Subject: campus cats (fwd)
Date: Aug 5 08:00:20 1994
From: Dan Victor - dvictor at u.washington.edu


Due to some glitch with the listprocessor this message apparently didn't
get distributed. I'm forwarding the archived copy.
Dan Victor, Seattle, WA <dvictor at u.washington.edu>

===============
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 12:37:35 -0800
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
From: dpaulson at ups.edu (Dennis Paulson)
Subject: campus cats

It was instructive to hear the comments of Sharon Talbert about Friends of
Campus Cats. The point Charles was trying to make, and I agree with him
100%, is that the practice of not only leaving (i.e., not trapping and
removing) lots of cats on campus, whether they can reproduce or not, but
also subsidizing them by feeding them, furnishes the area with a high
density of healthy predators that in turn wreak havoc on the population of
small *native* animals (song sparrows are much easier for a cat to capture
and subdue than are Norway rats). The campus is just a sink for all the
cats born elsewhere in the neighborhood, where they are not captured and
neutered. There is no controversy about these conclusions about cat
effects; they are well-documented. Just from my own observations, as a
15-year resident of Burke Museum, I looked out of my window into the
shrubbery on the north side of the building, and over the years cats
replaced song sparrows and towhees in my viewshed. I don't understand why
these cats, just because they don't have diseases and can't reproduce, are
"OK."

I hope Friends of Campus Cats, as undoubted animal lovers, are willing to
accept the accompanying label Enemies of Small Native Campus Animals,
clearly counter to the idea of being an animal lover. I couldn't be more
serious. To me it is a misguided love of animals that encourages the
saturation of any environment, urban or wild, with *introduced* (intended
to be domestic) predators! Cats were intended to be domestic "friends" of
people; they may have been first domesticated to control infestations of
mice (also introduced worldwide), as well as to be enjoyable companions
(they are enjoyable; I've owned cats for years, now only in the house).
That doesn't mean they now have the "inalienable right" to roam free in our
cities and countryside by the thousands and decimate wildlife populations.
There must be a solution to this problem, which pits people who care for
animals very strongly against one another. As a staunch environmentalist, I
am strongly on the side of native wildlife and will continue to campaign
against free-roaming cats, especially in cities, where our native wildlife
is already limited enough.

Dennis Paulson
University of Puget Sound