Subject: Cats in a Nature Preserve?
Date: Jan 29 13:40:26 2002
From: Susan L. Collicott - camel at serv.net



Oy, the dreaded cat thread... I hate it, but I must correct this statement
about Campus Cats. They don't *JUST* return cats.

What they do is: catch cats, neuter/spay them, get all their shots, and
attempt to have them adopted to an indoor-only household. They also go
through the emotionally draining process of having to decide which have to
be euthanized due to disease, health concerns, etc.

If the cat is adoptable, it is held for adoption. If the cat is entirely
too feral to be adopted, but is healthy, it is returned to the wild with a
notched ear. And trust me, they have kept some wild, spitting, ferocious
cats for over a year (or more years!), attempting to condition them to
humans again, so as not to have to euthanize or put back in the wild.
Mostly they succeed - some few they simply can't condition back to human
habitation.

I've seen their setup, and they do all this with their own money and just
a few donations from the public, and low-cost work from the vets they
patronize. (And the house doesn't stink of cats, even though they have
quite a few in there!) All the cats they have for adoption are lovely
animals with wonderful characteristics, and all are from feral colonies.

If anything, you should be supporting their work, not declaiming against
it. They would rather see the world without a single feral cat.

Susan Collicott
Ballard, WA

On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Kelly Cassidy wrote:

> You're not overreacting, but it's a losing battle. In Seattle, there's a
> group (Friend of Campus Cats, I think it's called) that catches stray cats,
> neuters them, and releases them were they caught them. There are swarms of
> cats at the Montlake Fill, and I think someone feeds them regularly.
>
> Loose cat (feral and non) densities are so high in cities, I don't think a
> few campaigning birders can reduce them. I believe a town in the northeast
> enacted a loose cat law, but had to repeal it because of the public uproar.
> People who have loose cats or feed feral cats see themselves as having the
> humane high ground. Also, many of them like cats, but dislike cleaning
> litter boxes. I dislike finding the outdoor litter box when I'm on my hands
> and knees in my garden, but I prefer not to start a neighborhood feud over
> cat poop.
>
> I'm now moving to a place with no close neighbors and NO CATS! Finally, I
> may have hope of nesting bluebirds on my property.
>
> By the way, this topic is known among longtime tweeters as the "Dreaded Cat
> Thread."
>
> Kelly Cassidy
> Pullman, WA
>
>
>