Killing feral cats no solution - Ruidoso News

I thought you were retiring.....anytime is good for us.

I live in another town in newMexico, and I have been feeding feral cats since 1999, I have even taken in probably 50 or more to be spayed or neutered, paid for out of my pocket. At present I am feeding around 20 cats. I am careing for one cat that is 11 years old, and yes he is feral, He has a kind soul and has been a joy to be around. I think there is a better solution than "killing" the cats. I also spend around $60 a month to feed them.

7even: You are a great example of what individuals should be doing to take care of the feral cats. You use your own money, not the taxpayers! I also have a feral cat and paid for the spaying myself. God bless you and your kitties and all those who care for these animals!

I agree with 7even and Great Example. And for those who do not or cannot take in their own ferals, I am sure Ms. Barbara Culler would accept any donations to help her efforts to neuter and spay feral cats. Checks to Miracle's Paws for Pets, PO Box 881, Carrizozo, NM 88301. Good work Barbara.

Locals are paying thousands to keep a dying business model open(Ruidoso Downs Racetrack) and are unwilling to help a few wild creatures have their chance at life.
Good Luck in your afterlife Mr. Doth.

For those who hate cats as much as I do - especially feral cats - here is how I take care of problems at my property. I bought a "live trap" that I bait with - you guessed it - cat food! Once the cat's in the trap it's easy to dispatch quickly with a single shot between the eyes. I use an air rifle so that there is no loud report to disturb neighbors. I then simply dispose of the carcass in the dumpster that is so conveniently provided, after bagging it in a heavy duty trash bag.

The problem I have is the CONTINUED presence of feral cats in spite of my inroads in ridding my property of them.

Doth is a douche bag. He seems to consistently be in favor of killing but opposes any programs that save lives. He should enlist in the military, volunteer for service in Afghanistan and leave the important decisions to others.

I can't really think of any time that a problem with an animal could not have been solved without killing.

If we all killed an animal that we had an issue with there would be very few animals including humans left.

I think if Doth really feels that way then he should euthanize the first kitten himself on public television and see how many people feel the same way he does.

Tougher animal laws, tougher punishment for breaking the laws, animal education at the gradeschool level, and placing people who care and will help with the problem in the right positions will be a good start to solving the problem.

Cat Hater wrote:

For those who hate cats as much as I do - especially feral cats - here is how I take care of problems at my property. I bought a "live trap" that I bait with - you guessed it - cat food! Once the cat's in the trap it's easy to dispatch quickly with a single shot between the eyes. I use an air rifle so that there is no loud report to disturb neighbors. I then simply dispose of the carcass in the dumpster that is so conveniently provided, after bagging it in a heavy duty trash bag.
The problem I have is the CONTINUED presence of feral cats in spite of my inroads in ridding my property of them.

All it takes to be an animal rights activist is a great big heart and... an itty bitty brain.
Your approach is the sane, effective and proper way of dealing with this pest that has decimated our native songbirds and small animals. You kill'em on your end and I'll kill 'em on mine.

You simply won't be able to shoot them all as much fun as that might be to those of you suggesting it as a solution. And that's the problem with that approach. You knock off a few and finding the territory open, more ferals move in causing you trouble and needing shooting. Now, I don't see it as particularly uncivilized to do it this way, just unnecessary.

It took a few years but this is what worked for us.

Trap them, neuter them and let them go. Trap, Neuter, Release. TNR. By the time we figured we needed to do something about the growing number of ferals there were a bunch of them and it did cost us a few bucks to get them neutered.

Having trapped a bunch, I can tell you some of them aren't ferals - they're unwanted or lost house cats. Mostly, these strays wander off elsewhere before I can trap them. If you shoot them, you gotta be OK with taking out what may be somebody's loved pet that is just checking out the territory or lost it's way home. I figure you gotta give the strays a chance to go home and plugging them between the eyes doesn't seem very neighborly.

We're down to a small neutered feral colony that claims the local territory. They mostly do the policing of newcomers with the help of the mountain lions. A sort of controlled eco-balance. We're left to deal with the occasional dumped/lost housecat or troublesome feral Alpha Tom that won't go away but the feral problem is now under control and much easier to manage.

Peace.

Cats are absolutely delucious. They are low carb, high protein. There fecal matter can be cooked and mixed into a nice chunky gravy.

TROLL: In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response.

you are easy to spot.

http://bit.ly/itydiB

What's next? Do we not spay or neuter feral hogs? They are so cute.

Unvaccinated cats expose real pets to distemper, rabies, fleas pink eye and numerous other problems.

Get over it. Put your efforts to helping out at the food bank.

I think we could have done with out the speed bumps and put the money into the PAWS program. They should have looked at other money sources so that they did not have to kill all the beneficial social programs. It does nto make any since to stop a prevention program. Letting animals breed and then have to kill them because they are unwanted will not save the county any money.

AFRICAN QUEEN wrote:

<quoted text> F ALL YA'LL. YOU DON'T KNOW ME. YA'LL DON'T KNOW ME.

You are right. I don't know you. Thank goodness!

when you rid the town of cats you will be over run with rats. Nature has a way of balancing it self when we stay out of the way. I have trapped and neutered our strays and feed two and with the two house cats I have no problems with rodents. I am afraid of those who so enjoy killing. It says a great deal of who they are and I prefer to stay away from these sick people. The amimals are more civilized.

Trapping and/or sterilizing as a solution is a failed concept from Day-One.

There are now about 150M feral-cats just in the USA, and 86M pet-cats (60M of which are still allowed to kill all wildlife), this means the population is already oversaturated for a long time. There's only 311M people in the USA. 2 cats exist for every 3 people, from infant to senior. Thanks to those who outlawed destroying them in a more efficient, often more-humane, and more cost-effective manner by shooting. While they also promoted their slow, random-chance, inefficient, and failed trapping programs.

I alone was able to completely rid my land of all feral-cats by shooting. Cats had completely decimated the food-chain, destroying not only all the prey that their cats disemboweled for play-toys, but all the predators that depended on that prey, starving all native predators to death as well.(Now there's REAL animal cruelty for you, caused by cat-lovers.) Shooting cats is perfectly legal where I live, and is even a more humane method when done right than slow and terrorizing trapping and animal-shelter methods. One moment they are happily stalking helpless animals to torture again, the next they are dead and don't even know what happened. Making your land 100% cat-free is something that cat advocates haven't been able to solve nation-wide for 30-40 years. On my land only 1 person in only 2 seasons was able to accomplished what they couldn't in decades. Why is that? It's time for you all to grow a spine and do what needs to be done. If it's not legal where you live then use the "SSS Cat Management Program", for Shoot, Shovel, and Shut-Up. That's legal everywhere in the world.

Nobody wants more than 86M cats for pets. Keep in mind too their exponential growth-rate. An average litter of 5 cats every 5-6 months (some say 3X's a year), breeding as early as 6-months of age. 2 can become 42 (up to 252) cats in only 1 year. No amount of trapping them (if you could even get them all to enter traps), nor valuable resources (transport and vet costs, etc.), man-hours, nor money will ever catch-up to their growth rate. You have an ecological, human-health, animal-welfare, and financial disaster on your hands, ALL thanks to cat-lovers and TNR proponents. The faster that cats can be destroyed the better. Even when using guns and having all stray and feral cats shot on-sight we might still not be able to catch-up to their exponential growth. Not even until every last land animal (including humans) is gone from this earth, from cats destroying the whole food-chain, with nothing but cannibalistic cats left walking the land. No exaggeration. Do the math. Exactly that can happen in your lifetimes. Just ask any TNR group how many cats they've trapped. They haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the problem that THEY CAUSED and are only exacerbating with their lies. Using the birth-rate info, guess how many will be born in just this year? Even when underestimating by one-half to be safe -- 1 BILLION 575 MILLION CATS. Got enough traps? YOU CRIMINALLY PATHETIC FOOLS.

Solution: Make cat-ownership AND care-taking of feral-cats a FELONY with fines and prison for anyone failing to comply until this problem they created is brought under control by any and all means possible. Shoot-on-sight is, without a doubt, the fastest, most economical (0.3 cent to 3 cents per cat depending on ammo prices), and most effective method available. This is also the only method that doesn't endanger nor harass any other animals with non-discriminatory random-chance traps. Though avoid poisons if at all possible, that once entered into the food-chain, will go on to destroy more of the very wildlife that you are hoping to save from destruction by cats. Whatever you do though, please bury or incinerate the carcasses so all the deadly diseases that cats now carry won't go on to further infect the native wildlife, nor any other humans that might come in contact with them.

ok, i will be flamed but here it goes. They must be euthanized..humanely atleast (not shot). There is not enough free places that are no kill to put feral cats. If someone has lost a cat and they aren't chipped or atleast have a collar on, then sorry...your fault.

We have this problem in my home town and they do the same thing. We have wild dogs also, guess what they do to them too? We shoot wild hogs and give the to the coyotes..they tear up our wheat fields and dig monstrous holes that break the horses and cows legs. You cant neuter every cat in america, but they are beginning to look like rats..well...maybe having cats is good for the rats..i guess. No, i dont like cats so much but i dont want them to suffer either, disease and starvation is suffering.