Counterpoint: Cats aren’t the only culprit killing wildlife

Diane Novak | Novak, of Hardy, is the founder of Barn Cat Buddies.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Trap-neuter-release deals with cats that have been abandoned by irresponsible owners and has nothing to do with owned cats that are allowed to roam outside.

Barn Cat Buddies supports TNR because it is an intelligent and humane method of feral cat control. I offer that Rupert Cutler and Barn Cat Buddies are on the same page since we both want fewer cats born. Where we differ is the manner in which this should be accomplished.

Cutler said, “Cats in the U.S. kill a million birds and many small mammals such as rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks every day.” I must ask how this statistical data was collected, since I have never seen a dead birds census taker. I have, however, seen animals decimated by cars and displaced by clear-cutting of woods.

According to Greg Butcher, director of Bird Conservation for the National Audubon Society in Washington, D.C., “At any given time, there are at least 10 billion birds in North America and almost half die each year due to natural causes.”

Cutler also said that “letting cats fend for themselves is not humane,” and we concur. Those who abandon animals should be arrested. But in the real world this rarely happens, and this is why TNR makes sense. Caretakers feed, sterilize and monitor colonies while the cats function as rodent control, keeping communities safe.

During the Middle Ages, women accused of being witches kept cats as companions. According to “The History of Human-Animal Interaction — The Medieval Period,” millions of cats were “burned at the stake with their owners, and in 1347 the bubonic plague swept across Europe killing nearly a third of Europe’s population. Centuries of cat slaughter allowed rodent populations to surge out of control.”

TNR is a permanent and humane method of addressing the feral issue, and is a win-win for people and animals alike.

Monday, August 12, 2013