Poll: Should it be legal to shoot feral cats??

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Mr. Eatman I respect you for using your real name instead of an alias. However apparently 60% agree with not hunting the cats. I have a small farm. Cats that wander in, or are dropped off, are spayed or neutered. I adopt them out or feed them. The neighbor boys who come on my land and kill the owls are bird's biggest problem. [email protected]
 
If it were not for the stray cats around here we would have a huge citrus rat problem. We have a lot of citrus trees that attract large citrus rats. The rats get into the houses and do a lot of damage. The cat population does a good job eliminating the rat problem. I prefer the cats to the rats.We do have a problem with stray dogs, which have to be done away with. A lot of people have just let their dogs run loose. Several kids in the neighborhood have been attacked and bitten by loose dogs. One bit me last year while I was taking a walk near my property. Stray dogs are more dangerous than a little cat, and should be shot.
 
Mr. G I live amongst acres of Florida citrus. I have not seeen a rat thanks to my 6 cat. All sterilized and vet checked and immunized. [email protected]
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So, your pet cats referenced aboce wouldn't be hunted. The feral cats that pass diseases on to your 6 pet cats as well as potentially harming them in territorial fighting would be fair game. You want to be able to protect your pets, don't you?

Chip Clark :cool:
 
Dale Taylor said:
However apparently 60% agree with not hunting the cats.
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First of all, let me congratulate you on overcoming your shame and visiting again.

Second, what makes you certain that Art Eatman is Art's real name? ;)

Third, the majority is often wrong--siding with the majority, therefore, is not any sort of indication of morality or a valid justification for pursuing a particular course of action. In this case, it's highly probable that only 1 in 10 persons responding to that poll have any idea what this law is actually about, or what current laws say about killing feral animals.

Fourthly, if you have cats and owls on your property, it's hardly likely that the cats who are there all the time are doing less damage to the owls than occasional trespassers. I'd like to know what kind of data you used to determine that the trespassers were killing more owls than the cats.

And finally, feral cats (and even domesticated cats allowed to roam freely for that matter) damage populations of many species besides owls.
 
60/40, hmmm? Well, so much for the Endangered Species Act. I guess it's a good thing there are no Burrowing Eagles, neh?

Hey, I'll never argue against the idea that barnyard cats are helpful against the rat population. Not at all. BTDT. Spent a lot of WW II and a few years after, observing exactly that at my grandparents' farm/ranch. Had house cats when I moved back to that "old home place" during 1967-1979.

There is a vast difference between the basic house-pet cat that occasionally ventures outsides and does a relatively small amount of serious hunting, vs. the truly feral housecat that subsists on prey species of wildlife. I've watched that. My sorta-joke is that I've spent more time in the boonies than most folks have in breathing. Hey, more time around a campfire than a lot of folks have lived...

I know from direct observation what uncontrolled populations of feral housecats do to quail populations as well as songbird and squirrel populations. Basically, it's "either/or".

People take polls and vote and all that as regards how they or others should behave in interactions with animals. I have yet to see any polls or votes among predators as to the rights of prey species. I really doubt that any public opinion poll will affect the diet of a feral cat in any way, shape or form.

I'm happy for people to take the time and trouble to try to catch and tame and make a pet of a feral cat. I don't have the time or the inclination. But I guarantee you that those 70-some-odd feral cats that the local animal control people trapped in the general vicinity of my wife's house did not get neutered or adopted. I guess you could say they got "vacuum packed".

Oh: As one who has lived in a desert for 23 years, now, I find a modicum of enjoyment in using the Internet "handle" of "Desertrat" on the rather few other Boards I frequent. I generally sign off as 'Rat.

:), Art
 
Mr. Taylor, about your six cats:
All sterilized and vet checked and immunized.
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Well done. Seriously. That's what we do, too. Several dozen have been adopted in this little rural community in recent years, for example -- at least when we find the dropped-off, unwanted cats soon enough after they've been dumped out here in the country.

May we send you another million or so from Wisconsin? Our houses are full. May we also send you the veterinary bills when our pets get torn up or maimed by feral cats? Of course, that won't take away the pain of the pet cats' injuries... And would you please send us cures for the diseases that the feral populations harbor?

Oh -- and some songbirds. I've heard that Florida has lots of nice songbirds. Thanks.
 
Disparity

There seems to be some confusion, willingly, I think, for some of the folks posting here. For those of you who don't get it yet, we're talking about WILD cats. that's what feral means, get a dictionary. So if you feed, immunize, otherwise care for your cats and keep them from roaming the countryside, they're safe. As for the "boys shooting the birds", kill a few of those cotton-picking cats and you won't be able to blame the boys anymore. If I'm near a house, even back in the woods where I hunt, no shooting cats as they might be pets. Let me get a mile or two out, and I'll lay 'em down as fast as I can sight and squeeze. As soon as you treehugger types find a way to keep cats from killing songbirds, young squirrels, and about anything else they can catch, sure I'll stop killing them. Sorry for my rant, but a couple of these guys were making my head hurt. :banghead:
 
Uncollared? Not in town? It's an animal? It's a target of opportunity. It's your pet? It's your livestock? If it's livestock then I'll try to contact you and give you the chance to control your property. I'll call you about your hunting dogs or your collared pets. The first time or two. Then I'll solve the problem myself. Hunting? Nah. I don't hunt roaches...I just kill them...and I just might go looking for them. Vermin is vermin. Guess what? If you let your pets or livestock become vermin... just who is responsiblie when someone justifiably rids the world of them?
 
not only should it be legal to kill feral cats, it should be mandatory.

the feral cat problem out here has gotten out of hand. i now will go out of my way to kill skunks, and feral cats. before all the knuckleheads started dumping their cats, there used to be a little pheasant hunting available to anybody that wanted it. the cats took care of that problem, though.

i am sick and tired of feral cats... i'm up to somewhere around 30-40 for this year, and i take a rifle w/ me everywhere i go. hope to finish the summer up at around 150. that ought to help the pheasant population out next year or two - too late for this year, though.
 
The fact that "legalized cat hunting" is even being debated is ridiculous. I grew up in rural Wisconsin. Everyone I grew up with or know believed in the "3 Esses":

Shoot
Shovel
Shutup

No apparent feral cat problems by my parent's property. ;)


--meathammer
 
dakotasin, if you had more coyotes, cougars and horned owls, you wouldn't have all those feral cats!

We have all three of those cat-predators down here in Terlingua, and relatively few feral cats. But I help out as best I can...

:), Art
 
you could very well be right... we have the yotes in spades, but they don't make many cougars or horned owls here (snow owls on occasion).

the problem isn't so much the cats manufacturing themselves, it is the cats being dumped. the farm is right in between 2 cities (use the term loosely - neither is very big), and so many folks find it convenient to hop on the interstate, get off, find a gravel road, and dump their problems.

i do have to admit though, there is nothing quite as funny as sending 162 grains of hornady right behind the shoulders (cleanly missing major bone) and into the lungs of a feral cat at 5 or 10 yards. if you've ever done it... lol! i guess stalking cats can be fun, but it has grown old, and sometimes the rifle just wants to stretch its legs a touch, y'know?
 
OH YES. Got two this past week in the yard, one was soon after the hen woodduck nesting in one of the houses we put up called out all nine of her younguns....and led them off through the grove toward the drainage ditch---same direction the cat came from. I hope it did not feast on any of the ducklings before I nabbed my hubbys 17 HMR and fired it for the first time :evil: . As for the coyotes, they have been becoming very, very brave here as well as multiplying like mad.... and there is no shortage whatsoever of the great horned hooties....can step outside most nights and hear both owls hooting and yotes howling not so far off, yet still seeing (and shooting) more feral cats than ever :confused:
 
go after feral cats all you want.

but if you slip up and shoot one of MY cats, you will have a very, very serious problem.
 
ziadel,

Since you sound like you care about your cats, I'm sure that you don't let them roam free where they can catch diseases, be killed by predators or cars, be injured by other animals, or be mistaken for feral animals and trapped or killed legally. So then, what makes you think someone would shoot them? Are you suggesting that anyone on this thread is advocating breaking into someone's house and shooting their pets? And if that's what you're saying, how in heaven's name would that have anything to do with FERAL cats anyway?
 
Don't ever get the idea that cats can't or won't travel. I was at the post office, one day about 20 years back, grumbling about shooting a cat that was stalking quail near my bird-feeder. The postmaster lady and I got into a discussion about it, including a description of the cat. She said it sounded very much like one that had showed up at her house. She'd been feeding it on her back porch, but it had recently quit coming.

Near as we could tell, same cat.

My house is about four miles from hers, with rough desert country in between us.

(No, she wsn't particularly upset. She likes quail, too.)

Art
 
Want to here something really stupid. The Auburn Vet school has a research project were they live trap feral cats neuter them and release them. Good practice for the vet students but stupid for everything else. If it were up to me they would be used for target practice. rugerman
 
My boss is going through this right now. So far he's had 4 or 5 of the feral cats that hang around his place fixed and has paid for their shots. He can't afford to do many more though. And unless he can get them ALL fixed or until they come up with a shot that prevents coyotes from eating them or cars from running over them, it's not going to change much other than his bank balance.

On the other hand, in a week or two, he could have that place free of feral cats. Cost would be virtually nothing, and the stress on him and the animals would be much reduced.
 
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