In life, there are cat people. And there are dog people. Unlike liberals and conservatives, however, they often co-exist peacefully together.
But for all their value as household pets, cats in particular can wreak real havoc on wildlife—especially feral cats born outdoors and untamed by the loving human “companions,” as PETA people always try to depict themselves.
In fact, if there’s one issue where the haters at PETA twist themselves into knots trying to cope with a real-world problem while maintaining their “just leave the animals alone” BS, it’s the issue of feral cats, those often ferocious felines who are abandoned or born outdoors and who revert back to their “wild” ancestry as hunters and killers.
Their prey, unsurprisingly, are millions of songbirds, small mammals (mostly rodents) and even lizards or reptiles where available.
Anyone who’s ever watched even a pampered housecat come to life when a mouse manages to sneak indoors knows that Fluffy can instantly transform from couch creature to clawed killer in seconds.
Feral cats are like those domesticated mouse hunters, only bitten by radioactive spiders. As a result, according to research done by the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, feral cats—of which there are millions in the United States—have become a serious and growing threat to the populations of numerous native birds, mammals and other wildlife.
Those numbers are much higher than previous studies suggested, according to Smithsonian scientists. Their on-the-ground research found that cats kill more than four times the amount of birds as had been previously estimated.
Here are a few data that support their concern:
- In New Zealand, it is estimated that feral cats have been responsible for the extinction of six native bird species and more than 70 other species, as well as depleting bird and lizard species
- In Australia, feral cats have devastated native populations of ground nesting birds, and smaller mammals and caused the extinction of several marsupials and mammals
- On dozens of islands around the world, feral cats have been implicated in the extinction of hundreds of native species of birds, mammals and rodents; the only solution conservation biologists have pursued is ridding entire islands of all cats
- In the United States, cats—especially feral cats—are the leading threat to native wildlife, responsible for the deaths of more than 3.7 billion birds and 21 billion mammals every year, including songbirds, mice, squirrels and rabbits
A major study by the Smithsonian in suburban Maryland in 2010 found that the vast majority of the deaths of juvenile catbirds occurred in the first week after the birds left the nest. Why? Cats were roaming suburban backyards and feasting on the inexperienced fledglings.
“Cats are natural predators of not just birds but also mammals—killing is what they are meant to do and it’s not their fault,” Peter Marra, a Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute research scientist who conducted the study, said in a news release. “Removing both pet and feral cats from outdoor environments is a simple solution to a major problem impacting our native wildlife.”
Option 1 or Option 2?
Ultimately, there are two basic solutions to the feral cat problem: Trap-and-terminate, and trap-alter-and-release.
PETA’s preferred option—leave these noble, sentient beings alone—isn’t an option at all. If you want to continue to hear robins and sparrows singing each spring, that is.
As for the first option, that’s cruel and heartless, according to PETA. Wildlife biologists will acknowledge that when feral cats infest a wildlife ecosystem unable to adjust to the destruction of the species on which they prey, the only way to effectively halt the carnage is to get rid of the cats.
Permanently.
That’s the opposite of “leave them alone,” but PETA leaders can’t even bring themselves to embrace the other option: trap ’em, fix ’em and let ’em go.
“PETA’s experiences with trap-alter-and-release programs and ‘managed’ feral cat colonies led us to believe that these programs are not usually in cats’ best interests,” according to the group’s online policy statement. “We have seen firsthand and have received countless reports that cats suffer and die gruesome deaths because they are abandoned to fend for themselves outdoors.”
The gruesome deaths of birds and mammals at the end of a cat’s claws, of course, aren’t mentioned anywhere in their statement.
“Having witnessed the painful deaths of countless feral cats, we cannot in good conscience advocate trapping, altering, and releasing as a humane way to deal with overpopulation and homelessness.”
There’s plenty more blah, blah, blah about the “horrific fates” awaiting homeless cats, the contagious diseases from which they suffer and all-too-short lifespan common to most feral populations.
Which leads to the million-dollar question: What do we do about them? Here’s PETA “answer,” a convoluted argument suitable for a legal brief—or maybe a mission statement for a new animal exhibit at Fantasyland:
“We believe that it can be marginally acceptable to trap, vaccinate, alter, and release feral [animals] when the cats are isolated from roads, people, and animals who could harm them, are regularly attended to by people who not only feed them but also provide them with veterinary care, and are kept in areas where they do not have access to wildlife and the weather is temperate.”
Are you kidding me? Most people don’t enjoy that kind of lifestyle.
Proof once again, as if more were needed, that People for the Ethical treatment of Animals belongs out on some of those same islands that biologists have been so successful in ridding them of other destructive species.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dan Murphy, a veteran food-industry journalist and commentator.
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