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MyspaceFeral cats are typically born in the wild and live with relatively little human contact. They struggle to survive and are often too wild to be handled. Feral cats can rarely become house cats unless they are socialized and fostered at a very young age. These cats usually live in groups, known as colonies, and feed on rodents and garbage while breeding uncontrollably.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals states that there are estimated to be tens of millions of feral cats living in the United States alone, and, unfortunately, the majority of them are not spayed or neutered. According to Alley Cat Allies, 80 percent of the 82 million owned cats in our country are spayed and neutered, while fewer than 3 percent of feral cats are spayed or neutered. Since feral cats tend to mate and reproduce in warmer weather, millions of kittens will be born over the next few months and taken to animal shelters across the country. Unfortunately, few of these kittens find adoptive homes. Many, if not most, are killed in shelters. A better alternative to the “catch and kill” method is a program called Trap-Neuter-Return.
Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is a nonlethal strategy to reduce the number of feral cats and improve the quality of life for cats, birds, wildlife, and people. The TNR program involves live trapping the feral cats one by one, having them spayed or neutered, monitoring the cats for a day or two, and then releasing them back into their colony. The veterinarian will also vaccinate and “ear tip” the cat during this process. Ear tipping involves snipping a small part of the ear when the cat is unconscious. This procedure is performed so that when the caregiver continues to trap feral cats, the person will know immediately if the cat has already been spayed or neutered.
Research shows that TNR programs really work. With this program, fewer kittens are born, resulting in a decrease in the number of animals; bothersome behaviors associated with breeding (fighting, roaming, spraying, crying, etc.) are minimized. Those who argue that feral cats should be removed, relocated, or euthanized don’t realize that feral cats from surrounding colonies may move in to take advantage of the newly available resources. The cycle of reproduction begins all over again. And the population will continue to increase until the level that can be supported by the available food and shelter is reached.
With all the feral cats in Santa Barbara County, Animal Shelter Assistance Program (ASAP) is in desperate need of placement for cats arriving at the County Animal Shelter who are not suitable for adoption into a household environment. Though these cats usually prefer minimal human contact, they are used to outdoor life and often make great hunters. If you are able to participate as a caregiver for a feral cat, ASAP will provide a healthy, sterilized, and vaccinated cat in need of a new outdoor home, plus relocation support and training. You would provide a shelter in a suitable barn, garage, or outbuilding and protection from predators, plus daily food and water as cats cannot live on mousing alone. For more information, contact Beth Rushing at (805) 964-8956 or bethrush@cox.net
The organization Alley Cat Allies has a wonderful website for anyone looking to care for feral cats. They have advice on how to participate in TNR programs, while keeping your neighbors happy. For more information on helping feral cats, visit http://www.alleycat.org/
Announcements
Celebrate “Chihuahuas de Mayo”
The major shelters in Santa Barbara County are offering half off adoption fees for Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes adopted during the month of May.
In addition, the owners of the first 300 Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes who register and live in Santa Barbara County will be able to get their dogs spayed or neutered for free during the month of May. Owners can call one of the following organizations to schedule an appointment:
• S.B. County Animal Services, Santa Maria Animal Center: (805) 934-6968 (S.B. County residents only)
• Santa Maria Valley Humane Society: (805) 349-3435
• Santa Ynez Valley Humane Society: (805) 688-8224
• Santa Barbara Humane Society: (805) 964-4777 x20
• Care4Paws: (805) 968-CARE (2273)
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Comments
FACT: Trap & Kill failed because cats cannot be trapped faster than they exponentially breed out of control.
FACT: Trap & Sterilize (TNR) is an even bigger abject failure because they cannot be trapped faster than they exponentially breed out of control, and they also continue the cruelly annihilate all native wildlife (from the smallest of prey up to the top predators that are starved to death), and the cats continue to spread many deadly diseases that they carry today -- FOR WHICH THERE ARE NO VACCINES AGAINST THEM. Many of which are even listed as bioterrorism agents. (Such as Tularemia and The Plague -- Yes, people have already died from cat-transmitted plague in the USA. No fleas nor rats even required. The cats themselves carry and transmit the plague all on their own.)
FACT: Hunted To Extinction (or in this case, extirpation of all outdoor cats) is the ONLY method that is faster than a species like cats can exponentially out-breed and out-adapt to. Especially a man-made invasive-species like these cats that can breed 2-3X's faster than any naturally occurring cat-species.
FACT: Alley Cat ALL-LIES have only managed to trap 0.024% to 0.08% of all feral cats in their own city, thereby allowing more than 99.92% to 99.976% to continually and exponentially breed out of control. Alley Cat ALL-LIES can't even reduce the number of feral cats in their own city, yet they promote it as a worldwide solution, then even bigger fools fall for it and promote it.
FACT: When researching all the most "successful" TNR programs around the globe, JUST ONE OF THEM has managed to trap more than 0.4% of cats in their area. Oregon's amazing 50,000 TNR'ed cats (the highest rate I found) is only 4.9% of all feral-cats in their state. Yet, by applying advanced population growth calculus on the unsterilized 95.1% of cats they will have trapped only 0.35% of all feral-cats in their state sometime this year. <0.4% is a far cry from the required 80-90% to be effective.
FACT: Their "vacuum effect" is a 100% LIE. A study done by the Texas A&M University proved that any perceived "vacuum" is just the simple case that CATS ATTRACT CATS. Get rid of them all and there's no cats there to attract more. I proved this myself by shooting and burying hundreds of them on my own land. ZERO cats replaced them for over 2 YEARS NOW. If you want more cats, keep even one around, more will find you. That study also found that sterilized cats poorly defend territory. Non-sterilized cats, being more aggressive, take over the sterilized cats' resources (shelter & food if any). If there is any kind of "vacuum effect" at all, it is that sterilized cats cause non-sterilized cats to restore their reproductive void.
FACT: During all this investigation I have discovered something that is unfaltering without fail. Something that you can bet your very life on and win every last time. That being -- IF A CAT-LOVER-HOARDER IS TALKING THEN THEY ARE LYING. 100% guaranteed!
Woodsman (anonymous profile)
May 22, 2012 at 4 p.m. (Suggest removal)
^Wow, you REALLY hate cats.
Are you actually a dog by any chance?
loonpt (anonymous profile)
May 23, 2012 at 3:36 p.m. (Suggest removal)
@ Loonpt, I think it's Wiley Coyote! Trap and kill? Weren't all cats originally feral? It's not some virus they become infected with.
Ken_Volok (anonymous profile)
May 23, 2012 at 5:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Woodsman is going easy on us this time. He has in past said the following (all of which checks out, by the way):
[Quoting from "Woodsman," October 25, 2011 ]:
"These are just the diseases they spread to humans, not counting the ones they spread to wildlife. Campylobacter Infection, Cat Scratch Disease, Coxiella burnetti Infection (Q fever), Cryptosporidium Infection, Dipylidium Infection (tapeworm), Hookworm Infection, Leptospira Infection, Plague, Rabies, Ringworm, Salmonella Infection, Toxocara Infection, Toxoplasma. [Centers for Disease Control, July 2010] Flea-borne Typhus and Tularemia can now also be added to that list.
"The plague:
http://outbreaknews.com/2011/07/29/co...
"Tularemia (rabbit-fever, transmissible to humans):
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/heal...
"Flea-borne Typhus:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/co...
"Hookworm -- that shut down businesses in Miami:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010...
"The most insidious being their Toxoplasma gondii parasite spread through their feces into all other animals and livestock. This is how it gets into meats and humans get it from undercooked meats, from cats roaming around stockyards and farms. Precisely where this health-department(?) wants these cats. This parasite not only changes the mind of the animal it invades (including the minds of humans, it being the cause of the crazy-cat-lady-cat-hoarders and TNR-advocates),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplas...
http://wildlifeprofessional.org/blog/....
http://www.economist.com/node/16271339
http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/18...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...
"...but can even kill you any time during your life once you've been infected. It becomes a permanent lifetime parasite in your mind, ready to strike at any time that your immune system becomes compromised. It's now being linked to the cause of autism, schizophrenia, and brain cancers.
"Rabies is just one of the minor concerns. Having your cat vaccinated against rabies doesn't prevent it from bringing in a mouthful or claws full of fresh rabies virus every day to you or other animals after it shredded that rabid bat."
http://www.independent.com/news/2011/...
binky (anonymous profile)
May 23, 2012 at 6:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
At one point in history, cats in Europe we're thought of as spies of the devil and we're indeed killed.
Ken_Volok (anonymous profile)
May 23, 2012 at 7:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
@loonpt,
Destroying cats is NOT a fear of cats nor even hating cats.
Why do mentally-unbalanced and psychotic cat-advocates always presume that if someone is removing a highly destructive, deadly disease spreading, human-engineered invasive-species from the native habitat to restore it back into natural balance that they must hate that organism? Does someone who destroys Zebra Mussels, Kudzu, African Cichlids, Burmese Pythons, Brown Tree Snakes, or any of the other myriad destructive invasive-species have some personal problem with that species? (Many of which are escaped PETS that don't even spread any harmful diseases, unlike cats.) Your ignorance and blatant biases are revealed in your declaring that people who destroy cats must somehow hate or fear cats. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is people who let a destructive invasive-species roam free that tortures-to-death all other wildlife that have zero respect for life. They don't even care about their cats dying a slow torturous death from exposure, animal attacks, diseases, starvation, dehydration, becoming road-kill, environmental poisons. etc., the way that ALL stray cats suffer to death. They don't even respect their fellow human being. This speaks more than volumes about their disgusting character. They should be locked up in prison for life for their cruelty to all animals, their own cats as well as all the native wildlife that they let their cats skin alive or disembowel alive. If they let cats roam free they are violating every animal-abandonment, animal-neglect, animal-endangerment, and invasive-species law in existence.
If people DO hate cats today, have LEARNED to hate cats today, you have nobody but those who let cats roam free to blame. THEY are the reason people are now realizing that all excess cats must be destroyed on-site and on-sight. They've done so much to make people care about cats, haven't they.
THIS IS THEIR FAULT and THE FAULT OF EVERYONE JUST LIKE THEM. They have NOBODY but themselves to blame.
You can take that all the way to the very last shot-dead cat's grave.
Woodsman (anonymous profile)
May 25, 2012 at 3:39 a.m. (Suggest removal)