On Mon, 31 Jan 2000, Mike and Shirli wrote:

> Nonsense! Who has determined that cat issues are not appropriate for
> Tweeters? With studies showing that several hundred million birds are
> killed every year by cats in the U.S. alone, I think it is a pretty
> important issue.

I agree with this.. the Listmeister suggestd that the
discussion of cats degeneratd into a great deal of
discomfort from some listmembers who continue to let
their cats roam free. I think it was Dan's intent to
get the list back to talking about birding and get
away from "The Dreaded Cat Thread", which, BTW, I
started a couple of hears ago..

we have pretty much honored Dan's suggestion, but I
think there's merit in disscussing the problem of
the free range kitty...just like there's merit in
discussing environmental concerns as well...
keep the cats inside and work to protect the
environment and we'll have birds... don't do either
of those things, and our progeny will saying things like
"I remember when my grandfather used to see robins..
right on the lawn.."

I know how contentitiou List debates can be..I'm on
2 other lists and things get personalized quickly..
but, that should not deter us from intelligent, rational
discours about important issues of substance.. the
problem won't disappear unless we revisit it periodically
and if that makes some cat owners unhappy, then it's a
small price to pay for the much more important and critical
challenge facing us of how to save what's left of our
birds..

I respectfully ask Dan Victor to allow intelligent, rational
discourse about the severe problem of cat predation.. and
I also ask Listmembers, particularly cat fanciers, to have
an "out of body" experience and look at the data objectively.

as Mike points out, we all have a DELETE key and use it
liberally for annoying or repetitious posts.


Tom


Tom Foote footet at elwha.evergreen.edu
Lab II
The Evergreen State College (360) 866-6000 x6118
Olympia, WA 98505