May 31, 2011
The Secret Lives of Feral Cats
Feral cats can roam over great distances, a new study finds (image courtesy of flickr user 37prime)
Do feral kitties live good lives? The Washington Post asked that question last week in a story that examined the practice of controlling feral cat populations by trapping cats, spaying or neutering them, and then releasing them back into their former home environments (it’s often called Trap-Neuter-Return or TNR).
The Humane Society of the United States, the ASPCA and other supporters say the nation’s estimated 50 million to 150 million feral felines often live healthy lives. They also say TNR has added benefits: After a cat colony is sterilized, nuisance behaviors such as fighting and yowling are reduced, and the feral population stabilizes. Feral cats can keep rats in check, too.
Skeptics, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and some veterinarians, argue the life of an alley cat is rarely pleasant. In many cases, they say it’s actually more humane to euthanize cats, rather than condemn them to a harsh life on the streets.
Some insight into the lives of both feral and owned kitties comes from a new study, published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, in which researchers set out to track free-roaming feral and owned cats by placing radio transmitters on 42 kitties in and around Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. Twenty-three of those transmitters also had tilt and vibration sensors that measured activity.
The scientists found that the feral cats had home ranges that stretched across large areas; one male kitty’s range covered 1,351 acres (2.1 square miles). They roamed over a wide variety of habitats, most often in urban areas and grasslands, including a restored prairie. In winter, they preferred urban spots, forests and farmland, all places that would provide greater shelter from bad weather and help them keep warm. Cats that had owners, meanwhile, tended to stick close to home, with their range sizes averaging a mere 4.9 acres.
Feral kitties were also more active than cats that had homes. Unowned cats spent 14 percent of their time in what the scientists classified as “high activity” (running or hunting, for example), compared with only 3 percent for kitties with owners. “The unowned cats have to find food to survive, and their activity is significantly greater than the owned cats throughout the day and through the year, especially in winter,” says study co-author Jeff Horn of the University of Illinois.
In addition, the feral cats’ daily activity patterns—sleeping during the day and being active at night, which likely reflects the behavior of their prey, small mammals, as well as lets them better avoid humans—was very different from kitties with homes. Those animals were most active in the morning and evening, when their owners were likely home and awake.
Only one owned kitty died during the study, compared with six feral cats. Two of the feral cats were killed by coyotes, and the researchers believe that at least some of the others were killed by other cats, as the owned kitty was. Cats that live outdoors, even just part of the time, are at risk of death from other cats as well as diseases such as rabies, feline leukemia and parasites, the researchers note.
And of course there’s the fact that cats, owned and unowned, kill wildlife. “Owned cats may have less impact on other wildlife than unowned cats because of their localized ranging behavior, or conversely, they may have a very high impact withing their smaller home ranges,” the scientists write. “Free-roaming cats do kill wildlife and pose a disease risk; cat owners should keep pets indoors.”
But there’s nothing in this study that convinces me that feral cats are living such harsh lives that death would be better, as PETA and other TNR skeptics have contended. Feral cats do have harder and shorter lives than our pets. They have to find their own food and water and shelter, and this isn’t easy. But that’s what any wild creature has to do, and to imply that their lives are worthless because they are hard is, frankly, ridiculous.
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I adopted a feral kitten 10 months ago. Although it was a challange to gain his trust, he had decided that he loves his warm bed, his daily brushings, full food and water dish, and hates the out doors with a passion. The one time he ran outside it was raining with 20+mph winds. It took all of 2 minutes for him to run back inside and promply curl up in the middle of my bed (dripping wet). He has never shown the desire to go back outside after that.
I believe indoor cats are safer from cars, foxes and haters then those in the wild. Controling the population helps keep kitties happy. I will do whatever it takes to make my owner(kitty) happy.
Oh-h-h-h-. Decisions, decisions.
Okay, here’s the deal. . . what if you are freshly divorced, no job (which means LITTLE money) and feral cats seem to think you have a neon sign on your door inviting them to YOUR door to feed them. Can’t afford to feed them, but you feel sorry for them, so you give them a nibble. Suddenly, they are pests; they howl outside your window at night while you lay in your bed feeling guilty. Hmmm, should I feed my kids or the stray cats? You’re now sorry you ever felt sorry for the orphans. SOOOO, you try to find a shelter to take them in and adopt them. BUT NOOOO ROOM AT THE INN!!!!! Nobody at the flea market wants them, etc. and on and on and on. (is that enough exclamation points?) So, do you have them euthanized at the local insane “humane” place? OR just listen to them beg out in the rain? OHHHHH, decisions, decisions. . . is the kids or the cats. Should I let nature take her course? How wicked of me!!!
I found some surprising things about all the diseases these mangy invasive vermin are now spreading throughout the USA. They are nothing but 4-legged bags of disease-vector now.
These are just the diseases they spread to humans, not counting the ones they spread to all wildlife. They include: Campylobacter Infection, Cat Scratch Disease, Coxiella burnetti Infection (Q fever), Cryptosporidium Infection, Dipylidium Infection (tapeworm), Hookworm Infection, Leptospira Infection, Plague, Rabies, Ringworm, Salmonella Infection, Toxocara Infection, Toxoplasma. [Centers for Disease Control, July 2010] Flea-borne Typhus and Tularemia can now also be added to that list.
The plague:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8059908
http://www.pagosasun.com/archives/2011/07July/072811/webplague.html
Tularemia (rabbit-fever, transmissible to humans):
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/health/miscellaneous/2011-09-14/cats-savoy-test-positive-rabbit-fever.html
http://www.westyellowstonenews.com/news/article_02fceec6-f695-11e0-b752-001cc4c002e0.html
Flea-borne Typhus:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/county-317133-animals-cases.html
Along with the usual parasites they all carry, like hookworm — that ruined businesses in parts of Miami:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-11-24/news/fl-miami-beach-hookworms-20101123_1_hookworm-infections-feral-miami-beach
And perhaps the most insidious one of all, the common Toxoplasma gondii parasite that they spread through their feces into all other animals and even livestock. This is how it gets into meats and humans get it from undercooked meats, from cats roaming around stockyards and farms. This parasite not only changes the mind of the animal it invades (including the minds of humans, the cause of the crazy-cat-lady cat-hoarders and TNR-advocates, ensuring the spread of this parasite),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Behavioral_changes
http://wildlifeprofessional.org/blog/?p=3929
http://www.economist.com/node/16271339
http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/18/crazy-cat-love-caused-by-parasitic-infection/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127955946
but can even kill you at any time during your life once you’ve been infected by it. It becomes a permanent lifetime parasite in your mind, ready to strike at any time that your immune system becomes compromised. It’s now being linked to the cause of autism, schizophrenia, and brain cancers. The weirdest part of all, its strange life cycle is meant to infect rodents. Any rodents infected with it lose their fear of cats and are actually attracted to cat urine.
http://scitizen.com/neuroscience/parasite-hijacks-the-mind-of-its-host_a-23-509.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070403-cats-rats.html
So even the often proclaimed use for cats to control rodents is now false. Cats actually attract rodents to your home, with their whole slew of flea-borne and other diseases. If you want rodents in your home keep cats outside of it to attract them to your area.
Rabies, the one most often mentioned in stray and feral cats, is just one of the minor concerns. And even having your cat vaccinated against rabies doesn’t prevent it from bringing in a mouthful or claws full of fresh rabies virus every day to you, or to another animal or human, after you’ve let it out to go shred apart that rabid bat behind the garage or in the shrubs.
The time has come to destroy them all whenever spotted away from quarantined confinement. There’s no other solution. We have nobody but cat-lovers to thank for this disaster.
Reading some of these comments, it seems the real threat to feral cats are fearful human beings. I would no more shoot coyotes, squirrels, raccoons, pigeons, skunks, mice, parrots or possums than I would a roaming feral cat and the fact is that all of these animals are all living within the ecosystem of my urban neighborhood. Education and compassion are essential and I don;t believe that killing is the answer. It started with one very cute kitten on my doorstep, and within months there were more. I found an organization that does TNR and they taught me how to use the traps and let me borrow them to trap the momma and her babies-for free. I was able to spay and neuter nine cats, give them their shots and found homes for the all of the kitttens. The colony now consists of six cats that are cared for by myself and my neighbor. They are fed, have shelter, and are healthy. They are quiet and predictable-fixed cats are not a howling nuisance and there is no fighting. We also have no rodents or other pests on our property. It is much easier to deal with one or two cats right away than it is once they start breeding. It is really important to take care of it right away. TNR worked for our neighborhood, but only because we worked together to take responsibility for the issue and responded with with compassion.
Destroying cats is NOT “hating cats” nor “fearing cats”.
Why do mentally-unbalanced and psychotic cat-advocates always presume that if someone is removing a highly destructive, deadly disease spreading, human-engineered invasive-species from the native habitat to restore it back into natural balance that they must hate that organism? Does someone who destroys Zebra Mussels, Kudzu, Burmese Pythons, African Cichlids, or any of the other myriad destructive invasive-species have some personal problem with that species? (Many of which are escaped PETS that don’t even spread any harmful diseases, unlike cats.) Your ignorance and blatant biases are revealed in your declaring that people who destroy cats must somehow hate or fear cats. Nothing could be further from the truth.
If you do the research, as I did using data from the most “successful” TNR programs, you’ll easily find that no TNR program has EVER trapped more than 0.4% of existing cats in any one area for over a decade now. (Even Oregon’s amazing 50,000 TNR’ed cats, at the end of this year will have only trapped 0.35% of them in Oregon.) They simply cannot trap them faster than they breed out of control, no matter what they do. And those cats that learn to evade traps go on to produce offspring that now also know how to evade any trapping method used. So not only are >99.6% still and ALWAYS breeding out of control, and spreading their diseases everywhere, and still destroying ALL wildlife (native prey becomes tortured play-toys, native predators starve to death from cats destroying their ONLY food), but TNR fools are also ensuring that any future generations of these devastating invasive-species won’t even be able to be trapped. This is why, due to TNR-Advocates’ insistence that they have “the answer”, that their feral-cat population has now climbed to an ecologically-deadly 150 MILLION feral-cats across the USA. Soon to turn into 1.5 BILLION cats within the year if you apply cats’ breeding rates to previous population numbers. (That’s actually a low low estimate. The real number from calculations spit out by their reproduction rates is closer to 2.4 BILLION.)
Find whatever way that you can to destroy all feral and stray cats on-site. If you don’t destroy stray-cats as well, the source of all feral-cats, then you’ll never be rid of feral-cats either. Avoid using traps if at all possible because trapping is what slowed everything down to where cat populations have now sky-rocketed out of control. TNR advocates are at least right about one thing (and ONE THING ONLY); trap and kill doesn’t work either because it is based on the very same flawed method that they use — slow, random-chance, inefficient, easily outfoxed traps. There’s a reason the phrase “hunted to extinction” is so well-known in all cultures across all lands. It is the *ONLY* method that is faster than a species can out-breed and out-adapt to. The following link (of a study done by the University of Nebraska) is some good documentation on the most humane ways to confront a feral-cat problem where you live; including the best firearms, air-rifles, and ammo required. Though avoid using their suggested slow and inefficient trapping methods that got us into the ecological disaster that we have now. http://deenawinter.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/ec1781.pdf
Just wanted to make a comment… My indoor cat used to be feral. Here’s how we met our cat… My boyfriend and I were living in the country for a few months and we were told there was a feral cat that lived on the property (about 8 acres). We only saw a glimpse of him a couple times, but knew he had quite a reputation for getting into fights with the owner’s pet cats and he bloodied up our dachshund a couple times. Quite humiliating for our dachshund if you know anything about their big personalities…before this he used to chase cats up trees! This was quite a fierce feral cat though. I’ve always been good with cats, have had them since I was little. When the owners went away they asked if I could put food out for the feral cat who lived in the bushes and in the creek. I did. It was an interesting and surprising experience my first contact with him. I was putting down some milk for one of the pet cats and the feral cat came up to start a fight with the pet cat (Tiger). I quickly put the milk down for the feral so he wouldn’t start a fight, then I got Tiger out of the area. I had never seen the feral that close before and thought he must be hungry. After he had the milk he followed us over to the garage and started acting like he was going to start a fight with Tiger and Panther (the other pet cat). I was also kind of scared of his aggressive behavior because at the time we thought he might be part bobcat. Long story short, I put food out for him near the bushes the next morning. He eventually came out to eat when I went away. Same thing the next day. I tried to get close to where he was eating, but he ran away. Each day he let me get closer, but if I would get too close he would run away or hiss. But I kept trying consistently. Eventually he would let me sit on the rocks a few feet away while he ate. I would keep the other cats from sneaking up on him when he ate and I think through this – and by also giving him some milk every day – he began to trust me and see me as a protector. I doubt he had tasted milk since his mother, so maybe he related me to his mother. I spent hours a day with him trying to communicate. I would just sit nearby and he would come over and sit down, usually would come up behind me until he felt safe. He finally would feel comfortable enough to lay down a few feet away from me, and start to play. I would meow to him, and mimic his movements. He seemed to like this. I started feeding him on the fenced in porch of our cabin. I made him a little bed there too made of two soft robes. He started living on our porch. Little by little he began to trust me and when it got to be really cold in the winter we let him inside. I slept on the sofa so I could keep an eye on him. I was so surprised when in the middle of the night he jumped up on the sofa with me and he slept next to me on the blanket and purred! Every day I would sit with him when he ate. I started to be able to pet him on the back, down near his tail. Then every day I would go up his back little by little, eventually he let me pet his whole back up to his head! It was really just spending time with him and building trust. We decided to move about a month or so later and I had gotten so attached that my boyfriend and I decided to take him to the vet to talk about whether we should neuter him and take him with us. It wasn’t easy getting him into the carrier and to the vet, but we did. The vet said he was about 2 years old and that he had so much muscle that it was hard to pick him up by the scruff of the neck – that he must be the king of whatever territory he lives in. It was a difficult vet visit because we found out that he had a heart condition (murmur) and also FIV. The vet said that he thought he could be neutered and it would be best to keep him as an indoor cat. The prognosis wasn’t good with the heart condition and the FIV though. It made me so sad. We didn’t know what would happen, but thought if we didn’t try to take him with us he may die from the freezing temperatures. So we got him neutered and took him with us to our new house. The most amazing thing happened…. He LOVES being an indoor cat! He adjusted so well. We’ve had him for over a year now and he has turned out to be a very loving, fun, well adjusted cat. He is still not good with strangers, but he seems so happy and content. He walks with his tail straight up, purrs and needs all the time, and loves to cuddle. He loves out new house. We have a loft area where he loves to climb and look down. He’s really a people cat….he isn’t as independent as other cats I’ve had. He loves to be around us and do whatever we’re doing. He sleeps with us every night in bed. I’ve trained him to not climb on the counters when we’re cooking…he knows to sit in the chair and watch. And he knows the word “no”. He’s really a great cat! The best cat I’ve ever had. It just took spending time and trying to communicate, and he really responded positively! It’s amazing that he survived by himself so long in the wild. It seems so against the grain of his true personality. He just loves being around people (at least us). He’s also been relatively healthy. The vet can no longer hear the heart murmur, and the FIV seems to be under control, although he does have asthma and we keep a close eye on it because he gets a cough sometimes. The funniest thing is that our dachshund that he beat up now has to share a house with him! Our cat (Riley – that’s what we named him because we want to give him “the life of Riley”) has tried to make friends with Eddie (our dachshund) but Eddie wants nothing to do with it and is scared of him….Riley still tries though, lol. So there is really a lot of hope for feral cats if people would spend the time to get to know them, and learn how to communicate with them. This only took about 2 months before Riley became an indoor cat. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my story.
I’m doing a really big school project on Feral Cats, and the project is called TPSP. I was really wondering if I could get some advise on feral cats, because I am stuck on creating a topic question. Also, I was wondering where i could find some real data, not just articles. I would like some graphs on the population increase of Feral cats over the years, and if you could get some information to me before february 20th, that would be great. oh, and great article by the way. please dont sue me if i mess up on the bibliography…
JennyP, so you found one cat and managed to make it an indoor cat. Now do that with the 150 MILLION MORE that are destroying every ecosystem they are found in. Because if you don’t do it to 150 MILLION MORE this year, then you’ll have 1.5 *BILLION* MORE to do it to next year. (That’s actually a low low estimate. The real number spit out by their reproduction rates is closer to 2.4 BILLION within a year.)
Pray tell, how is your “cutesy” story going to apply to 1.5 MILLION to 2.4 BILLION stray cats in the USA if there are only 311 million people (from newborn to senior) to adopt them all?
All your story is managing to do is make people think that adopting a lot of diseased cats is somehow going to fix the problem.
IT WON’T.
We can only hope that your dog has contracted some deadly disease from its first attack encounter with that cat. THEN maybe you’ll learn.
JennyP, so you found one cat and managed to make it an indoor cat. Now do that with the 150 MILLION MORE that are destroying every ecosystem they are found in. Because if you don’t do it to 150 MILLION MORE this year, then you’ll have 1.5 *BILLION* MORE to do it to next year. (That’s actually a low low estimate. The real number spit out by their reproduction rates is closer to 2.4 BILLION within a year.)
Pray tell, how is your “cutesy” story going to apply to 150 MILLION to 2.4 BILLION stray cats in the USA if there are only 311 million people (from newborn to senior) to adopt them all? And no more than 86 million cats are even wanted for pets anymore. That’s it! That’s the limit of how many people want them for pets. THE REST ARE EXCESS INVASIVE-SPECIES ANIMALS THAT MUST BE DESTROYED.
All your story is managing to do is make people think that adopting a lot of diseased cats is somehow going to fix the problem.
IT WON’T.
We can only hope that your dog has contracted some deadly disease from its first attack encounter with that cat. THEN maybe you’ll learn.
You people that make any negative comments about any animals make me want to knock you stupid heads together. You have no right to think you’re better than any living thing on this planet.
Jenny,
You are a wonderful person. Gandhi said: “The greatness of a nation and it’s moral progress can be judged by the way it’s animals are treated” I believe this applies to individuals as well.
wow.i can’t believe what im reading. i have never written in one of these chat rooms before but i am astounded. how do people sleep at night? they don’t feel the slightest bit bad about hunting helpless cats or listenig to mice scream in pain as they’re tortured? does nothing in their conscience tell them that’s cruel? i’m not particularly a religious person, but i have a clear sense of what is morally right and wrong. it is very dsturbing to read some of these posts. i hope you all just take the time to think about it and realize murder, creulty, and torture is not the way. i find it hard to believe these people are really mean people, but where is the compassion? life is about love.
If life is about love, then what is most loving? Probably becoming a vegetarian! Loving feral cats allows them to destroy other wildlife. God forbid someone’s budgey or parakeet was around. What’s the problem with hunting cats? Sounds even wasteful to me. In China at least they eat the cats if they kill them. (By the way, for the “Christians” out there, there is nothing in the Bible that forbids eating of cats and dogs. It’s a cultural preference that Westerners don’t like eating animals that could be pets.) But some societies have camels, horses, goats, sheep, cows, etc. as either pets or holy animals, and yet other societies eat those.
What’s the problem with eating cows? Or sheep? or chickens?
I’ve volunteered with TNR and have a few cats. Yet I am all for cat and especially feral cat population control.
Here’s your cue katie: shut your pie hole.
I can’t believe some of the posts I’m seeing here. Woodsman, your rationalizations sound like those of a Nazi party leader. You’ve brainwashed yourself to justify why all cats must be shot on sight, and you’re full of rhetoric to justify your hateful solution.
Your neighbor TNRs and feeds these roaming cats with the express purpose of encroaching on your property. Really? That’s why they do it? And perhaps if you hadn’t been indiscriminately shooting these cats they were caring for in the first place, they wouldn’t have felt the need to re-survey your land.
I simply cannot believe the CRAP I am reading here. Who the hell made any of you judge jury and executioner? Your ignorance astonishes me. If a cat is homeless it deserves to die?! Do you feel this way about homeless people as well? Should every living being not lucky enough to have a roof over their head be automatically handed a death sentence? Think about this before you condemn these homeless waifs trying to live their lives….YOU, yes YOU are the reason these animals are homeless, YOU are the reason so many die in shelters every single day. YOU are the people that get a puppy or a kitten and then toss it away because you didn’t THINK first. And when I say you I mean HUMANS! These animals have done nothing wrong, but they will still be condemned to death…for being homeless.
Between 2 neighbors that have 7 cats with my house in between, i think that cats needs to be properly kept. These cats roam around & use my garden as their toilet. I have to daily take poop out & I’m getting fed up with the situation.
I don’t want to kill them since they are pets & here animal control don’t work. I didn’t read all the comments but one comment that cats catches mice and rats is a fallacy in my situation. I can hear rodents noises when they get excited at night and the cats don’t bother even with them at all.
One of my neighbors with cats even have to get a rat trap to get the rats. Kind of ironic. I think people don’t neuter their cats enough.
In my country, stray dogs are game for dog catchers & they get paid per dog caught. Many dogs are put to sleep after a week or so. Cats are treated differently. There’s no “warrant” out for them so to say.
By the way for those of you that say cat lovers are not animal lovers are idiots. I have a spiritual bond with cats but I love all animals..Believe it or not I wont even kill a spider…I trap them and take them outside.
I found a feral cat yesterday and it was in severe condition. Her leg was infected so much that you could see her bone; it looked to be broken too and she could not walk on it. She was extremely thin, which was no doubt aggravated by her handicap. When I took her home, I noticed that her infected leg, much to my horror. had maggots in it. She was also missing a toe, had an infected bite mark behind her ear, and patches of dried blood and dirt, and thick puss was coming out her eyes.
I had never seen a cat in such a state before. It was absolutely heart-breaking and distressing to see her suffering. After feeding her and trying to clean her up a bit, I called various animal organizations, and today I finally was able to take her to the animal hospital, where everyone agreed that euthanasia was the best thing for her. I say finally because I live in the NYC area and don’t own a car, and much to my surprise, not one organization (ASPCA, ACC, Humane Society, etc.) could not pick up an injured animal due to lack of resources and staff as a result of budget cuts. I didn’t want to lug her around in a carrier in her condition in the subway, so I took a cab to the animal hospital, which thankfully wasn’t too much, for I am unemployed and financially limited. Thankfully, the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals was willing to pay the euthanasia fee of $160.
I feel sad about the cat because if I could have afforded her vet bills, I would have tried to save her. The vet said that her leg would have had to be amputated and that she would have had to stay at the hospital for about 6mths for her other conditions. We also are clueless about whether or not she was vaccinated.
Yet for all the cat’s suffering and severe physical condition, when I took her home, she had a healthy appetite, went in the litter box, and could still jump on my bed and sofa, but moreover, despite her fear at first, was actually a sweet, friendly and loving cat. She followed me everywhere in my apartment and loved to be picked-up and petted.
I live in an ungentrified, rural niehgborhood of Brooklyn NY and there are a lot of feral cats in the neighborhood, which I find depressing. Some of the neighbors including myself leave out food and water for them, and overall the neighborhood’s ferals look healthy. I will soon look into getting them TNR’d.
After my experience with the euthanized feral cat, I don’t know if cats living outside is a good thing. I am a happy, loving care-taker of two indoor, spolied cats, who I know are very happy. When I lived in a nicer neighborhood in upstate NY, I once tried to get the cats to go outside, which they refused to do. They are content with the window being their sole outdoor exposure. At this point, I think that cats living “wild” versus being euthanized is a lesser of an evil issue. It certainly has to do with educating the pet owners about spay/neuter responsibility, geography, and animal/humane organizations.
I feel relieved that the cat is no longer suffering. But I would have liked for a different ending. I’m glad I provided a day of comfort and affection before her end.
Ok All You People Who Think It’s Better To Just KILL Them Deserve To Die Themselves. True,Street Cats Have It HARD And Need To Be Helped A LOT But Woodland Cats Are Able To Use There Instints To The Fullest And I Just Saw One Eating The Mouse He Got In The Woods Behind My House. Cats Are Vary Instintal And So Can Servive Farly Well On There Own When In Te Right Invierment. Hell That House Cat That Was Torcureing The Two Mice Was A Sadist Bastred Who DEFFENTLY Knew What He Was Doing And LOVED It-Yes Some Cats Are Evil…But That Just Makes For Better Servivel. So Coodos To The Demon Cat-The Queen Is Impressed. Anyway That’s My Two Cents-Oh And As For PETA-I Have NO Idea What It’s Actruly About But I Know I’m Hearing A Lot Of Bad Things About What Supost To Be A Animal Lover’s Organizastion. Anyway Queen Discordia Out.
God Bless you Erica. You did a good thing.
Stray animals are a people problem. It’s not the animal’s fault.
I really, really hate cats. You really don’t want your cat wandering through my yard. Keep it in the house.
Enlighten me on what the problem with feral cats really is? So far everyone simply writes that they are a ‘problem’ and it should be controlled. The rock dove (pigeon) is a problem, but no one does anything about that, or even recognizes it. The research above states that the cats do roam around up to 2.6 square miles in there territory. That to me still does not pose a problem. These cats, however wild, are still very domestic in my view. Canada and the US are huge countries jam packed full of wildlife and wild places. These feral cats don’t affect them. Eating a bunch of small mammals and a few birds really doesn’t impact very much on a broad scale. Mice can reproduce every month! If anything they are a benefit, doing what it is they were bread for for thousands of years. Hanging around urban and rural areas killing and eating vermin. We should thank them. Also, we have the benefit in north america of having natural predators for these feral felines. New Zealand has a much different situation.
All the other non-sense with PETA etc, is exactly that non-sense.
OK. i dont know who you people are ( michael,woodsman……..) but you guys have completly brainwashed your selves. Why on earth are feral cats a problem? yes i understand that they kill wild life. “ooohhhhhhhh a bird just got killed and eaten by a cat. quick honey, fetch the 50 caliber.” you guys are completely brain dead! Just because a cats life is hard does not mean its life is worthless!!!!! and michael why on earth do you not like cats? they are one of the most graceful and beautiful animals on the planet. i can understand you not wanting to come in contact with them, but whats up with the cat hating? get a life. stop critisising these poor animals and help them for gods sake!!!!!!!
i took in a ferel tom in poor condition,..fight marks etc, this old chap is 8 years old,…i,ve tamed him and he is a real friend….those of you that rebuke cats especially ferels…need to get a brain as well as a life,..good job none of you lot live near me,..as i would show you what an arguement is about.
ok, sad story about ferel, but i certainly would have tried to get her better myself…my old tom was in a poor way,..months of cleaning his wounds, good feeding, he,s in perfect health,(oh, he has no teeth. and no tail).. and yes he,s snoring his head off along side me now,..love this old boy to bits,….motto, attempt to get them better yourself BEFORE you have them put down…PS. ignore the ignorant people who are anti-cat. humans are worthless pieces of waste.
As an owner of 4 cats at a rural property, I am thankful for the job they do controlling mice, moles and other pests around the house. They do catch the occasional bird, but not that many. I have several tractors/mowers, etc and when I did not have cats, there were mice everywhere! The mice eat electrical wiring anywhere they can, climb inside motors and cowlings, and tunnel wherever they can. It may seem harmless at first until you realize the cost in terms of damage. Not to mention possible disease, etc. The cats at our home live in the garage, and I keep them fed and happy. Sometimes a feral cat shows up and I trap it with a live trap- and take it to a shelter, or release it far from home. But recent “science” is trying to persuade lawmkers to prohibit letting cats outside! That’s nuts… cats love to be outside, and “there’s no happier cat than a farm cat.” Unfortunately, there are “catch and release” cat programs in many urban/suburban areas… they catch/nueter/spay and release… and usually they release them “in the country” where many of us live. In some areas, landowners are fed up and simply “dispose” of feral cats when they see them. Sad, but necessary when populations get out of control. As for my 4 cats- they are “fixed” and don’t stray from the property.
People, okay I dislike cats! My wife loves all animals and would take them all in if she could! My 2-cents is if you have a cat, dog, whatever, you MUST take care of it. This includes expensive vet visits, shots, emergency care, food and so on! IF, you do not have health insurance, are on food stamps and have no money saved! You should not be a pet owner! Feeding a stray only invites more strays, then comes the babies, then you are in a very hard and bad place!
Wanting to feed a needy animal is common and shows love and compassion.
Yet,you MUST consider the big picture before you react!
HaHa these comments are so predictable & laughable. Most of these fools including woodsman are just bird lovers in disguise. they advocate killing all stray & feral cats to further the repopulation of native birds. The fact of the matter is they would love to completely rid the world of all Cats domestic & otherwise because they love birds, end of story. ROFL
Our feral cat was born under our wood deck over 15 years ago and is still with us. We did trap and neuter him and his mother who died after about 10 years. He waits at our door each morning and night for food, and after about 3 years, allowed us to pet him and he would sit in my husband’s lap. I am certain this is his last year as he is starting to lose weight, but he still has a hearty appetite. I’ll miss him, and I’m happy to have had him in my life.
I seem to find and earn the trust of feral female cats who are sometimes fed (sometimes not) by the first people they trusted — people who could afford to have had them spayed, but were too cold, cheap, selfish or stupid to understand the importance — so I came along and saw the problem and instead of allowing the cat to keep having kittens (in the first case, when the mother cat had her first litter, the people she trusted grabbed her kittens and gave them away in front of a local grocery store. In the second case, I waited until the kittens were old enough to be weaned, then had the mother spayed and had the two males and two female kittens “fixed” at in pairs at 5 months of age. All were given shots. I had money at the time and they became my “barn cats” — out during the day and in before sunset, sheltered and protected. They were wonderful cats, beautiful and had great temperaments.
Several years later, I am living in another state. I had seen a beautiful young female calico kitten who appeared to be about four months old, who belonged to a neighbor. I assumed (incorrectly) that she was being well taken care of. On one of the colder nights in winter, I heard a commotion out on the screened in porch (where I’d leave a dish of dry cat food for strays). There was a large, mature neighborhood cat chowing down and behind her? The calico kitten, who should have been more than twice the size that she was — shivering, malnourished, afraid. The calico was so weak, I was able to gently talk her into not running from me. I scooped her up and brought her indoors into the warmth and gave her food and clean water. I doubted she’d live a week, but gave her all the nutrients I had available or could afford to buy to supplement the Kitten Chow I fed her. In a month, it was obvious that not only would she survive, but she was also exceedingly football shaped: pregnant. I did not expect that she would be able to deliver healthy kittens. Again, I purchased cat’s mother’s milk supplement for her and stocked up for the time when the kittens would be born, if any survived. Four were born: all healthy and all survived. The mother cat did need the nutritional support to supply enough milk to her kittens, but all got through in great health.
This time, I did not have much money and so had to scrape every cent and look for all sorts of different options for getting the mother and kittens fixed and getting their vaccinations. I managed — I even found the father of the litter — a TRULY feral cat that I humanely trapped and thought I’d never see again after he was returned from his trip to the Vet. Two month’s later, he decided to check back in. All of these cats are wonderful. I often have to keep the mother and father cats indoors during the day because they would kill every rodent in existence — and the father cat is quite fearless, capturing LARGE kangaroo rats and proudly leaving the poor dead creatures outside the door. They work as a team. I’ve only rarely seen a bird become a victim. As for the neighbor who was neglecting and allowing the young mother to starve and stay outdoors in temperatures that fell into the teens: the man did not care. He’s an alcoholic and a stoner and he wasn’t going to waste his party money on caring for this cat! The man looked me in the eye and lied to me when I asked about how this cat could turn up in such bad condition — he blamed some unidentified truck driver. After the kittens were born, it would have helped me tremendously if someone would have adopted at least two of of them…this man made it clear that he believed cats should be kept outdoors and “find their own food.” The most he would do would be to have the kittens fixed and (maybe) get them vaccinated. Another woman backed out of adopting one kitten after making me swear to hold on to her. What is truly entertaining about these people is the fact that the presence of cats also tend to keeps snakes at bay..and in a desert region like this, that makes them worth their weight in gold.
Can I Get Pregnant From My Dog?
There are a lot of people out there asking this question and I’m going to just go ahead and assume that is because they’re curious and not because they’re concerned there may be some sort of hybrid bun in their oven. Let me put this one to rest very quickly though because it’s actually pretty simple. No. No, you cannot get pregnant from your dog.
To a lot of people, the idea of getting pregnant with a dog is confusing and disturbing for many, many reasons but let’s say you’re not one of those people and you really think you may be pregnant. Let’s even go as far as to say you’ve taken a pregnancy test and it’s come back positive. It’s time to look at other potential fathers because even if you’ve been getting it on with Rover regularly, there has to be some other explanation for the baby in your belly because Rover does not have the right seed to grow a life inside you.
The reason you are unable to get pregnant with your dog is very complicated and scientific which therefore means the finer points are entirely lost on me. Basically though, members of different species are not able to procreate. It just goes against the rules of nature. A human female is only able to get pregnant using sperm from a human male. A canine female is only able to get pregnant using sperm from a canine male. Following this same line of thought, a human male is also not able to get a dog pregnant, despite what Family Guy would have you believe.
Can My Cat Get Pregnant From My Dog?
This one I can understand a bit better. We had a dog once upon a time that enjoyed trying to, shall we say, impregnate, our cat. It was all for naught though as a canine cannot get a feline pregnant. A feline cannot get a canine pregnant and nothing other than a human being can get a human being pregnant. It’s really only logical when you think about it. When a life is created, that life is basically one set of DNA combining with another set of DNA. Feline DNA is only compatible with feline DNA. Canine DNA is only compatible with canine DNA. Just imagine if this wasn’t true. The world would be overrun with all sorts of freaky creatures. Speaking of freaky creatures …