Tamed and Untamed by Sy Montgomery

Author:Sy Montgomery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Published: 2017-08-29T14:15:22+00:00

Feral Cats and Stray Cats

— Liz —

Feral cats are born wild or have been homeless so long that they’ve become wild. Stray cats have been abandoned recently and are trying to live as best they can. It’s hard to find homes for feral cats because, being wild, they distrust people, so they may remain skittish for life. It’s easier to find homes for stray cats, because they return to a life they know and soon become friendly.

I see all cats as individuals, not as members of a group that may or may not be causing problems, but that’s just one way to look at them—and that perspective certainly isn’t shared by all. Grant Sizemore, director of invasive species programs for the American Bird Conservancy in Washington, DC, points out that cats are an invasive species. They were moved around the world by people, but our species has no commitment to containing them. They are programmed for hunting whether they need the food or not, and in the United States alone, he says, they are responsible for killing 2.4 billion birds a year. Bird populations are declining for several reasons, and cats are making it worse. Cats also transmit diseases such as rabies and toxoplasmosis, both to people and to other animals.

These are serious matters, surely. What gets me is the accusation that cats belong to the detested group known as invasive species. Humans are also an invasive species that began in Africa but then spread all over the world and are doing vastly more damage to it than the cats. But people do good as well as harm—and so do cats, who are useful in containing rodent populations, which are pests that can also spread diseases to humans. For a while the recycling center in our community encouraged a small group of feral or stray cats that significantly helped with the rodent population. Has a tally been made of how many rats and mice are killed by feral cats in the United States? Probably not.

As I see it, we humans have four possible methods of dealing with feral cats. We could (1) do nothing, (2) find homes for them, (3) kill all of them, or (4) support organizations that help them. As for method 1, if we do nothing, nothing will change. As for method 2 (finding homes for them), many shelters are already filled with cats who aren’t being adopted, and these shelters can’t take more. As for method 3 (exterminating them), we could try, but there’d be violent protests from cat lovers such as myself. And anyway, such slaughter might reduce an area’s feral population for a while, but there’s no way the human residents could kill them all, so soon enough the population would recover. As for method 4 (supporting organizations), this would certainly help the cats but would probably not reduce in any meaningful manner the 2.4 billion birds that cats kill annually. As has been said, cats hunt for fun, and it isn’t just feral cats who do it.

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