The Scientist

While I feel sorrow for the individual cats, I agree with Dauphine that feral cat populations need to be controlled. Trap, neuter and release programs are ineffective. I've see feral cats above 10,000 foot elevation on mountains and in bird sanctuaries. Pet cats may be wonderful companions, feral cats are bad for native species and a vector for disease among domestic cats and humans. The feral cat populations needs to be eliminated, not controlled. We would never tolerate packs of feral dogs in our cities and parks because of the threat to human safety. Likewise, we should not tolerate feral cat colonies. Dauphine should not have been forced to resign or convicted of cruelty. The snitch and her husband should be prosecuted for endangering public health by feeding the feral cats.

ummm killing the cats is evil as is anyone who supports Dauphine methods.   The animal doing most harm to the birds are humans.  

I meant to add: Feral cat populations need to be controlled by trap, neuter and then adoption or euthanasia not by poisoning. Animal control authorities, however, don't do this important work because of the bad publicity and uproar among animal lovers.

That's ridiculous!
I think that if Dauphiné should tried control another kind of animal plague such as a non-mammallian specie, no one would cares! Wild life conservation is much more important than any other domestical specie even "cuttie" animals, that is specism.

Feral cats are not really the predator problem they are made out to be.
Human activity: the destruction of habitat and the elimination of large predators
that help control smaller one is the real issue. Cats are simply another species that is being blamed for our (human) contributions to wildlife destruction.
As for Dauphine, she is a poor excuse for a biologist and not much of a scientist.

Paul Walker
Sr Scientist
University of Minnesota

"...elimination of large predators that help control smaller one is the real issue."  Case in point.

Are we still allowed to poison mice and rats?  Should I go rat out my town's pest control officer?

maybe we should apply your logic to people who cant pick up their trash. 

Actually,
this is not the first time Nico Dauphine has been in front of a judge trying to
explain her attitude toward, and treatment of, neighborhood cats.

 

As
a PhD student at the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and
Natural Resources, she took it upon herself to round up cats—unowned and owned
alike—and haul them off to the shelter where they would likely be killed. She
called it “community service.â€쳌 (I posted much of the transcript from that case
on my blog: http://www.voxfelina.com/2011/....

 

It’s
important to note, too, that Nico Dauphine’s scientific claims are no better
than her legal claims. She has routinely used her position to misrepresent the “threatâ€쳌
of free-roaming cats, in journal papers, letters to the editor, and
presentations (her now infamous “Apocalypse Meowâ€쳌 presentation, riddled with
errors, was pulled from the Warnell website shortly after Dauphine’s arrest in
May).

 

Simply
put, she’s twisted the science any way she could in order to fuel the
witch-hunt against free-roaming cats.

 

Much
of her testimony, however, was apparently spent denying her well-documented
position on the issue. According
to a story in yesterday’s Washington
Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

 

“Senior Judge Truman A.
Morrison III said it was the video, along with Dauphine’s testimony, that led
him to believe she had ‘motive and opportunity.’â€쳌 He specifically pointed to
her repeated denials of her writings. ‘Her inability and unwillingness to own
up to her own professional writings as her own undermined her credibility,’
Morrison said.â€쳌

 

All of this
raises several unsettling questions, beginning with this one: How did Nico
Dauphine, whose reputation (both in terms of her attitude toward cats and her
lack of integrity as a researcher) clearly preceded her, land a prestigious
research fellowship at the National Zoo studying—that’s right—the hunting
habits of neighborhood cats (a fact the National Zoo has refused to acknowledge
in its press releases)?

 

I’d
also like to know what happened to all of Dauphine’s supporters (e.g., The
Wildlife Society, the American Bird Conservancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, etc.) since her arrest. The individuals and organizations that were so
quick to cite her sloppy work when it suited their purpose (i.e., the aforementioned
witch-hunt) have remained—at least publicly—silent over the past few months. Despite
their silence, though, the message is coming through loud and clear: Dauphine’s
professional work on the subject of free-roaming cats is as indefensible as the
actions that landed her in DC Superior Court.

 

Perhaps
the guilty verdict will have the media looking into these questions.

 

Peter
J. Wolf

http://www.voxfelina.com

So many holes and misinformation concerning this case!
No video cameras were "placed" - they simply used the building's normal surveillance cameras.  Conveniently, there is a large gap in camera coverage - anyone could access the food off camera. (this fact is easy to see in the video new reports of the case)
It is also very strange how slowly the humane society took action.  Over 2 months!  And they only have one video?  With all of that time, why didn't they get better camera coverage?
And while this article doesn't mention it directly- no cats were harmed at all (and I don't think any other dead animals were found either).  Seems kind of strange if there were repeated attempts at poisoning...
Seems strange that an avian ecologist with a PhD would be dumb enough to use such a non-target method as poison sitting out for any animal to take.
Also, those cats aren't even feral.  A news video shows Ms. Sterling petting them - so why is she keeping her pets outside next to a busy road and park? 

seems to me if you could concentrate on a cheap, easy method to neuter the females, then:  1.  people are more likely to keep the cats because of the less expense.  2. less kittens per cat pair.  don't worry about the males.  if we can control the estrous cycle in humans, cows, horses, etc with either hormones or simple surgery (tieing of the tubes), then we can lessen the feral cat population.

all it takes is one fertile male per range of females and you got babies; therefore concentrate on the females using methods that already work in other mammals; not major surgery which is so expensive

While I feel sorrow for the individual cats, I agree with Dauphine that feral cat populations need to be controlled. Trap, neuter and release programs are ineffective. I've see feral cats above 10,000 foot elevation on mountains and in bird sanctuaries. Pet cats may be wonderful companions, feral cats are bad for native species and a vector for disease among domestic cats and humans. The feral cat populations needs to be eliminated, not controlled. We would never tolerate packs of feral dogs in our cities and parks because of the threat to human safety. Likewise, we should not tolerate feral cat colonies. Dauphine should not have been forced to resign or convicted of cruelty. The snitch and her husband should be prosecuted for endangering public health by feeding the feral cats.

ummm killing the cats is evil as is anyone who supports Dauphine methods.   The animal doing most harm to the birds are humans.  

I meant to add: Feral cat populations need to be controlled by trap, neuter and then adoption or euthanasia not by poisoning. Animal control authorities, however, don't do this important work because of the bad publicity and uproar among animal lovers.

That's ridiculous!
I think that if Dauphiné should tried control another kind of animal plague such as a non-mammallian specie, no one would cares! Wild life conservation is much more important than any other domestical specie even "cuttie" animals, that is specism.

Feral cats are not really the predator problem they are made out to be.
Human activity: the destruction of habitat and the elimination of large predators
that help control smaller one is the real issue. Cats are simply another species that is being blamed for our (human) contributions to wildlife destruction.
As for Dauphine, she is a poor excuse for a biologist and not much of a scientist.

Paul Walker
Sr Scientist
University of Minnesota

"...elimination of large predators that help control smaller one is the real issue."  Case in point.

Are we still allowed to poison mice and rats?  Should I go rat out my town's pest control officer?

maybe we should apply your logic to people who cant pick up their trash. 

seems to me if you could concentrate on a cheap, easy method to neuter the females, then:  1.  people are more likely to keep the cats because of the less expense.  2. less kittens per cat pair.  don't worry about the males.  if we can control the estrous cycle in humans, cows, horses, etc with either hormones or simple surgery (tieing of the tubes), then we can lessen the feral cat population.

Actually,
this is not the first time Nico Dauphine has been in front of a judge trying to
explain her attitude toward, and treatment of, neighborhood cats.

 

As
a PhD student at the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and
Natural Resources, she took it upon herself to round up cats—unowned and owned
alike—and haul them off to the shelter where they would likely be killed. She
called it “community service.â€쳌 (I posted much of the transcript from that case
on my blog: http://www.voxfelina.com/2011/....

 

It’s
important to note, too, that Nico Dauphine’s scientific claims are no better
than her legal claims. She has routinely used her position to misrepresent the “threatâ€쳌
of free-roaming cats, in journal papers, letters to the editor, and
presentations (her now infamous “Apocalypse Meowâ€쳌 presentation, riddled with
errors, was pulled from the Warnell website shortly after Dauphine’s arrest in
May).

 

Simply
put, she’s twisted the science any way she could in order to fuel the
witch-hunt against free-roaming cats.

 

Much
of her testimony, however, was apparently spent denying her well-documented
position on the issue. According
to a story in yesterday’s Washington
Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

 

“Senior Judge Truman A.
Morrison III said it was the video, along with Dauphine’s testimony, that led
him to believe she had ‘motive and opportunity.’â€쳌 He specifically pointed to
her repeated denials of her writings. ‘Her inability and unwillingness to own
up to her own professional writings as her own undermined her credibility,’
Morrison said.â€쳌

 

All of this
raises several unsettling questions, beginning with this one: How did Nico
Dauphine, whose reputation (both in terms of her attitude toward cats and her
lack of integrity as a researcher) clearly preceded her, land a prestigious
research fellowship at the National Zoo studying—that’s right—the hunting
habits of neighborhood cats (a fact the National Zoo has refused to acknowledge
in its press releases)?

 

I’d
also like to know what happened to all of Dauphine’s supporters (e.g., The
Wildlife Society, the American Bird Conservancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, etc.) since her arrest. The individuals and organizations that were so
quick to cite her sloppy work when it suited their purpose (i.e., the aforementioned
witch-hunt) have remained—at least publicly—silent over the past few months. Despite
their silence, though, the message is coming through loud and clear: Dauphine’s
professional work on the subject of free-roaming cats is as indefensible as the
actions that landed her in DC Superior Court.

 

Perhaps
the guilty verdict will have the media looking into these questions.

 

Peter
J. Wolf

http://www.voxfelina.com

So many holes and misinformation concerning this case!
No video cameras were "placed" - they simply used the building's normal surveillance cameras.  Conveniently, there is a large gap in camera coverage - anyone could access the food off camera. (this fact is easy to see in the video new reports of the case)
It is also very strange how slowly the humane society took action.  Over 2 months!  And they only have one video?  With all of that time, why didn't they get better camera coverage?
And while this article doesn't mention it directly- no cats were harmed at all (and I don't think any other dead animals were found either).  Seems kind of strange if there were repeated attempts at poisoning...
Seems strange that an avian ecologist with a PhD would be dumb enough to use such a non-target method as poison sitting out for any animal to take.
Also, those cats aren't even feral.  A news video shows Ms. Sterling petting them - so why is she keeping her pets outside next to a busy road and park? 

all it takes is one fertile male per range of females and you got babies; therefore concentrate on the females using methods that already work in other mammals; not major surgery which is so expensive

While I feel sorrow for the individual cats, I agree with Dauphine that feral cat populations need to be controlled. Trap, neuter and release programs are ineffective. I've see feral cats above 10,000 foot elevation on mountains and in bird sanctuaries. Pet cats may be wonderful companions, feral cats are bad for native species and a vector for disease among domestic cats and humans. The feral cat populations needs to be eliminated, not controlled. We would never tolerate packs of feral dogs in our cities and parks because of the threat to human safety. Likewise, we should not tolerate feral cat colonies. Dauphine should not have been forced to resign or convicted of cruelty. The snitch and her husband should be prosecuted for endangering public health by feeding the feral cats.

ummm killing the cats is evil as is anyone who supports Dauphine methods.   The animal doing most harm to the birds are humans.  

I meant to add: Feral cat populations need to be controlled by trap, neuter and then adoption or euthanasia not by poisoning. Animal control authorities, however, don't do this important work because of the bad publicity and uproar among animal lovers.

That's ridiculous!
I think that if Dauphiné should tried control another kind of animal plague such as a non-mammallian specie, no one would cares! Wild life conservation is much more important than any other domestical specie even "cuttie" animals, that is specism.

Feral cats are not really the predator problem they are made out to be.
Human activity: the destruction of habitat and the elimination of large predators
that help control smaller one is the real issue. Cats are simply another species that is being blamed for our (human) contributions to wildlife destruction.
As for Dauphine, she is a poor excuse for a biologist and not much of a scientist.

Paul Walker
Sr Scientist
University of Minnesota

"...elimination of large predators that help control smaller one is the real issue."  Case in point.

Are we still allowed to poison mice and rats?  Should I go rat out my town's pest control officer?

maybe we should apply your logic to people who cant pick up their trash. 

seems to me if you could concentrate on a cheap, easy method to neuter the females, then:  1.  people are more likely to keep the cats because of the less expense.  2. less kittens per cat pair.  don't worry about the males.  if we can control the estrous cycle in humans, cows, horses, etc with either hormones or simple surgery (tieing of the tubes), then we can lessen the feral cat population.

all it takes is one fertile male per range of females and you got babies; therefore concentrate on the females using methods that already work in other mammals; not major surgery which is so expensive

Actually,
this is not the first time Nico Dauphine has been in front of a judge trying to
explain her attitude toward, and treatment of, neighborhood cats.

 

As
a PhD student at the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and
Natural Resources, she took it upon herself to round up cats—unowned and owned
alike—and haul them off to the shelter where they would likely be killed. She
called it “community service.â€쳌 (I posted much of the transcript from that case
on my blog: http://www.voxfelina.com/2011/....

 

It’s
important to note, too, that Nico Dauphine’s scientific claims are no better
than her legal claims. She has routinely used her position to misrepresent the “threatâ€쳌
of free-roaming cats, in journal papers, letters to the editor, and
presentations (her now infamous “Apocalypse Meowâ€쳌 presentation, riddled with
errors, was pulled from the Warnell website shortly after Dauphine’s arrest in
May).

 

Simply
put, she’s twisted the science any way she could in order to fuel the
witch-hunt against free-roaming cats.

 

Much
of her testimony, however, was apparently spent denying her well-documented
position on the issue. According
to a story in yesterday’s Washington
Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

 

“Senior Judge Truman A.
Morrison III said it was the video, along with Dauphine’s testimony, that led
him to believe she had ‘motive and opportunity.’â€쳌 He specifically pointed to
her repeated denials of her writings. ‘Her inability and unwillingness to own
up to her own professional writings as her own undermined her credibility,’
Morrison said.â€쳌

 

All of this
raises several unsettling questions, beginning with this one: How did Nico
Dauphine, whose reputation (both in terms of her attitude toward cats and her
lack of integrity as a researcher) clearly preceded her, land a prestigious
research fellowship at the National Zoo studying—that’s right—the hunting
habits of neighborhood cats (a fact the National Zoo has refused to acknowledge
in its press releases)?

 

I’d
also like to know what happened to all of Dauphine’s supporters (e.g., The
Wildlife Society, the American Bird Conservancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, etc.) since her arrest. The individuals and organizations that were so
quick to cite her sloppy work when it suited their purpose (i.e., the aforementioned
witch-hunt) have remained—at least publicly—silent over the past few months. Despite
their silence, though, the message is coming through loud and clear: Dauphine’s
professional work on the subject of free-roaming cats is as indefensible as the
actions that landed her in DC Superior Court.

 

Perhaps
the guilty verdict will have the media looking into these questions.

 

Peter
J. Wolf

http://www.voxfelina.com

So many holes and misinformation concerning this case!
No video cameras were "placed" - they simply used the building's normal surveillance cameras.  Conveniently, there is a large gap in camera coverage - anyone could access the food off camera. (this fact is easy to see in the video new reports of the case)
It is also very strange how slowly the humane society took action.  Over 2 months!  And they only have one video?  With all of that time, why didn't they get better camera coverage?
And while this article doesn't mention it directly- no cats were harmed at all (and I don't think any other dead animals were found either).  Seems kind of strange if there were repeated attempts at poisoning...
Seems strange that an avian ecologist with a PhD would be dumb enough to use such a non-target method as poison sitting out for any animal to take.
Also, those cats aren't even feral.  A news video shows Ms. Sterling petting them - so why is she keeping her pets outside next to a busy road and park? 

I wouldn't be so sure we've seen all the videotape involved, and I'm sure we haven't heard all the evidence.

You seem to be suggesting that these "loose ends" point to Dauphine's innocence. I wonder how you'd explain the fact that she disowned her own writings on the subject of feral cats, predation, TNR, etc. while on the stand—suggesting that the very words she signed her name to were being twisted to the point that they misrepresented her views on the subject. As if anybody even remotely familiar with her work could misunderstand.

The most damning evidence against Nico Dauphine—in this case, and in Athens, GA, three years earlier—came from Nico Dauphine herself.

I think you are overgeneralizing.  The only quote I've seen from the case  is about Nico referring to a letter to the editor comment - and those do often get edited!  I'm sure there was more to it, but since it sounds like you haven't seen the transcript, maybe you should refrain from making such judgements.

You are correct. The video cameras used to watch the food bowls overnight were already in place at the apartment building. I have fixed the text above, and issued a correction. Thanks for pointing out the mistake, and thanks for reading!

~Jef Akst, editor, The Scientist

Considering the methods she chose to do this dirty deed, I wonder how good she was in her research?

It demonstrated little of the intelligence or creative thinking necessary to be a good researcher.

If she wanted to dramatically reduce the feral cat population, all she'd have to do is find a female cat in heat and put her safe and secure in an open to the air, but impossible to get out of trap, and wait for every single intact male cat within 1000 miles (kidding) to come calling within 15 minutes. Most people do not know that toms/male cats are the fastest animal that has ever existed, able to travel at 4-5 times the speed of sound in order to get to the female cat in heat.

Once there capturing them is easy, because their attention will be transfixed on the female cat in heat. LOL

Actually, this is not the first time Nico Dauphine has been in front of a judge trying to explain her treatment of neighborhood cats.

As a PhD student at the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, she took it upon herself to round up cats—unowned and owned alike—and haul them off to the shelter where they would likely be killed. She called it “community service.â€쳌 (I posted much of the transcript from that case on my blog: http://www.voxfelina[dot]com/2011/08/community-service/).

It’s important to note, too, that Nico Dauphine’s scientific claims are no better than her legal claims. She has routinely used her position to misrepresent the “threatâ€쳌 of free-roaming cats, in journal papers, letters to the editor, and presentations (her now infamous “Apocalypse Meowâ€쳌 presentation, riddled with errors, was pulled from the Warnell website shortly after Dauphine’s arrest in May).

Simply put, she’s twisted the science any way she could in order to fuel the witch-hunt against free-roaming cats.

Much of her testimony, however, was apparently spent denying her well-documented position on the issue. According to a story in Monday’s Washington Post:

“Senior Judge Truman A. Morrison III said it was the video, along with Dauphine’s testimony, that led him to believe she had ‘motive and opportunity.’â€쳌 He specifically pointed to her repeated denials of her writings. ‘Her inability and unwillingness to own up to her own professional writings as her own undermined her credibility,’ Morrison said.â€쳌

All of this raises several unsettling questions, beginning with this one: How did Nico Dauphine, whose reputation (both in terms of her attitude toward cats and her lack of integrity as a researcher) clearly preceded her, land a prestigious research fellowship at the National Zoo studying—that’s right—the hunting habits of neighborhood cats (a fact the National Zoo has refused to acknowledge in its press releases)?

I’d also like to know what happened to all of Dauphine’s supporters (e.g., The Wildlife Society, the American Bird Conservancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, etc.) since her arrest. The individuals and organizations that were so quick to cite her sloppy work when it suited their purpose (i.e., the aforementioned witch-hunt) have remained—at least publicly—silent over the past few months. Despite their silence, though, the message is coming through loud and clear: Dauphine’s professional work on the subject of free-roaming cats is as indefensible as the actions that landed her in DC Superior Court.

Perhaps the guilty verdict will have the media looking into these questions.

Peter J. Wolf
http://www.voxfelina[dot]com

Everyone note: These words from pedrolobo coming from a psychotic cat-advocate nut that also believes that every invasive species on earth should be allowed to overtake and destroy all native species everywhere. Don't believe me? Just ask it.

He's not psychotic and that is what bothers you nutty birders.  He never gets emotional.  He tears down every stupid paper published and it pisses you birders off.  He is very good at what he does, highly intelligent, rational and you fools cannot stand it.  He doesn't resort to the BS you sort resort to.  He is the best thing to happen to feral cats since TNR and the more truth he writes the madder you all get and the funnier I think it is!  I see you all over Woodsman001, posting the same stupid paragraphs, backed up with no facts and your own math.  Why don't you stay off the computer, take your meds like a good birder and go watch some of your precious birds eat and poop, eat and poop, eat and poop, eat and poop - sounds like a blast! 

Actually, Peter's description of events in Athens is grossly misleading.

To quote a poster
from a different comment thread: "SHE was the one that went to the court
to stop the death threats and hate blog set against her for the LAWFUL
trapping and removal of stray cats in her neighborhood."
 

Peter seems to imply pet cats were killed, but the "Athens Area Humane Society prided themselves on never euthanizing a socialable cat. So any free-ranging pet cat trapped was never at risk of inadvertent euthanasia." 

There was never any evidence of trespassing or anything remotely resembling animal abuse.

TNR programs and their advocates are making absolute fools out of each and every one of you that they con with their nonsense. Not only are they causing untold damage to ALL native wildlife (directly and indirectly) and further spread of deadly diseases to all animals and humans, but are also doing *ABSOLUTELY* *NOTHING* to curtail cats' breeding rates. On top of that, they are doing all of this while violating all invasive-species laws in existence. (Cats being listed in the TOP 100 WORST invasive-species OF THE WORLD in the "Global Invasive-Species Database".)

If you do the research, as I did using data from the most "successful" TNR programs, you'll easily find that no TNR program has EVER trapped more than 0.4% of existing cats in any one area for over a decade now. (Even Oregon's amazing 50,000 TNR'ed cats, at the end of this year will have only trapped 0.35% of them in Oregon.) They simply cannot trap them faster than they breed out of control, no matter what they do. And those cats that learn to evade traps go on to produce offspring that now also know how to evade any trapping method used. So not only are >99.6% still and ALWAYS breeding out of control, and spreading their diseases everywhere, and still destroying ALL wildlife (native prey becomes tortured play-toys, native predators starve to death from cats destroying their ONLY food), but TNR fools are also ensuring that any future generations of these devastating invasive-species won't even be able to be trapped. This is why, due to TNR-Advocates' insistence that they have "the answer", that their feral-cat population has now climbed to an ecologically-deadly 150 MILLION feral-cats across the USA. Soon to turn into 1.5 BILLION cats within the year if you apply cats' breeding rates to previous population numbers. (That's actually a low low estimate. The real number from calculations spit out by their reproduction rates is closer to 2.4 BILLION.)

Find whatever way that you can to destroy all feral and stray cats on-site. Avoid using traps if at all possible because trapping is what slowed everything down to where cat populations have now sky-rocketed out of control. TNR advocates are at least right about one thing; trap and kill doesn't work either because it is based on the very same flawed method that they use -- slow, random-chance, inefficient, easily outfoxed traps. There's a reason the phrase "hunted to extinction" is so well-known in all cultures across all lands. It is the *ONLY* method that is faster than a species can out-breed and adapt to.

On advice of the local sheriff where I live I used a .22 equipped with a good illuminated-scope and a laser-sight for use when they are most active, dusk to dawn; as well as to afford precision aim for a humane kill. I shot every last one of them on my property to restore all the native wildlife to proper balance. Mission accomplished! 100% total success! This is even a more humane method than terrorizing trapping and animal-shelter methods; and why it is the preferred feral-cat management policy in so many areas today. One moment the cats are happily stalking defenseless animals to cruelly torture again, the next they are dead and don't even know what happened. Making your land 100% cat-free is something that cat advocates haven't been able to solve nation-wide for 30-40 years. On my land only 1 person in only 2 seasons was able to accomplish what they couldn't attain in decades. Why is that? The cost per cat was also only 0.3 CENT, 3 cats PER PENNY, a ONE-TIME expense (5000 rounds on sale for only $15). All cats gone for the price of a few cups of coffee. And contrary to another famous TNR-Advocate's bald-faced "vacuum effect" LIE ... NO CATS REPLACED THEM. The NATIVE predators and their required NATIVE prey that WAS here and BELONGS here is what replaced their lousy invasive-species cats that had destroyed the entire native food-chain. This year I'm even enjoying birds I've never seen in my life before. Two of the warblers listed in the top 10 songbirds of the world for their song. What an amazing sound to awake to each morning. You have no idea what you're missing if you have cats by you. I now feel sorry for anyone who has cats. Their lives and world are dismally empty and they don't even know it.

May you have as much success as I did, and so quickly and inexpensively too.

p.s. Avoid the use of poisons if at all possible that, if released into the food-chain, would go on to harm the very wildlife that you are trying to save from destruction by cats. And please bury or incinerate the carcasses so all the highly toxic diseases that cats now carry won't go on to harm nor infect more wildlife or humans. Which, if you do a Google search, now even includes cats spreading the plague in the USA. So much for that myth that cats would have saved people from the plague in Europe, cats would have made it far worse, and just might do so this time around. Search some more and you find they are also spreading flea-borne typhus and tularemia now too.

Some further information to help you do the RIGHT thing. ALL the required laws that you need to deal with this problem are already in place and have been for decades most everywhere.

Cats listed in THE TOP 100 WORST INVASIVE-SPECIES OF THE WORLD in the "Global Invasive-Species Database": (links not allowed here, google it)

Cats are _NOT_ exempt from invasive-species laws.

IT IS YOUR CIVIC AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY TO DESTROY ANY INVASIVE-SPECIES WHEN FOUND AWAY FROM SAFE CONFINEMENT AND OUT IN A NON-NATIVE HABITAT. In fact, it is against the law to NOT destroy an invasive-species on-site. Since cats are genetically engineered through selective-breeding and no longer have ANY native habitat ANYWHERE on earth, these laws include cats. This is precisely how they are dealt with on my own land, destroyed by using any and all humane methods** (see note).

For an example of how invasive-species laws are properly followed and enforced: It is highly illegal for a person to transport an African Cichlid fish species to just the other side the road if you catch one in the canals of the Everglades when fishing. THEY MUST BE DESTROYED ON-SITE. Yet Cichlids are often kept as pets, that's how they wrongly got into the canals to begin with. There are hefty fines in place for anyone found transporting these invasive-species alive if caught in the wild. (Interestingly, these Cichlids are FAR FAR LESS damaging to the environment and all other native wildlife than ANY cat.)

All of this much to the dismay of criminally irresponsible and psychotic cat-lovers who are desperately trying to raise these invasive-species cats to some absurd level of "Community Cats". If they do that then I'll just raise "Community Pet Piranha" and release them in all your lakes and pools, or "Community Pet Black-Mambas" and release them in all your backyards and parks, then claim the exact same protections for them as cat-advocates want for their invasive-species cats. It'd only be fair! Are you starting to see just how absurd and ludicrous these cat-advocates are yet?

** (Though to be perfectly honest, considering how cats cruelly torture and destroy all other animals by ripping the skins off of live animals or disemboweling them for slowly dying and twitching cats' play-toys (not even using them for food), I'm not sure why cats should be given the privilege of a humane death. I've been drawn to many animal screams in my woods to find their cats shredding another animal to death; which I had to then quickly put that animal out of its misery, torment, and suffering caused by that cat. Lucky for those I found so fast from their screams. Other wildlife that I'd find days later had died a slow and agonizing death from wounds after being shredded by their cats. I guess I'm just more humane than all cat-lovers and their cats, that's why their cats get shot and die instantly instead of equitably and justifiably tortured to death. If cat-advocates want REAL justice for their cats then any cat found outdoors would have to be cruelly tortured to death the same way their cats cruelly torture all other animals -- something that I couldn't do. Maybe that's why TNR-advocates don't mind that their cats slowly suffer to death by means of "attrition" -- by disease, attacks, exposure, starvation, road-kill, etc., on ad-infinauseum. They have absolutely no problems in torturing animals. They're just like their cats.)

You are evil, crazy, delusional and likely dangerous to any living thing around you.  Human beings are non-native, invasive species too - shall we start the killing now?  I vote that we start with you and then dauphine and go from there.  Osama Bin Laden's already been done away with...oh well, plenty of evil people about to pick from.
I do TNR and each place I trap at has a 0% reproduction rate in less than a month.  How is that stat for you?  Killing cats either by gun or poison is ILLEGAL - EVERYWHERE.  Cats have lived alongside humans for thousands upon thousands of years, accompanying us all over the world and protecting us from multiple species of vermin.  You bird nutters are so illogical - how are you even trying to compare a cat with a snake species getting big enough to swallow full grown humans?  Feral cats hurt no one and are not carrying any more diseases that the average person standing next to you in a store.  I would not want any invasive species cat or otherwise in a protected ecosystem, (which doesn't give you license to shoot them) but a cat in a Washington DC neighborhood is upsetting what exactly?  Humans have already screwed the environment or the city wouldn't be there.  What's it going to decimate?  The pigeons?  Any animals living there have already learned to cope with a new environment, new food sources, new dangers, etc.  And how long does it take before a non-native species are native?  There is no way in hell to convince me that every creature in every area was automatically there - they moved in with time, carved their niche and stayed if it suited them.  Cats have lived here for more that 400 years - and bird species didn't start declining until HUMANS started introducing poisons into the environment and draining wetlands and building subdivisions on migration routes/stops and stripping the land and putting up building after building after building.  Why don't you place the blame where the blame should be placed?  Oh and you sick bastard - NO CAT has ever meant to malaciously tortured anything - what kind of ridiculous thinking is that??  Cats are cats - not humans, and while I am sure you get your jollies torturing creatures smaller and weaker than yourself - animals do not.

TNR done correctly - trapping en masse, providing daily food and water, providing shelter, trapping of sick cats and adoption of any cats capable of being adopted it is not cruel.  Attrition is not cruel, sadly you'll likely die of attrition instead of getting what you likely deserve for being such a hateful, evil prick.  My ferals see my vet once a year and they are perfectly healthy.  When one of my guys was hurt I spent the day off from work and trapped him and took him into the vet for treatment - the same as I have done when one of my tame (indoor only) cats has been sick.  I wish personally that every cat had a safe indoor only home, but that is in an ideal world and that isn't where we live.  Sadly, like everything humans touch, many careless people failed and continue to fail our feline friends by not spaying and neutering and then dumping them or having them run amok - IT IS NOT THE CATS' FAULT AND THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BE KILLED BECAUSE OF IT! TNR done right does work, bird advocates know this and participate in TNR - BIRD NUTTERS like you Woodsman and that evil bitch dauphine don't want to believe it because you would rather believe that cats have a secret underground kingdom where they make millions of cats and then they send these cats out into the world with the sole mission of killing anything with feathers!!!  Crazy people...they make medication for your issues you do realize that right?  Oh and we have many bird feeders in our yard because we enjoying having the birds around (though they poop too much) and recognize that they have less areas to find food and water in - so because of human over-population we subsidize at hundreds of birds a day.  We also never use pesticides in our yard because we don't want the birds and lizards and cats getting sick.

Homo sapiens is NOT an invasive species ANYWHERE, you freakishly stupid MORON. Since humans have the genetic code to give them the capability to travel/migrate to ANY part of the globe, this means they are native to any area they can travel to on their own. Just like birds that have this capability and can travel to different continents and islands. Those that have the flight-range required to do so are NATIVE to those areas that they are capable of traveling to ON THEIR OWN.

Whereas, an animal genetically engineered through selective breeding, such as CATS, are NOT AN INDIGENOUS SPECIES ANYWHERE. They are no more natural to any native environment than some genetically engineered insect that was invented in some lab, that once released out into nature will destroy all native wildlife, JUST AS CATS DO.

If you phenomenally stupid cretins are going to use ecology, biology, speciation, and genetics in your arguments, the very LEAST that you could do is have a base comprehension of what you are talking about. Don't you think?

No. And that's the problem with terminally ignorant MORONS like you, you CAN'T think.

There's just no legal cure for "stupid".

And for your information, moron, I'm not a birder. I found I had a feral-cat problem when all the fox, raccoons, opossum, owls, hawks, and other native predators were nearly completely GONE from my land. The only culprit? All the feral-cats in the area that were destroying their food sources. It's not just birds that cats destroy you phenomenally ignorant idiot. THEY DESTROY THE WHOLE NATURAL FOOD CHAIN.

Shoot all invasive-species cats = get all native animals back. 100% success on my land. My land is now starting to teem again with native wildlife, as it used to, and should be, and is.

Look up the term TNR advocates just LOVE to use on how they reduce their feral-cat numbers, their candy-coating feel-good term of "Death by Attrition". This means that their cats will die from disease, cat-attacks, animal-attacks, exposure, road-kill, starvation, and any other means that drastically shortens cats' lives. They don't die from old-age, you know! ALL their cats suffering for how many months it takes to die that way. Just because they don't see how that cat lies there, gasping for air, dying for days, after it's been hit by a car or survived an animal attack means that it didn't die inhumanely? Is that how it works with TNR advocates? They didn't see it suffer to death so it didn't suffer? Are they THIS self-deluded? A cat dying from poisoning is even more humane than a cat dying from TNR's "attrition" (of which poisoning is one of the many methods that falls under the definition of "attrition", poisoning by any house or garden plant or chemical is the same thing). In most parts of this country and the world TNR practices clearly falls under the guidelines for cruelty to animals, animal-abuse, animal-endangerment, and animal-abandonment laws. Including being in direct violation of every invasive-species law in existence.

Let's not forget how TNR advocates don't hesitate to carve up cats with scalpels as well as cutting off parts of their ears, from which they have to heal-up for weeks before they try to survive again. As if letting them die of "attrition" wasn't bad enough, TNR-advocates start them off by terrorizing them with traps, cages, and sticking knives into them first. (Which is also precisely why they can't trap them a 2nd time to keep them vaccinated.)

Not only are they cruelly torturing cats, but also all wildlife they inflict their cats upon. Their cats literally ripping the skin off of and clawing the guts out of any wildlife to use it as an agonizingly and slowly dying twitching play-toy for their cats. And as soon as all the "fun" has drained out of their play-toy, they go on and find another one to torture. This is no different than if cat-owners went to a pet-store and bought canaries and hamsters then threw them at their cats to watch their cats tear them apart for their amusement. What about all the native predators that depend on all those animals for their ONLY food? Their cats cause all those animals to STARVE TO DEATH. TNR-advocates' cruelty knows no bounds.

If you want to raise revenue for your towns and cities in order to deal with this invasive-species ecological-disaster properly and effectively, start charging all these TNR advocates with severe fines and imprisonment for CRUELTY TO ANIMALS AND VIOLATION OF INVASIVE-SPECIES LAWS.

They're not doing this out of any goodness of their hearts. THEY DON'T HAVE HEARTS, nor minds. Proved, 100%.

Woodsman001 you are a full on crazy nut - I think you should up your dosage or switch prescriptions because you are off your rocker!  I do TNR and all the colonies I have trapped have a 0% reproduction rate, all kittens are caught and tamed for inside homes and all strays are placed in inside homes as well.  Statistics can be manipulated to reflect ANYTHING we want them to.  Numbers can be extrapolated to add strength to ANY viewpoint we want to have.  I assure you that it is illegal to both shoot cats and poison them.  The only fool here is you.  We have a yard FULL of birds and three happy, well cared for feral cats.  And just so you know, you have a better chance of catching diseases from the humans standing next to you than a hundred cats. Oh never mind, you are a nut job living in the woods - Unabomber II??

As a wildlife conservationist and editor, I understand the futility of trapping feral cats. According to NPR News, feral cats killed one million songbirds per year in America. The average free-roaming cat, in fact, kills an average of 80 birds per year. Yet the infatuation with cats is part of our Western culture, a dangerous trend and lethal to the bird population. The paradox is that birding is second only to fishing in its positive economic impact in most states. We all need to "wise up" and not "wimp out" when the out-of-control feral cat population does so much harm to the ecosystem. Thank you, Woodsman001, for enlightening us about the complexities of the feline problem.

I stand corrected. The number of songbirds killed each year by cats is ONE BILLION, not one million.

Attention Commenters,

Several comments have been deleted from this thread as they contained name calling and ad hominem attacks. We appreciate your passion concerning this issue, but please refrain from such devices. Otherwise any cogent points or confluences of opinion that may eventuate in the discussion are lost.

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The Scientist

NOTHING should be poisoned to death - it is an inherently cruel, inhumane horrible death - have some empathy and think what it must feel like.  I don't pretend to know the level of consciousness a rodent has, but I do know that they feel pain or they wouldn't avoid painful situations and being poisioned is quite painful and sometimes they take a long time to die.   Rodents (considered pest) should be trapped and quickly, painlessly euthanized.  Cats are not considered a pest.

Like all TNR practices, this does absolutely NOTHING to confront the problem of cats destroying all native wildlife and their spread of deadly diseases.

These zoonotic (transmissible to humans) diseases include: 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 (rabbit-fever) can now also be added to that list.

This doesn't even begin to address all the diseases they spread to other wildlife and cats themselves.

Google any of those with the word "cat" for past and present cases.

Like all TNR methods, this does absolutely nothing to stop them from spreading deadly diseases and destroying all native wildlife. They don't just kill birds you know. They destroy any animal and insect that moves. Which causes all those animals that depend on that animal as their food-source to STARVE TO DEATH. You don't have owls, hawks, or foxes by you? Blame cats being there, causing their ultimate starvation and extinction from your area.

I found some surprising things about all the diseases these mangy invasive vermin are now spreading throughout the USA. They are nothing but 4-legged bags of disease-vector now.

These are just the diseases they spread to humans, not counting the ones they spread to all wildlife. They include: 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/2011/0...

Tularemia (rabbit-fever, transmissible to humans):
http://www.news-gazette.com/ne...

Flea-borne Typhus:
http://www.ocregister.com/arti...

Along with the usual parasites they all carry, like hookworm -- that ruined businesses in parts of Miami:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.c...

And perhaps the most insidious one of all, the common Toxoplasma gondii parasite that they spread through their feces into all other animals and even livestock. This is how it gets into meats and humans get it from undercooked meats, from cats roaming around stockyards and farms. 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/T...
http://wildlifeprofessional.or...
http://www.economist.com/node/...
http://healthland.time.com/201...
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...

but can even kill you at any time during your life once you've been infected by it. 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. The weirdest part of all, its strange life cycle is meant to infect rodents. Any rodents infected with it lose their fear of cats and are actually attracted to cat urine.
http://news.nationalgeographic...
So even the often proclaimed use for cats to control rodents is now false. Cats actually attract rodents to your home, with their whole slew of flea-borne and other diseases. If you want rodents in your home keep cats outside of it to attract them to your area. The rodents will then be herded to inside of your home by your outdoor cats. (I had this very problem happen until I ridded my land of all feral-cats. Cats now gone -- rodent problem now gone -- as it was before the feral-cats invaded my land.)

Rabies, the one most often mentioned in stray and feral cats, is just one of the minor concerns. And even 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 after you've let it out to go shred apart that rabid bat behind the garage or in the shrubs.

The time has come to destroy them all whenever spotted away from quarantined confinement. There's no other solution. We have nobody but cat lovers to thank for this disaster.

This is completely backwards logic. One intact male can service as many females as he comes into contact, whereas females can only procreate so many times a year (up to five, which is a lot, but still, nature is providing some sort of limit). It is cheaper and easier to neuter male cats. Theoretically, it can be done without anesthesia with minimal discomfort for the animal if the practitioner is quick and the cat well restrained. 

It is not possible to put feral cats "on the pill." There is no such control for animals. Cows, horses, pigs are controlled by keeping females separated from intact males, not through hormone therapy. You would never "tie the tubes" of a horse because of the high risk associated with surgery - I think that we can extrapolate that the same is true for cows (which actually describes an animal that has given birth - calf, heifer, cow, steer, bull) not to mention, there is generally no reason for a cow to exist if she isn't being bred.Regarding the article and the actions of Dauphine... I think feeding poison to any animal in an uncontrolled dosage is cruel and, right or wrong, there are laws in place to protect certain animals in our society. Dauphine trespassed and poisoned other people's pets. Once she placed the poison in the dish, she had no control over what animals consumed the poison. In fact, I see birds eat out of cat food dishes all the time.If feral cats need to be rounded up and euthanized, it should be done so humanely. Even the treatment of lab rats is controlled by an oversight committee.

The general rule-of-thumb in the USA is that if your land is in an area zoned for agricultural or livestock use (if you can keep chickens or goats, etc.), then it is perfectly fine to destroy any animal, someone's pet or not, that is threatening the well-being and safety of your own animals. The only animals exempt from you taking immediate action, legally, are those listed on endangered or threatened species lists, and any bird species under protection of MBTA (Migratory Bird Treaty Act). Even then variances can be given should there be sufficient problem but this requires further study by authorities. Since cats are listed in the top 100 WORST invasive-species of the world in the "Global Invasive Species Database", this means they have no protection whatsoever from being shot on sight. And in fact, if your area enforces and obeys invasive-species laws -- as they should -- then it is against the law to NOT destroy any cat on sight, someone's pet or not. It is your civic and moral responsibility to destroy any invasive-species that is found away from safe confinement and roaming freely in a non-native habitat.

A cat-owner that releases their cat in an area zoned for any form of livestock or agricultural use has no legal grounds to sue anyone if their cat is shot. Even if the shooter walks up to the door of the ex-cat-owner and hands their dead cat back to them, saying, "I shot your cat, here it is. Better luck next time." Though local law-enforcement frowns on this because the disrespectful and criminally-irresponsible cat-owner will just raise a stink with law-enforcement, wasting their time when they have more important things to do than explain to and coddle an irresponsible ex-cat-owning idiot. Hence the popular "SSS Cat Management Program" (Shoot, Shovel, & Shut-Up) method to save your gendarmes the further hassle by the ex-cat-owning trouble-makers.

Besides, what difference does it make if the cat gets shot or ran over by a car or attacked by another animal? The result is the same. The cause is the same -- the fault of the criminally irresponsible pet-owner that let that cat roam free. It only means they really didn't care about that cat at all, so nobody else should either.

The next time you are flying over the USA on a clear day, look down. Then you'll see how much land where it's legal to shoot or poison every last cat. :-)

(Though poison is frowned upon, because once released into the environment, it goes on to harm anything that comes in contact with it. It cannot be retrieved from nature once it's done its job. This is why shooting, or trapping and drowning, all excess and stray cats is the preferred method.)

For a Sr. Scientist you certainly can't to see the forest for the trees.

We are the large predator.

Oh wait we humans aren't animals. I get it....so much for keeping religiously rooted beliefs out of science. LOL

In all ways we fill the role of the largest predator of all save one, keeping the population down of smaller predators we consider cute pets, because many among us think cats are just being themselves when they wantonly kill birds.

The common sense solution is to come up with a cat that only tries to kill house sparrows. grackles. starlings, rock doves and various species of parasitic cookoos and cow birds.

Such a cat would naturally eschew killing the tiny native songbirds, because well they are so tiny, not enough for a meal and not worth the effort to catch.

NOW that would be a cat that even bird lovers would cherish.

Have you had yourself, all your family, and all your friends sterilized? If not, hypocrite be thy name.

Only you need to be sterilized - some forms of mental illness seem to be genetic.

There's a problem in using traps. They have NEVER been able to trap more than 0.4% of feral-cats in any one region (I did the extensive research and population-growth calculus). Allowing the other >99.6% to continually breed out of control. This is why TNR advocates are at least right about one thing, trap and kill doesn't work either because it is based on the very same flawed method that they use -- slow, random-chance, inefficient, easily outfoxed traps. There's a reason the phrase "hunted to extinction" is so well-known in all cultures across all lands. It is the *ONLY* method that is faster than a species can out-breed and adapt to. The following link (of a study done by the University of Nebraska) is some good documentation on the most humane ways to confront a feral-cat problem where you live; including the best firearms, air-rifles, and ammo required. Though avoid using their suggested slow and inefficient trapping methods that got us into the ecological disaster that we have now. http://deenawinter.files.wordp...

There's a problem in using traps. They have never been able to trap more than 0.4% of them in any one region. Allowing the other >99.6% to continually breed at exponential rates out of control. (I did the extensive research and population-growth calculus.) Even Oregon's amazing 50,000 TNR'ed cats, due to population-growth of all untrapped-cats, at the end of this year will have only trapped 0.35% of them in Oregon. TNR advocates are at least right about one thing; trap and kill doesn't work either because it is based on the very same flawed method that they use -- slow, random-chance, inefficient, easily outfoxed traps. There's a reason the phrase "hunted to extinction" is so well-known in all cultures across all lands. It is the *ONLY* method that is faster than a species can out-breed and adapt to.

Here's a Fun-Fact that trap-advocates fail to realize, in their infinite ignorance of animal-behavior and evolution.

Those cats that have learned to evade all trapping methods are the next generations to survive. Ever hear the old adage, "If you invent a better mousetrap nature will just invent a better mouse."?

Now, thanks to the supreme stupidity and ignorance of trap-advocates, we have a race of freely roaming cats in all countrysides of every continent which are passing on their "how to survive" behavior to all their offspring, both genetically and behaviorally. The next phase of millions of feral-cats won't even be able to be trapped. This is just how amazingly stupid trap-advocates are. You thought 150,000,000 feral cats (present USA est.) was bad? In colloquial terms, "You ain't seen nuthin' yet!"

Why do mentally-unbalanced and psychotic cat-advocates always presume that if someone is removing a highly destructive, deadly disease spreading, invasive species from the native habitat to restore it back into natural balance that they must be "evil" or hate that organism? Does someone who destroys Zebra Mussels, Kudzu, Burmese Pythons, African Cichlids, or any of the other myriad destructive invasive-species have some personal problem with that species? (Many of which are from 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 be evil. Nothing could be further from the truth.

And if your self-hatred is so great that you blame human population but will do nothing about what humans have caused, then have you had yourself sterilized yet? If not, hypocrite be thy name.

I am more likely to catch a disease from you than from a cat.  In fact, in 35+ years I have never caught a disease from a cat, feral, tame, or stray - no one I have ever known has caught any diseases from any cats.  Last week some nasty HUMAN gave me a horrid cold though, other humans have given me Strep throat, the flu - but no diseases from cats...You are even more likely to get toxoplasmosis from your food than your cats.  Logical people know that a pack of feral dogs, hogs and cats are three VERY different things.  One a pack of feral dogs or hogs is probably going to attack you and rip you to pieces and then eat you - in fact a pack of feral dogs did that very thing not long ago.  The "pack mentality" in dogs makes them dangerous since canids typically hunt in packs and pairs.  Go to some place like Argentina and meet up with a pack of "community" dogs and be careful!  Sometimes there are timid, and sometimes they outrightly bite.  Feral hogs will happily kill a human being and destroy massive amounts of property at the same time (I really love pigs actually).  Feral dogs and hogs are dangerous to people.  Burmese pythons are dangerous to people and to a specific ecosystem.  What are cats dangerous to? The disease argument is a flop and cats don't hunt in packs and won't attack a human if it can get away, so what is a cat in a residential area hurting?  Humans have already destroyed the natural habitat of whatever lived there, so you punish the cats?  Any wildlife living in the residential areas has already changed its patterns, behaviors, food and housing sources and catalogues the new predators in its habitat.  dauphine should have been fired LONG ago!  We cancelled our subscription to the Smithsonian magazine and we will not EVER renew our Smithsonian membership. 
Regardless of whether you think we should have feral cats or not, poisoning ANYTHING - CAT, RAT, MOUSE, MOLE, ETC - INTENTIONALLY OR NOT, IS CRUELTY! 

Like all TNR methods, this does absolutely nothing to stop them from spreading deadly diseases and destroying all native wildlife. They don't just kill birds you know. They destroy any animal and insect that moves. Which causes all those animals that depend on that animal as their food-source to STARVE TO DEATH. You don't have owls, hawks, or foxes by you? Blame cats being there, causing their ultimate starvation and extinction from your area.

I found some surprising things about all the diseases these mangy invasive vermin are now spreading throughout the USA. They are nothing but 4-legged bags of disease-vector now.

These are just the diseases they spread to humans, not counting the ones they spread to all wildlife. They include: 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/2011/0...

Tularemia (rabbit-fever, transmissible to humans):
http://www.news-gazette.com/ne...

Flea-borne Typhus:
http://www.ocregister.com/arti...

Along with the usual parasites they all carry, like hookworm -- that ruined businesses in parts of Miami:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.c...

And perhaps the most insidious one of all, the common Toxoplasma gondii parasite that they spread through their feces into all other animals and even livestock. This is how it gets into meats and humans get it from undercooked meats, from cats roaming around stockyards and farms. 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/T...
http://wildlifeprofessional.or...
http://www.economist.com/node/...
http://healthland.time.com/201...
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...

but can even kill you at any time during your life once you've been infected by it. 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. The weirdest part of all, its strange life cycle is meant to infect rodents. Any rodents infected with it lose their fear of cats and are actually attracted to cat urine.
http://news.nationalgeographic...
So even the often proclaimed use for cats to control rodents is now false. Cats actually attract rodents to your home, with their whole slew of flea-borne and other diseases. If you want rodents in your home keep cats outside of it to attract them to your area. The rodents will then be herded to inside of your home by your outdoor cats. (I had this very problem happen until I ridded my land of all feral-cats. Cats now gone -- rodent problem now gone -- as it was before the feral-cats invaded my land.)

Rabies, the one most often mentioned in stray and feral cats, is just one of the minor concerns. And even 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 after you've let it out to go shred apart that rabid bat behind the garage or in the shrubs.

The time has come to destroy them all whenever spotted away from quarantined confinement. There's no other solution. We have nobody but cat lovers to thank for this disaster.

NOTHING should be poisoned to death - it is an inherently cruel, inhumane horrible death - have some empathy and think what it must feel like.  I don't pretend to know the level of consciousness a rodent has, but I do know that they feel pain or they wouldn't avoid painful situations and being poisioned is quite painful and sometimes they take a long time to die.   Rodents (considered pest) should be trapped and quickly, painlessly euthanized.  Cats are not considered a pest.

Like all TNR practices, this does absolutely NOTHING to confront the problem of cats destroying all native wildlife and their spread of deadly diseases.

These zoonotic (transmissible to humans) diseases include: 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 (rabbit-fever) can now also be added to that list.

This doesn't even begin to address all the diseases they spread to other wildlife and cats themselves.

Google any of those with the word "cat" for past and present cases.

Some further information to help you do the RIGHT thing. ALL the required laws that you need to deal with this problem are already in place and have been for decades most everywhere.

Cats listed in THE TOP 100 WORST INVASIVE-SPECIES OF THE WORLD in the "Global Invasive-Species Database": (links not allowed here, google it)

Cats are _NOT_ exempt from invasive-species laws.

IT IS YOUR CIVIC AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY TO DESTROY ANY INVASIVE-SPECIES WHEN FOUND AWAY FROM SAFE CONFINEMENT AND OUT IN A NON-NATIVE HABITAT. In fact, it is against the law to NOT destroy an invasive-species on-site. Since cats are genetically engineered through selective-breeding and no longer have ANY native habitat ANYWHERE on earth, these laws include cats. This is precisely how they are dealt with on my own land, destroyed by using any and all humane methods** (see note).

For an example of how invasive-species laws are properly followed and enforced: It is highly illegal for a person to transport an African Cichlid fish species to just the other side the road if you catch one in the canals of the Everglades when fishing. THEY MUST BE DESTROYED ON-SITE. Yet Cichlids are often kept as pets, that's how they wrongly got into the canals to begin with. There are hefty fines in place for anyone found transporting these invasive-species alive if caught in the wild. (Interestingly, these Cichlids are FAR FAR LESS damaging to the environment and all other native wildlife than ANY cat.)

All of this much to the dismay of criminally irresponsible and psychotic cat-lovers who are desperately trying to raise these invasive-species cats to some absurd level of "Community Cats". If they do that then I'll just raise "Community Pet Piranha" and release them in all your lakes and pools, or "Community Pet Black-Mambas" and release them in all your backyards and parks, then claim the exact same protections for them as cat-advocates want for their invasive-species cats. It'd only be fair! Are you starting to see just how absurd and ludicrous these cat-advocates are yet?

** (Though to be perfectly honest, considering how cats cruelly torture and destroy all other animals by ripping the skins off of live animals or disemboweling them for slowly dying and twitching cats' play-toys (not even using them for food), I'm not sure why cats should be given the privilege of a humane death. I've been drawn to many animal screams in my woods to find their cats shredding another animal to death; which I had to then quickly put that animal out of its misery, torment, and suffering caused by that cat. Lucky for those I found so fast from their screams. Other wildlife that I'd find days later had died a slow and agonizing death from wounds after being shredded by their cats. I guess I'm just more humane than all cat-lovers and their cats, that's why their cats get shot and die instantly instead of equitably and justifiably tortured to death. If cat-advocates want REAL justice for their cats then any cat found outdoors would have to be cruelly tortured to death the same way their cats cruelly torture all other animals -- something that I couldn't do. Maybe that's why TNR-advocates don't mind that their cats slowly suffer to death by means of "attrition" -- by disease, attacks, exposure, starvation, road-kill, etc., on ad-infinauseum. They have absolutely no problems in torturing animals. They're just like their cats.)

You are evil, crazy, delusional and likely dangerous to any living thing around you.  Human beings are non-native, invasive species too - shall we start the killing now?  I vote that we start with you and then dauphine and go from there.  Osama Bin Laden's already been done away with...oh well, plenty of evil people about to pick from.
I do TNR and each place I trap at has a 0% reproduction rate in less than a month.  How is that stat for you?  Killing cats either by gun or poison is ILLEGAL - EVERYWHERE.  Cats have lived alongside humans for thousands upon thousands of years, accompanying us all over the world and protecting us from multiple species of vermin.  You bird nutters are so illogical - how are you even trying to compare a cat with a snake species getting big enough to swallow full grown humans?  Feral cats hurt no one and are not carrying any more diseases that the average person standing next to you in a store.  I would not want any invasive species cat or otherwise in a protected ecosystem, (which doesn't give you license to shoot them) but a cat in a Washington DC neighborhood is upsetting what exactly?  Humans have already screwed the environment or the city wouldn't be there.  What's it going to decimate?  The pigeons?  Any animals living there have already learned to cope with a new environment, new food sources, new dangers, etc.  And how long does it take before a non-native species are native?  There is no way in hell to convince me that every creature in every area was automatically there - they moved in with time, carved their niche and stayed if it suited them.  Cats have lived here for more that 400 years - and bird species didn't start declining until HUMANS started introducing poisons into the environment and draining wetlands and building subdivisions on migration routes/stops and stripping the land and putting up building after building after building.  Why don't you place the blame where the blame should be placed?  Oh and you sick bastard - NO CAT has ever meant to malaciously tortured anything - what kind of ridiculous thinking is that??  Cats are cats - not humans, and while I am sure you get your jollies torturing creatures smaller and weaker than yourself - animals do not.

TNR done correctly - trapping en masse, providing daily food and water, providing shelter, trapping of sick cats and adoption of any cats capable of being adopted it is not cruel.  Attrition is not cruel, sadly you'll likely die of attrition instead of getting what you likely deserve for being such a hateful, evil prick.  My ferals see my vet once a year and they are perfectly healthy.  When one of my guys was hurt I spent the day off from work and trapped him and took him into the vet for treatment - the same as I have done when one of my tame (indoor only) cats has been sick.  I wish personally that every cat had a safe indoor only home, but that is in an ideal world and that isn't where we live.  Sadly, like everything humans touch, many careless people failed and continue to fail our feline friends by not spaying and neutering and then dumping them or having them run amok - IT IS NOT THE CATS' FAULT AND THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BE KILLED BECAUSE OF IT! TNR done right does work, bird advocates know this and participate in TNR - BIRD NUTTERS like you Woodsman and that evil bitch dauphine don't want to believe it because you would rather believe that cats have a secret underground kingdom where they make millions of cats and then they send these cats out into the world with the sole mission of killing anything with feathers!!!  Crazy people...they make medication for your issues you do realize that right?  Oh and we have many bird feeders in our yard because we enjoying having the birds around (though they poop too much) and recognize that they have less areas to find food and water in - so because of human over-population we subsidize at hundreds of birds a day.  We also never use pesticides in our yard because we don't want the birds and lizards and cats getting sick.

Homo sapiens is NOT an invasive species ANYWHERE, you freakishly stupid MORON. Since humans have the genetic code to give them the capability to travel/migrate to ANY part of the globe, this means they are native to any area they can travel to on their own. Just like birds that have this capability and can travel to different continents and islands. Those that have the flight-range required to do so are NATIVE to those areas that they are capable of traveling to ON THEIR OWN.

Whereas, an animal genetically engineered through selective breeding, such as CATS, are NOT AN INDIGENOUS SPECIES ANYWHERE. They are no more natural to any native environment than some genetically engineered insect that was invented in some lab, that once released out into nature will destroy all native wildlife, JUST AS CATS DO.

If you phenomenally stupid cretins are going to use ecology, biology, speciation, and genetics in your arguments, the very LEAST that you could do is have a base comprehension of what you are talking about. Don't you think?

No. And that's the problem with terminally ignorant MORONS like you, you CAN'T think.

There's just no legal cure for "stupid".

And for your information, moron, I'm not a birder. I found I had a feral-cat problem when all the fox, raccoons, opossum, owls, hawks, and other native predators were nearly completely GONE from my land. The only culprit? All the feral-cats in the area that were destroying their food sources. It's not just birds that cats destroy you phenomenally ignorant idiot. THEY DESTROY THE WHOLE NATURAL FOOD CHAIN.

Shoot all invasive-species cats = get all native animals back. 100% success on my land. My land is now starting to teem again with native wildlife, as it used to, and should be, and is.

Look up the term TNR advocates just LOVE to use on how they reduce their feral-cat numbers, their candy-coating feel-good term of "Death by Attrition". This means that their cats will die from disease, cat-attacks, animal-attacks, exposure, road-kill, starvation, and any other means that drastically shortens cats' lives. They don't die from old-age, you know! ALL their cats suffering for how many months it takes to die that way. Just because they don't see how that cat lies there, gasping for air, dying for days, after it's been hit by a car or survived an animal attack means that it didn't die inhumanely? Is that how it works with TNR advocates? They didn't see it suffer to death so it didn't suffer? Are they THIS self-deluded? A cat dying from poisoning is even more humane than a cat dying from TNR's "attrition" (of which poisoning is one of the many methods that falls under the definition of "attrition", poisoning by any house or garden plant or chemical is the same thing). In most parts of this country and the world TNR practices clearly falls under the guidelines for cruelty to animals, animal-abuse, animal-endangerment, and animal-abandonment laws. Including being in direct violation of every invasive-species law in existence.

Let's not forget how TNR advocates don't hesitate to carve up cats with scalpels as well as cutting off parts of their ears, from which they have to heal-up for weeks before they try to survive again. As if letting them die of "attrition" wasn't bad enough, TNR-advocates start them off by terrorizing them with traps, cages, and sticking knives into them first. (Which is also precisely why they can't trap them a 2nd time to keep them vaccinated.)

Not only are they cruelly torturing cats, but also all wildlife they inflict their cats upon. Their cats literally ripping the skin off of and clawing the guts out of any wildlife to use it as an agonizingly and slowly dying twitching play-toy for their cats. And as soon as all the "fun" has drained out of their play-toy, they go on and find another one to torture. This is no different than if cat-owners went to a pet-store and bought canaries and hamsters then threw them at their cats to watch their cats tear them apart for their amusement. What about all the native predators that depend on all those animals for their ONLY food? Their cats cause all those animals to STARVE TO DEATH. TNR-advocates' cruelty knows no bounds.

If you want to raise revenue for your towns and cities in order to deal with this invasive-species ecological-disaster properly and effectively, start charging all these TNR advocates with severe fines and imprisonment for CRUELTY TO ANIMALS AND VIOLATION OF INVASIVE-SPECIES LAWS.

They're not doing this out of any goodness of their hearts. THEY DON'T HAVE HEARTS, nor minds. Proved, 100%.

Woodsman001 you are a full on crazy nut - I think you should up your dosage or switch prescriptions because you are off your rocker!  I do TNR and all the colonies I have trapped have a 0% reproduction rate, all kittens are caught and tamed for inside homes and all strays are placed in inside homes as well.  Statistics can be manipulated to reflect ANYTHING we want them to.  Numbers can be extrapolated to add strength to ANY viewpoint we want to have.  I assure you that it is illegal to both shoot cats and poison them.  The only fool here is you.  We have a yard FULL of birds and three happy, well cared for feral cats.  And just so you know, you have a better chance of catching diseases from the humans standing next to you than a hundred cats. Oh never mind, you are a nut job living in the woods - Unabomber II??

As a wildlife conservationist and editor, I understand the futility of trapping feral cats. According to NPR News, feral cats killed one million songbirds per year in America. The average free-roaming cat, in fact, kills an average of 80 birds per year. Yet the infatuation with cats is part of our Western culture, a dangerous trend and lethal to the bird population. The paradox is that birding is second only to fishing in its positive economic impact in most states. We all need to "wise up" and not "wimp out" when the out-of-control feral cat population does so much harm to the ecosystem. Thank you, Woodsman001, for enlightening us about the complexities of the feline problem.

I stand corrected. The number of songbirds killed each year by cats is ONE BILLION, not one million.

Attention Commenters,

Several comments have been deleted from this thread as they contained name calling and ad hominem attacks. We appreciate your passion concerning this issue, but please refrain from such devices. Otherwise any cogent points or confluences of opinion that may eventuate in the discussion are lost.

Thanks for reading,

The Scientist

I wouldn't be so sure we've seen all the videotape involved, and I'm sure we haven't heard all the evidence.

You seem to be suggesting that these "loose ends" point to Dauphine's innocence. I wonder how you'd explain the fact that she disowned her own writings on the subject of feral cats, predation, TNR, etc. while on the stand—suggesting that the very words she signed her name to were being twisted to the point that they misrepresented her views on the subject. As if anybody even remotely familiar with her work could misunderstand.

The most damning evidence against Nico Dauphine—in this case, and in Athens, GA, three years earlier—came from Nico Dauphine herself.

I think you are overgeneralizing.  The only quote I've seen from the case  is about Nico referring to a letter to the editor comment - and those do often get edited!  I'm sure there was more to it, but since it sounds like you haven't seen the transcript, maybe you should refrain from making such judgements.

You are correct. The video cameras used to watch the food bowls overnight were already in place at the apartment building. I have fixed the text above, and issued a correction. Thanks for pointing out the mistake, and thanks for reading!

~Jef Akst, editor, The Scientist

Considering the methods she chose to do this dirty deed, I wonder how good she was in her research?

It demonstrated little of the intelligence or creative thinking necessary to be a good researcher.

If she wanted to dramatically reduce the feral cat population, all she'd have to do is find a female cat in heat and put her safe and secure in an open to the air, but impossible to get out of trap, and wait for every single intact male cat within 1000 miles (kidding) to come calling within 15 minutes. Most people do not know that toms/male cats are the fastest animal that has ever existed, able to travel at 4-5 times the speed of sound in order to get to the female cat in heat.

Once there capturing them is easy, because their attention will be transfixed on the female cat in heat. LOL

Actually, this is not the first time Nico Dauphine has been in front of a judge trying to explain her treatment of neighborhood cats.

As a PhD student at the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, she took it upon herself to round up cats—unowned and owned alike—and haul them off to the shelter where they would likely be killed. She called it “community service.â€쳌 (I posted much of the transcript from that case on my blog: http://www.voxfelina[dot]com/2011/08/community-service/).

It’s important to note, too, that Nico Dauphine’s scientific claims are no better than her legal claims. She has routinely used her position to misrepresent the “threatâ€쳌 of free-roaming cats, in journal papers, letters to the editor, and presentations (her now infamous “Apocalypse Meowâ€쳌 presentation, riddled with errors, was pulled from the Warnell website shortly after Dauphine’s arrest in May).

Simply put, she’s twisted the science any way she could in order to fuel the witch-hunt against free-roaming cats.

Much of her testimony, however, was apparently spent denying her well-documented position on the issue. According to a story in Monday’s Washington Post:

“Senior Judge Truman A. Morrison III said it was the video, along with Dauphine’s testimony, that led him to believe she had ‘motive and opportunity.’â€쳌 He specifically pointed to her repeated denials of her writings. ‘Her inability and unwillingness to own up to her own professional writings as her own undermined her credibility,’ Morrison said.â€쳌

All of this raises several unsettling questions, beginning with this one: How did Nico Dauphine, whose reputation (both in terms of her attitude toward cats and her lack of integrity as a researcher) clearly preceded her, land a prestigious research fellowship at the National Zoo studying—that’s right—the hunting habits of neighborhood cats (a fact the National Zoo has refused to acknowledge in its press releases)?

I’d also like to know what happened to all of Dauphine’s supporters (e.g., The Wildlife Society, the American Bird Conservancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, etc.) since her arrest. The individuals and organizations that were so quick to cite her sloppy work when it suited their purpose (i.e., the aforementioned witch-hunt) have remained—at least publicly—silent over the past few months. Despite their silence, though, the message is coming through loud and clear: Dauphine’s professional work on the subject of free-roaming cats is as indefensible as the actions that landed her in DC Superior Court.

Perhaps the guilty verdict will have the media looking into these questions.

Peter J. Wolf
http://www.voxfelina[dot]com

Everyone note: These words from pedrolobo coming from a psychotic cat-advocate nut that also believes that every invasive species on earth should be allowed to overtake and destroy all native species everywhere. Don't believe me? Just ask it.

He's not psychotic and that is what bothers you nutty birders.  He never gets emotional.  He tears down every stupid paper published and it pisses you birders off.  He is very good at what he does, highly intelligent, rational and you fools cannot stand it.  He doesn't resort to the BS you sort resort to.  He is the best thing to happen to feral cats since TNR and the more truth he writes the madder you all get and the funnier I think it is!  I see you all over Woodsman001, posting the same stupid paragraphs, backed up with no facts and your own math.  Why don't you stay off the computer, take your meds like a good birder and go watch some of your precious birds eat and poop, eat and poop, eat and poop, eat and poop - sounds like a blast! 

Actually, Peter's description of events in Athens is grossly misleading.

To quote a poster
from a different comment thread: "SHE was the one that went to the court
to stop the death threats and hate blog set against her for the LAWFUL
trapping and removal of stray cats in her neighborhood."
 

Peter seems to imply pet cats were killed, but the "Athens Area Humane Society prided themselves on never euthanizing a socialable cat. So any free-ranging pet cat trapped was never at risk of inadvertent euthanasia." 

There was never any evidence of trespassing or anything remotely resembling animal abuse.

TNR programs and their advocates are making absolute fools out of each and every one of you that they con with their nonsense. Not only are they causing untold damage to ALL native wildlife (directly and indirectly) and further spread of deadly diseases to all animals and humans, but are also doing *ABSOLUTELY* *NOTHING* to curtail cats' breeding rates. On top of that, they are doing all of this while violating all invasive-species laws in existence. (Cats being listed in the TOP 100 WORST invasive-species OF THE WORLD in the "Global Invasive-Species Database".)

If you do the research, as I did using data from the most "successful" TNR programs, you'll easily find that no TNR program has EVER trapped more than 0.4% of existing cats in any one area for over a decade now. (Even Oregon's amazing 50,000 TNR'ed cats, at the end of this year will have only trapped 0.35% of them in Oregon.) They simply cannot trap them faster than they breed out of control, no matter what they do. And those cats that learn to evade traps go on to produce offspring that now also know how to evade any trapping method used. So not only are >99.6% still and ALWAYS breeding out of control, and spreading their diseases everywhere, and still destroying ALL wildlife (native prey becomes tortured play-toys, native predators starve to death from cats destroying their ONLY food), but TNR fools are also ensuring that any future generations of these devastating invasive-species won't even be able to be trapped. This is why, due to TNR-Advocates' insistence that they have "the answer", that their feral-cat population has now climbed to an ecologically-deadly 150 MILLION feral-cats across the USA. Soon to turn into 1.5 BILLION cats within the year if you apply cats' breeding rates to previous population numbers. (That's actually a low low estimate. The real number from calculations spit out by their reproduction rates is closer to 2.4 BILLION.)

Find whatever way that you can to destroy all feral and stray cats on-site. Avoid using traps if at all possible because trapping is what slowed everything down to where cat populations have now sky-rocketed out of control. TNR advocates are at least right about one thing; trap and kill doesn't work either because it is based on the very same flawed method that they use -- slow, random-chance, inefficient, easily outfoxed traps. There's a reason the phrase "hunted to extinction" is so well-known in all cultures across all lands. It is the *ONLY* method that is faster than a species can out-breed and adapt to.

On advice of the local sheriff where I live I used a .22 equipped with a good illuminated-scope and a laser-sight for use when they are most active, dusk to dawn; as well as to afford precision aim for a humane kill. I shot every last one of them on my property to restore all the native wildlife to proper balance. Mission accomplished! 100% total success! This is even a more humane method than terrorizing trapping and animal-shelter methods; and why it is the preferred feral-cat management policy in so many areas today. One moment the cats are happily stalking defenseless animals to cruelly torture again, the next they are dead and don't even know what happened. Making your land 100% cat-free is something that cat advocates haven't been able to solve nation-wide for 30-40 years. On my land only 1 person in only 2 seasons was able to accomplish what they couldn't attain in decades. Why is that? The cost per cat was also only 0.3 CENT, 3 cats PER PENNY, a ONE-TIME expense (5000 rounds on sale for only $15). All cats gone for the price of a few cups of coffee. And contrary to another famous TNR-Advocate's bald-faced "vacuum effect" LIE ... NO CATS REPLACED THEM. The NATIVE predators and their required NATIVE prey that WAS here and BELONGS here is what replaced their lousy invasive-species cats that had destroyed the entire native food-chain. This year I'm even enjoying birds I've never seen in my life before. Two of the warblers listed in the top 10 songbirds of the world for their song. What an amazing sound to awake to each morning. You have no idea what you're missing if you have cats by you. I now feel sorry for anyone who has cats. Their lives and world are dismally empty and they don't even know it.

May you have as much success as I did, and so quickly and inexpensively too.

p.s. Avoid the use of poisons if at all possible that, if released into the food-chain, would go on to harm the very wildlife that you are trying to save from destruction by cats. And please bury or incinerate the carcasses so all the highly toxic diseases that cats now carry won't go on to harm nor infect more wildlife or humans. Which, if you do a Google search, now even includes cats spreading the plague in the USA. So much for that myth that cats would have saved people from the plague in Europe, cats would have made it far worse, and just might do so this time around. Search some more and you find they are also spreading flea-borne typhus and tularemia now too.

This is completely backwards logic. One intact male can service as many females as he comes into contact, whereas females can only procreate so many times a year (up to five, which is a lot, but still, nature is providing some sort of limit). It is cheaper and easier to neuter male cats. Theoretically, it can be done without anesthesia with minimal discomfort for the animal if the practitioner is quick and the cat well restrained. 

It is not possible to put feral cats "on the pill." There is no such control for animals. Cows, horses, pigs are controlled by keeping females separated from intact males, not through hormone therapy. You would never "tie the tubes" of a horse because of the high risk associated with surgery - I think that we can extrapolate that the same is true for cows (which actually describes an animal that has given birth - calf, heifer, cow, steer, bull) not to mention, there is generally no reason for a cow to exist if she isn't being bred.Regarding the article and the actions of Dauphine... I think feeding poison to any animal in an uncontrolled dosage is cruel and, right or wrong, there are laws in place to protect certain animals in our society. Dauphine trespassed and poisoned other people's pets. Once she placed the poison in the dish, she had no control over what animals consumed the poison. In fact, I see birds eat out of cat food dishes all the time.If feral cats need to be rounded up and euthanized, it should be done so humanely. Even the treatment of lab rats is controlled by an oversight committee.

NOTHING should be poisoned to death - it is an inherently cruel, inhumane horrible death - have some empathy and think what it must feel like.  I don't pretend to know the level of consciousness a rodent has, but I do know that they feel pain or they wouldn't avoid painful situations and being poisioned is quite painful and sometimes they take a long time to die.   Rodents (considered pest) should be trapped and quickly, painlessly euthanized.  Cats are not considered a pest.

Like all TNR practices, this does absolutely NOTHING to confront the problem of cats destroying all native wildlife and their spread of deadly diseases.

These zoonotic (transmissible to humans) diseases include: 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 (rabbit-fever) can now also be added to that list.

This doesn't even begin to address all the diseases they spread to other wildlife and cats themselves.

Google any of those with the word "cat" for past and present cases.

The general rule-of-thumb in the USA is that if your land is in an area zoned for agricultural or livestock use (if you can keep chickens or goats, etc.), then it is perfectly fine to destroy any animal, someone's pet or not, that is threatening the well-being and safety of your own animals. The only animals exempt from you taking immediate action, legally, are those listed on endangered or threatened species lists, and any bird species under protection of MBTA (Migratory Bird Treaty Act). Even then variances can be given should there be sufficient problem but this requires further study by authorities. Since cats are listed in the top 100 WORST invasive-species of the world in the "Global Invasive Species Database", this means they have no protection whatsoever from being shot on sight. And in fact, if your area enforces and obeys invasive-species laws -- as they should -- then it is against the law to NOT destroy any cat on sight, someone's pet or not. It is your civic and moral responsibility to destroy any invasive-species that is found away from safe confinement and roaming freely in a non-native habitat.

A cat-owner that releases their cat in an area zoned for any form of livestock or agricultural use has no legal grounds to sue anyone if their cat is shot. Even if the shooter walks up to the door of the ex-cat-owner and hands their dead cat back to them, saying, "I shot your cat, here it is. Better luck next time." Though local law-enforcement frowns on this because the disrespectful and criminally-irresponsible cat-owner will just raise a stink with law-enforcement, wasting their time when they have more important things to do than explain to and coddle an irresponsible ex-cat-owning idiot. Hence the popular "SSS Cat Management Program" (Shoot, Shovel, & Shut-Up) method to save your gendarmes the further hassle by the ex-cat-owning trouble-makers.

Besides, what difference does it make if the cat gets shot or ran over by a car or attacked by another animal? The result is the same. The cause is the same -- the fault of the criminally irresponsible pet-owner that let that cat roam free. It only means they really didn't care about that cat at all, so nobody else should either.

The next time you are flying over the USA on a clear day, look down. Then you'll see how much land where it's legal to shoot or poison every last cat. :-)

(Though poison is frowned upon, because once released into the environment, it goes on to harm anything that comes in contact with it. It cannot be retrieved from nature once it's done its job. This is why shooting, or trapping and drowning, all excess and stray cats is the preferred method.)

For a Sr. Scientist you certainly can't to see the forest for the trees.

We are the large predator.

Oh wait we humans aren't animals. I get it....so much for keeping religiously rooted beliefs out of science. LOL

In all ways we fill the role of the largest predator of all save one, keeping the population down of smaller predators we consider cute pets, because many among us think cats are just being themselves when they wantonly kill birds.

The common sense solution is to come up with a cat that only tries to kill house sparrows. grackles. starlings, rock doves and various species of parasitic cookoos and cow birds.

Such a cat would naturally eschew killing the tiny native songbirds, because well they are so tiny, not enough for a meal and not worth the effort to catch.

NOW that would be a cat that even bird lovers would cherish.

Have you had yourself, all your family, and all your friends sterilized? If not, hypocrite be thy name.

Only you need to be sterilized - some forms of mental illness seem to be genetic.

There's a problem in using traps. They have NEVER been able to trap more than 0.4% of feral-cats in any one region (I did the extensive research and population-growth calculus). Allowing the other >99.6% to continually breed out of control. This is why TNR advocates are at least right about one thing, trap and kill doesn't work either because it is based on the very same flawed method that they use -- slow, random-chance, inefficient, easily outfoxed traps. There's a reason the phrase "hunted to extinction" is so well-known in all cultures across all lands. It is the *ONLY* method that is faster than a species can out-breed and adapt to. The following link (of a study done by the University of Nebraska) is some good documentation on the most humane ways to confront a feral-cat problem where you live; including the best firearms, air-rifles, and ammo required. Though avoid using their suggested slow and inefficient trapping methods that got us into the ecological disaster that we have now. http://deenawinter.files.wordp...

There's a problem in using traps. They have never been able to trap more than 0.4% of them in any one region. Allowing the other >99.6% to continually breed at exponential rates out of control. (I did the extensive research and population-growth calculus.) Even Oregon's amazing 50,000 TNR'ed cats, due to population-growth of all untrapped-cats, at the end of this year will have only trapped 0.35% of them in Oregon. TNR advocates are at least right about one thing; trap and kill doesn't work either because it is based on the very same flawed method that they use -- slow, random-chance, inefficient, easily outfoxed traps. There's a reason the phrase "hunted to extinction" is so well-known in all cultures across all lands. It is the *ONLY* method that is faster than a species can out-breed and adapt to.

Here's a Fun-Fact that trap-advocates fail to realize, in their infinite ignorance of animal-behavior and evolution.

Those cats that have learned to evade all trapping methods are the next generations to survive. Ever hear the old adage, "If you invent a better mousetrap nature will just invent a better mouse."?

Now, thanks to the supreme stupidity and ignorance of trap-advocates, we have a race of freely roaming cats in all countrysides of every continent which are passing on their "how to survive" behavior to all their offspring, both genetically and behaviorally. The next phase of millions of feral-cats won't even be able to be trapped. This is just how amazingly stupid trap-advocates are. You thought 150,000,000 feral cats (present USA est.) was bad? In colloquial terms, "You ain't seen nuthin' yet!"

Why do mentally-unbalanced and psychotic cat-advocates always presume that if someone is removing a highly destructive, deadly disease spreading, invasive species from the native habitat to restore it back into natural balance that they must be "evil" or hate that organism? Does someone who destroys Zebra Mussels, Kudzu, Burmese Pythons, African Cichlids, or any of the other myriad destructive invasive-species have some personal problem with that species? (Many of which are from 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 be evil. Nothing could be further from the truth.

And if your self-hatred is so great that you blame human population but will do nothing about what humans have caused, then have you had yourself sterilized yet? If not, hypocrite be thy name.

I am more likely to catch a disease from you than from a cat.  In fact, in 35+ years I have never caught a disease from a cat, feral, tame, or stray - no one I have ever known has caught any diseases from any cats.  Last week some nasty HUMAN gave me a horrid cold though, other humans have given me Strep throat, the flu - but no diseases from cats...You are even more likely to get toxoplasmosis from your food than your cats.  Logical people know that a pack of feral dogs, hogs and cats are three VERY different things.  One a pack of feral dogs or hogs is probably going to attack you and rip you to pieces and then eat you - in fact a pack of feral dogs did that very thing not long ago.  The "pack mentality" in dogs makes them dangerous since canids typically hunt in packs and pairs.  Go to some place like Argentina and meet up with a pack of "community" dogs and be careful!  Sometimes there are timid, and sometimes they outrightly bite.  Feral hogs will happily kill a human being and destroy massive amounts of property at the same time (I really love pigs actually).  Feral dogs and hogs are dangerous to people.  Burmese pythons are dangerous to people and to a specific ecosystem.  What are cats dangerous to? The disease argument is a flop and cats don't hunt in packs and won't attack a human if it can get away, so what is a cat in a residential area hurting?  Humans have already destroyed the natural habitat of whatever lived there, so you punish the cats?  Any wildlife living in the residential areas has already changed its patterns, behaviors, food and housing sources and catalogues the new predators in its habitat.  dauphine should have been fired LONG ago!  We cancelled our subscription to the Smithsonian magazine and we will not EVER renew our Smithsonian membership. 
Regardless of whether you think we should have feral cats or not, poisoning ANYTHING - CAT, RAT, MOUSE, MOLE, ETC - INTENTIONALLY OR NOT, IS CRUELTY!