where they are.

:dk:

How having the cats out there, breeding, helps their cause, I have no idea (e.g. the Urban Wildlands Group suit against L.A.).

They are so focused on ideology they can't see the forest for the trees (or the birds for the cats?), and it is the most puzzling aspect of this.

What is also fascinating is that in the UK, where "they" love their cats AND their birds - this dichotomy just doesn't exist. The UK's Mammal Society commissioned a study on how many mammals (including birds) cats kill. In the paper, published in 2003, the authors extrapolate a UK-wide number - and the authors caution against all of the problems associated with the extrapolation (namely, a number of animals killed is not related to impact!). And in the US, this study has been used to help project gigantic numbers for how many birds cats kill - and yet the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, unlike our American Bird Conservancy, has this to say about cat predation of birds:

Estimates of how many creatures are killed by cats each year vary significantly.

The most recent figures are from the Mammal Society, which estimates that the UK's cats catch up to 275 million prey items a year, of which 55 million are birds. This is the number of prey items that were known to have been caught; we don't know how many more the cats caught, but didn't bring home, or how many escaped but subsequently died.

The most frequently caught birds, according to the Mammal Society, are probably (in order) house sparrows, blue tits, blackbirds and starlings.

No evidence

Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific evidence that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK-wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally every year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation. There is evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds.

We also know that of the millions of baby birds hatched each year, most will die before they reach breeding age. This is also quite natural, and each pair needs only to rear two young that survive to breeding age to replace themselves and maintain the population.

It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season, so cats are unlikely to have a major impact on populations. If their predation was additional to these other causes of mortality, this might have a serious impact on bird populations.

Those bird species that have undergone the most serious population declines in the UK (such as skylarks, tree sparrows and corn buntings) rarely encounter cats, so cats cannot be causing their declines. Research shows that these declines are usually caused by habitat change or loss, particularly on farmland.

Gardens: important habitat

Populations of species that are most abundant in gardens tend to be increasing, despite the presence of cats. Blue tits, for example, the second most frequently caught birds, have increased by over a quarter across the UK since 1966. Of the birds most frequently caught by cats in gardens, only two (house sparrow and starling) have shown declines in breeding population across a range of habitats during the last six years.

Gardens may provide a breeding habitat for at least 20% of the UK populations of house sparrows, starlings, greenfinches, blackbirds and song thrushes four of which are declining across the UK. For this reason it would be prudent to try to reduce cat predation, as, although it is not causing the declines, some of these species are already under pressure.

Cat predation can be a problem where housing is next to scarce habitats such as heathland, and could potentially be most damaging to species with a restricted range (such as cirl buntings) or species dependent on a fragmented habitat (such as Dartford warblers on heathland).

How you can help

Help keep cats away from your garden birds

http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/gardening/unwantedvisitors/cats/birddeclines.aspx

:dk:

It really is almost (or not almost?) pathological on the part of the US conservation societies.

 

[linkfarm]

They did some research here in New Zealand. Wellington to be specific. They attached mini cameras to a group of domestic cats to see what they caught. After watching lots of boring footage one of the cats was seen to catch and eat a common skink (lizard). Certainly quietened down claims that cats were killing native birds from a certain person here.  

 

[ldg]

They did some research here in New Zealand. Wellington to be specific. They attached mini cameras to a group of domestic cats to see what they caught. After watching lots of boring footage one of the cats was seen to catch and eat a common skink (lizard). Certainly quietened down claims that cats were killing native birds from a certain person here.  

linkfarm Do you have any further information about the research so we can find it?

 

[linkfarm]

Here is the link:

www.3news.co.nz/Study-to...cats.../Default.aspx

Hope it works 

 

[ldg]

Sadly, it doesn't, because it's not the complete link.

 

[ldg]

Found one! http://blog.forestandbird.org.nz/the-secret-life-of-wellington-cats-uncovered/

:lol3: The bird advocates must be SO disappointed! They're resorting to the cats presence may prevent birds from nesting. Just put up some bird houses - ALL of ours get used despite 10 feral cats hanging out.

 

[linkfarm]

Works if you google it

 

[linkfarm]

Hope it helps you guys

 

[meowkittymeow]

I am not surprise by PETA's comments at all... I wish people would open up their eyes about them.

I really cannot see how anyone would be okay with basically mass killing of cats, whether you are an animal/cat lover or not. 

 

[meowkittymeow]

Also, after reading the article, I really hope he NEVER owns a cat period, whether it is outdoor or indoor. I really got the sense that he hated cats

 

[linkfarm]

Try this http://www.3news.co.nz/Study-to-find-cats-hunting-behaviours/tabid/423/articleID/324235/Default.aspx

Cheers