Tue, April 12, 2005
It's sure easier than herding them!—6:29 PM
Wisconsin is considering joining South Dakota and Minnesota in declaring that feral cats – stray cats or other free-roaming cats that are not collared or not under the direct control of an owner – should be listed as unprotected species, thereby making them legal for hunters to shoot just like skunks or other rodents.
It's a perfectly reasonable proposal to control population overgrowth, and the only reason anyone is arguing against it is that kitties are cute. The fact that someone protesting the decision would show up wearing a sign that reads, "Too Cute To Kill" pretty much sums it up for me. Cuteness doesn't factor into it, dopes! Take a rational look at the situation and figure out the best solution. If locusts were causing the same problems nobody would bat an eye at slaughtering them. (They'd even make a CBS movie about it!) But just because kitties are fuzzy, they should be spared? That's preposterous. "Too Cute To Kill" is dangerously close to the argument posed by the defenders of Terri Schiavo's right to not die. Nobody's disputing that they're cute, but this is a larger issue than that.
Unprotecting feral cats and strays represents a viable solution to a serious problem, and I'm no fan of hunting, but these aren't wild deer. These are animals whose population explosion is a direct result of human intervention in the form of domestication. If cat fanciers are too horrified to let them be shot, they should round them up, adopt them, and spay/neuter them. It's the same as pro-lifers: okay, fine, we'll save every fetus; but then you have to raise them, rather than consigning them to some orphanage, or crack whore mom, or worse.
And another thing: this is exactly the same fallacious logic that makes people rail against gay marriage or abortion or anything else. They're not coming into your living room to slaughter your tabby. (Although, if I could, I would.) They're not forcing you to marry a gay guy or terminate your pregnancy. They're just opening it up so that in a situation where it's appropriate (hordes of strays spreading disease, killing native species, tipping over trash cans, howling at the moon), somebody with a 12-gauge can go out there and make things better.
"AC" — Wed, 4/13/05 9:48am
The reason I'm so against this is the method of population control. Blowing cats to bits– and letting any back-country dickwad do it– is animal cruelty any way you look at it. I'm not against controlling overpopulation– heck, I'm even for it with humans! But there are more humane ways to accomplish it.
"Alicia" — Wed, 4/13/05 11:50am
When I read this article I was horrified, picturing my beans running for her life...but then i remembered that I'd probably feel that way if I had a deer in my living room curling up in front of the tv, which of course I wouldn't becuase that's gross.
So I understand the hunting in relation to population issues, but if that's really the problem then we hire some people to round up the cats (like LA's Kitten Rescue) try to adopt them out, and when they can't they're peacefully euthanized, not shot for fun and then left to die a painful death becuase they've been shot but not killed.
Since that's not the proposal, I'm concerned about what the real motivation for this is. It's not honest population control, it's game hunting for the fun of it and for the reason of trying to find a reason for guns. So in that case, no way. http://www.kittenrescue.org/
Joe Mulder — Wed, 4/13/05 1:07pm
As someone who's actually been on a farm, I think this entire thing is whole lot of fuss over almost nothing. Farmers are going to be killing stray cats who are messing around their property no matter what the laws are (the kitty killing law didn't pass, though, I guess, so I guess it's back to back-alley, coat hanger cat murdering for Wisconsin's rural population), and nobody is ever going to notice or care. Making a law that feral or stray cats aren't protected would be approximately as pointless as making a law that clouds are pretty, but opposing such a law is completely pointless as well.
On the farm where my mom and stepdad live, there tend to be stray cats or dogs once in a great while (because pretty much everybody in southwestern Minnesota who wants a cat has gone out and got one), and once in a while my stepdad – he's one of those back-country dickwads, Andy – will kill one that becomes a nuisance.
By the same token, there were a few kittens that were born to a somewhat domesticated cat on the farm last year, so Mom and Mike have been feeding them and not shooing them away. We saw them over Christmas when we went home.
This whole thing has absolutely nothing to do with guns, and absolutely nothing to do with killing cats for fun, and it really, really isn't a big deal. The fact that it's become one is very revealing about how completely, completely clueless most people are about life in the rural Midwest. Good Lord.
"AC" — Wed, 4/13/05 3:44pm
Well, you can count me out of that group. I was raised in the sticks too, and my grandparents still live on their farm, complete with stray cats, dogs, coons, beavers, etc. I know what you mean by this being a lot of fuss over nothing and that people will do what they need to do, but having a law sanctioning unreasonable killing is stupid.
Bee Boy — Wed, 4/13/05 5:06pm
Man, I knew this reminded me of the Schiavo debate!
It's not "unreasonable" to be able to control a pest population. And if alternative methods like Kitten Rescue were successful, then this idea never would have come up. The reality is that unlike urban L.A. where it's relatively easy to round up cats and bulldoze them into huge piles awaiting adoption by glassy-eyed undergraduates and senile dowagers in need of heirs, in rural Wisconsin this is a completely different matter. Look at 'em all. Who wants to go chasing them through the woods to pin them down and neuter them and/or humanely euthanize them? Nobody. So far, the reaction from the cat fancying population of Wisconsin has been nothing more than exacerbating the problem: feeding the strays so they stick around, cause a nuisance, tamper with crops, frighten livestock – and they just keep breeding and breeding!
The law – which, thank God, was the most important thing in the world for two days and was struck down before it could ruin this country – didn't sanction killing: in fact, it did the opposite. It removed the wild cats from a list of species protected from killing – it un-sanctioned not killing them. Keeping them on the protected species list does nothing to curb the maladjusted serial-killers-in-training who would shoot a cat just to torture it. Someone sick enough to get off on that sort of thing is going to do it whether he's licensed to or not. He doesn't avoid it for fear of getting a ticket – and he isn't going to get one anyway. Believe me, this protected species list isn't that well enforced. (And if it is, then we've got a serious lack of perspective with regard to our law enforcement priorities. Our precious, vulnerable ports are still unguarded!)
Even if the law had passed, nobody would have been required to go around shooting at strays. Nobody would be walking down La Cienega, picking kitties off balconies with a rifle. Beans would've been safe because she'd be inside, or have a collar on (or, y'know, live in Los Angeles, which is still outside Wisconsin for the time being). This is just a group of people proposing a grisly but workable solution to an overpopulation nuisance – and another group of wackjobs gumming up the works with a silly emotional reaction. "Too Cute To Die." If they were feral tarantulas, these people wouldn't be able to sign their death order fast enough.
Besides, if it's so horrible, where are the angry mobs marching on the state capitals of Minnesota and South Dakota, demanding that cats be put back on their respective protected species lists? I'm halfway tempted to spend my summer break on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border, coaxing stray cats over to the Minnesota side and plugging them with a .45.
Joe Mulder — Wed, 4/13/05 5:29pm
Ha! Count me in!
On this we can all agree. Controlling the feral cat population, however, strikes me as highly reasonable.
I, for one, hope this controversy stays alive, as there are a precious few "hot button" issues on which Jameson and I agree 100%.
Bee Boy — Wed, 4/13/05 6:00pm
And, appropriately, we agree 100% that this shouldn't be a "hot button" issue!
"michwagn" — Thu, 4/14/05 11:22am
While my first general reaction to "well, let's kill them" is negative, I am on Joe's side here. Even this liberal Minnesotan (living in Indiana) thinks it is ok to shoot non-tagged stray cats, and for that matter, a non-tagged Brian Setzer.
Brandon — Thu, 4/14/05 1:41pm
I haven't seen this much jockeying for "farm cred" since, well... ever.
I got kicked in the face by a horse once during the time we lived on a farm - suck on that, agri-playas!
"kotc" — Thu, 4/14/05 6:44pm
kill the kitties, that's fine.
"fallacious logic" hmmm... interesting concept.
Anonymous Coward — Mon, 4/18/05 10:28am
what about stray dogs? theyre more likely to attack humans. Not just songbirds, and either way, there are many songbirds and yes its sad that they are being killed but its part of a food chain. Its natural. Cats being too cute to kill is not a lone reason to be against it. I understand that in some cases when the are a nusicence and shot, which is sad. It shouldnt be legalized though. Enough people try and hit cats while driving. We dont need to accomidate there disgusting urge by letting them shoot at cats.