Culling Feral Cats

[AirNGasman]

No problem Sonny. As stated in my last post, "My suspicions remain that individual attention-spans here average about 20 seconds".

I guess a lot of folks never got into reading books for lack of exposure to good books; those being books hard to put down because they're so entertaining you can't quit reading. Like what I write. Matter of fact I do a LOT of proof-reading of my stuff to see if I feel I've met my omnipresent objective of making every sentence, of every paragraph, of every chapter, of everything I write interesting enough to keep the reader reading. Of course the reader(s) make(s) that judgement for themself; as it should be. 

Sample enclosed... above.

 

[jspade]

Sonny, you will easily be able to distinguish a feral from the neighbors pet. Ferals are a nasty scruffy looking thing and oftentimes very nervous and spooky, whereas Fifi the neighbors pet is oftentimes very clean and fat and mostly has a collar around it's neck. I will never knowingly shoot someone's pet, if I'm in doubt I pass, I would feel horrible if I knew I shot someones pet. Although Fifi the neighbors pet is just as deadly and hard on wildlife as the fersls and has no need to be out killing because they are fed at home, they kill because they like it but I still won't shoot them if I think they belong to someone.

 

[jspade]

And you can't go by, well there are no houses around so it's feral, you need to check. I remember when I was a kid my dad caught the neighbors cat in a fox trap, he warned them that he was trapping and they said oh that's ok she doesn't leave the yard, well Dad caught the cat a quarter to a half mile from their house. It is aggravating that here in PA you have to have dogs licensed and rabies shots once they are 3 months old, but you can have 10 cats running around with no license or shots.

 

[sonny]

Or AirNGasman maybe your just judgmental and its possible some people find your writings boring and have interests in other things. I have friends with cats that are spayed but there ears are not cliped and they don't have collars so its not always cut and dry as if the cat is a pet or not.

 

[guod123]

On a local nursery the cats are held in high regard. I'm definetly no PETA guy, and in 40 years their population has remained relatively stable. They take up residence in holes that line the perimeter of the grounds. Over the years I've had many opportunities to view them hunting. Their coloring or sizes makes them easy to identify, each have developed their own style. Some will wander thru the containers from pint to 5 gallon size and hunt mice, voles, moles, and frogs. Some of the others hunt birds, English sparrows as they tend to nest low in the evergreens and you just see a cat do a mad dive into the bush and come out with one in his mouth. I can watch sparrows fly all day, rarely do they ever expose themselves in open territory. There was a huge black cat one that was in high teens in weight, and missing an eye. I was patiently waiting by a woodchuck hole, and I observed this guy in crouch mode. He pounced and had a several minute match with a full sized woodchuck. I moved onto the next hole and checked back an hour later, hair, blood no carcass. The rabbits on this piece are virtually non existent. I've watched raccoons kill the kittens, so they are not at the top of the food chain. There is about 5 acres of red oaks, yet I've only seen a handful of squirrels The birds of prey from the large hawks, variety of owls, and peregrine falcons all hunt the area. Twenty years ago woodchucks were nowhere to be found, now quite abundant. Only deer, rats and chucks are taken off this piece and it's remained stable over the years.

 

[AirNGasman]

Agreed Sonny.

I fully understand most folks these days have been so bombarded for so long with such an ongoing and omnipresent barrage of IMAGES as fantastic as directors and videographers can assemble, that the bulk of the population has lost its appetite for anything as attention-demanding as reading; much less a book. That's why movie 'scenes' now average less than 10 seconds, and Hollywood now relies so heavily on computer-generated imagery (because how can reality possibly compete with fantasy?); lest the audience gets bored, and lost to their mobile devices. Same reason I make every sentence I write entertaining, informative, or (often) provocative! 

But no matter how entertaining, hard to compete with an exponentially-increasing bombardment of images with the written word and photos. So, realizing the ever-shrinking market for the written word, especially anything as attention-demanding as a book, my target audience is limited to the (shrinking) few that appreciate such writing tools as spelling, composition, punctuation, sentence and paragraph structure wielded well enough to capture whatever attention is there to be captured. In other words literature... a dying art form.

Judgemental? Yes, but I'm not politically-correct enough to deny it. And in my 'judgement' Humanity is being lost to technology; which will be responsible for Mankind's downfall. Sooner than we'd like to believe, matter of fact. 

Which brings us to a little much-needed comic relief relating to my last statement. The only thing the movie 'Idiocracy' got wrong was setting the movie 500 years in the future; 50 years being more accurate. If you haven't seen this profoundly-prophetic and HILARIOUS movie, I truly believe it's worth your trouble to track it down. Really. Warning- language!

Regardless, happy shooting Bud.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Leyn-oS5ASI

 

[DuncanHynes]

I've heard cats kill for sport..Not sure about that.. If I'm hunting ( deer) and see a feral cat I will shoot them.. Killed 2 last year..

They do. I got game cams to see what killed a baby rabbit and a chipmunk. Both had no meat eaten, just a kill bite in the neck. Saw at night just how many cats roam my area. Had one on video kill a frog out of my pond for sport. They are death machines. Even domesticated they play as if hunting. People have known this hundreds of years keeping them on ships and by docks and around farms. They also can be a huge issue as Australia's case.

 

[Hookster]

I think its funny how some say cats kill for fun and yet we make videos and spend thousands to do the same damn thing. LOL. 

 

[Bitey]

I donate $500/yr to wildlife rehab. A good number of those animals are cat torture victims. How many pellets can $500 buy?

 

[Bitey]

I think its funny how some say cats kill for fun and yet we make videos and spend thousands to do the same damn thing. LOL.

Hunting is regulated and I doubt many hunters are hunting endangered species (poachers).

I'm not really a fan of hunting but I think it's a way to help correct the problems man has created. Invasive species are fair game as well as overpopulated native species.

Hunters as “stewards of the land”

 

[randy_68]

I walked in to my garage one day and a big ole tomcat was sitting on my bench. I didn't recognize this cat and he definitely didn't belong in my garage. He put his ears back and started hissing so I went to the house and grabbed my B51 .22 that I had at the time. right when I pulled the trigger he jumped and I shot him in the neck. He made a big circle thru my garage jumping on everything and squirting blood on all of it including my wifes Christmas containers. It was a mess. He eventually ran out the door and disappeared but I did see him later on still running wild. Tough Cat. I wont do that again.

 

[Bullfrog]

I think its funny how some say cats kill for fun and yet we make videos and spend thousands to do the same damn thing. LOL.

Its because nature is often treated with a capital “N” and is presumed to produce some sort of magical moral balance where predators only take what they need and nothing more, and man is somehow some aberration that does bad things for bad reasons that the animal predators don’t. Whenever animals kill needlessly, it exposes the flaws in a world view that overvenerates and otherwise presumes a form of spiritual balance on the animals. As if the animals represent innocence even though they do terrible things to each other than would a human do it to another human, we’d be locked up or executed

In reality, many species kill for fun. Chimps do, as do many of the intellegent marine predators. Killer whales are absolutely cruel. They’ll kill humpback calves for total sport. Sea otters will also rape and kill baby seals for the fun of it. 

In fact, river otters wiped out one of my stocked fish ponds for fun. They killed several hundred trophy bluegill without eating them. They were just fun toys to play with. 

 

[ImTheGraveDigger]

One of the greatest joys I have when I go hunting is not that fact of killing but the help I'm giving to the load owners. For my parents, I went out hunting wild dogs for just no reason but after listening to my dad of how mad he was about losing a calf a year to wild dogs, it gives me a determination to help in some way. When I hunt prairie dogs, I have the satisfaction of helping the landowner to not lose another cow or horse to a broken leg. A few weekends ago, I got many thank you's from dairy farmers when I killed hundreds of pigeons. To me, this is worth the cost of gas, food, lodging, and equipment.

So, if I had the money, I would gladly make a trip to Australia or Puerto Rico.

Great video and scary how feral invasive species can devastate wildlife. 



I really like your comment and thoughts, agree with the fact that thinning these helps in many ways. Even though what we as an individual does can still have an impact in a positive manner.

I try to go after invasive species whenever I can. The Eurasian Collared Dove has pushed out the native mourning dove in my rural area. Haven't seen a native dove in at least 4 years. There is so much harm from these invasive and others that people don't realize.

Wish I could find farmers in my area that would let me go after their graydiggers, pigeons, prairie dogs etc.

 

[bubblerboy64]

Animal species have to be kept in balance. We human's muck it up and then try to fix it. The difficulty is in getting any agreement what so ever in what is the correct balance and then how to achieve that balance. We are in the midst of a mass extinction and the weaker and often native species are being destroyed by climate change, invasive species and human mismanagement. The most mismanaged species is our own.

 

[guod123]

Animal species have to be kept in balance. We human's muck it up and then try to fix it. The difficulty is in getting any agreement what so ever in what is the correct balance and then how to achieve that balance. We are in the midst of a mass extinction and the weaker and often native species are being destroyed by climate change, invasive species and human mismanagement. The most mismanaged species is our own.

Georgia Guide Stones ?

 

[Hookster]

Feral is Feral, poor Govt management, poor judgment on the public releasing animals/fish/birds or bad waterway management. It's a shame most solutions cause another issue. Even a Rose is a weed in the Tulip garden. 

 

[Queequeg]

We're overrun with them. They are a very tough kill. I wouldn't recommend anything less than a powerful .25 PCP or better. A .22 powder burner requires good shot placement for a clean kill. I wish they would just get rid of the useless animal control officer we have and pay a bounty on cats and skunks. At night one can walk or drive around and see them running around all over the place. Easy Pickings!

 

[sonny]

Animal species have to be kept in balance. We human's muck it up and then try to fix it. The difficulty is in getting any agreement what so ever in what is the correct balance and then how to achieve that balance. We are in the midst of a mass extinction and the weaker and often native species are being destroyed by climate change, invasive species and human mismanagement. The most mismanaged species is our own.

Reminds me of the king the mice and the cheese

 

[Bitey]

A big part of the problem is that cat hoarders have lobbying groups and well-funded foundations.

They work across the country to get towns to adopt TNR as the only legal option.

They change animal cruelty laws to protect feral cats and transfer jurisdiction from animal control to their TNR programs. AC officers are no longer allowed to do anything about cats and/or they're obligated to release them to the same location after they're neutered/spayed.

The other change they make in the animal cruelty laws is to carve out exceptions in the definitions of ownership so they can feed the cats w/o being considered their owners. That way, they're not legally responsible for failing to provide effective medical care or any nuisance caused.

Why aren't there taxpayer-funded feral python colonies? Pythons and other invasive species do way less damage than cats yet taxpayers pay to have them hunted.

https://www.facebook.com/tnrtruth/

http://www.tnrrealitycheck.com/

 

[profsrgary]

We have two cats that we adopted as strays. We also have trail cameras out and know which cats are stray, neighborhood and feral. I can tell you for a fact that not all feral cats look wild or scruffy. They are usually unapproachable though. We also have bluebird boxes that can fall prey to cats. JMO, if you have a cat keep it in the house. If you let it out and your neighbor shoots it for a feral cat it is your fault as much as his. The laws for dogs should apply to cats as well since they can carry rabies. I do not shoot cats or dogs when hunting. I will not take the chance that it is a feral or wild animal because it is too hard to be sure. About 40 years ago a friend used to take me as a guest to hunt some property. One day he informed me we could no longer hunt there because someone shot the front leg off of the farmers son's cat. The farmer stopped all hunting on his property. While we were disappointed I did understand. I doubt anyone asked the farmer for permission to hunt cats.