With last weeks sad news that a local woman's house cat was mistakenly killed at Gwinnett's shelter after failing what appears to be the shelter's "feral cat" evaluation the question arises "why are we killing our feral cats?"
Even the wildest cat can learn to live around humans and may even exhibit pet like behavior to the person who feeds him. Those locally who care for cat colonies with feral cats witness cats who rub up against their legs and even perhaps purr, just like pet cats. Don't mistake their aloofness as being a symptom of a dangerous nuisance animal.
Contrary, even the most pampered house cat who escapes and runs loose in the wild can survive with the deftness of the most voracious raccoon, rabbit, squirrel or other wild animal. Wouldn't that cat deserve the same respect and rights of survival as any wild animal?
Behaviorally speaking the answer again appears to be that feral cats are wild animals and such should be treated by animal control as such. We have no more right to address feral cats through "trap and kill" policies as we do to the wholesale slaughter of our communities birds, rabbits, squirrels or raccoons.
If a pet cat is abandoned or runs off and gets lost in the woods, has kittens and the kittens that grow up wild because they have no contact with people, are they wild or domestic? Technically, they would be domestic because of domesticated parentage but don't all domesticated cats ultimately come from the wild?
Defining a feral cat as a "nuisance" in the absence of any nuisance behavior is simply wrong. Society goes to great length to protect "wild animals" with great efforts being placed on "allowing" man to live amongst them.
Regardless of whether the cat is the most beloved and pampered pet or the wildest outcast, shelter policies that claim to be based on humane policies view the feral cat as without a human home to protect them and therefore is better off taken to a shelter and killed. Does Gwinnett Animal Control view un-owned cat’s life as a series of brutal experiences? Is Gwinnett responsible for "protecting" these cats from continued andfuture suffering. Or is the ultimately suffering endured when these cats are rounded up and killed within hours of arriving at the shelter?
The reality is that all animals living in the wild face hardship—and feral cats are no exception. Since no animal groups support the trapping and killing of other wild animals—raccoons, rabbits, fox—why do we reserve this fate for feral cats? Wild animals would not choose to have their "suffering" to survive in the wild replaced with feline suicide so why is man so quick to make that choice instead?
If feral cats are genetically identical to wild animals, and they survive in the wild like wild animals, andthey are unsocial to humans like wild animals, and they share the same hardships as wild animals, and if they can and do live in the wild like wild animals, shouldn’t we treat them as we do wild animals—by advocating on their behalf, pushing for their right to life, and respecting and protecting their habitats?
In a humane community why should we condemn feral cats simply because of mistaken logic that some may face hardship while a vast majority peacefully co-exist in nature? I have to say I am not a "cat person" but do respect all animals rights to co-exist in our community. Wholesale rounding up of any animal must be condemned especially in light of other communities that have set up programs for feral colonies implementing trap, neuter, release in controlling the population of the colonies.
Please contact your commissioner and animal control and express your displeasure with Gwinnett's policy of killing feral cats. Slaughtering animals is not part of any animal control policy our community should support.
No comments:
Post a Comment