Thread:4paws/@comment-27643406-20160904044322/@comment-32738051-20160906045008

4paws, I'm not sure I can add to this thread without crying or getting so mad I could burst a blood vessel. But I did want to reach out and let you know I'm with you on this.

I've mentioned before that in my state we are so overrun with feral cats, there is no room in any of the no kill shelters for them. And TNR is an option but it is not free and it is also an effort, both of which seem to deter a lot of people who just don't care, for one reason or another. Last year I personally got 13 kittens fixed and it was all I could afford to do for now. I released all 13 and kept feeding them but they didn't all get along and many went away or bad things happened to them. One I adopted out - he was the lucky one - and 3 remain. The rest I have no idea what happened to them. I shudder to think about it because I doubt any of them were taken in by good, loving people. These 13 I had fixed by a local non-profit clinic that receives funding but it still cost me between $35 and $70 per kitten, depending on whether I caught them on a day when they were running a special (and were flush with some extra funds). That adds up to a lot, not to mention the cost of their food on a daily basis (on top of that for my own cats...and the bi-weekly vet care for my little allergic black kitty, Laurel). But you know what, the ones still in the feral colony, both the 3 fixed and the several not yet fixed, are all great cats and very loving now that they see me as family and for the most part are fairly obedient and get along with each other. Frankly, they're better than most humans.

The point is I found it in me to do this for them and to spend the money on their food and, for the 13, getting them fixed. And when I can afford to do so, I will get more of them fixed. On my own dime. And if I can do so much, I fail to see how it is too much to ask that someone in each dwelling everywhere in the world do the same for just 1 feral each. Can you imagine how much of a positive impact that could have cat populations?

I'm also thankful that my state - between the government, shelters (both kill and no kill), support groups, clinics and vets - there is so much compassion and caring for all animals, not just cats, that we strive very hard to avoid the very scenario in the article you shared. We have adoption events everywhere all the time. We have dog and cat lover license plates to benefit the shelters. We have state and local funding for clinics. Even the local government shelters are doing their best to become no kill locations, by expanding their facilities and partnering with area groups and shelters more. But we are currently losing the war here, at least as far as cats are concerned (the ferals are mating and birthing new generations faster than they can be TNR'd), and I fear that unless everyone gets involved and steps up their support, there may come a day when we'll also hear such talk here as well.

Don't hate me for saying this but it never ceases to amaze and dismay me that we humans are overpopulating the planet and are the environment's worst enemy. But we would rather consume more of the earth's resources for the sake of our own expansion and space requirements and daily consumption at the cost of all other life on this planet, and the life of the planet itself, than to do more about our own actions that have led to this point. Every time I think about it, I remember this short story Vonnegut wrote in 1953 called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and I fear the world will come to this if we're not more careful now (Vonnegut had a number of other great cautionary stories about the future). This story is one of the reasons I have no human children of my own. It's also one of the reasons I believe in the right to die and intend that my own life won't be extended by medical science when my time comes, not by one single second and not by one single penny. And it occurs to me that if we can be so "compassionate" towards animals as to fix them involuntarily so they can't reproduce and put them down so they won't suffer long when their time comes and if we can at the same time be so hateful as to slaughter them by the thousands because we believe there are too many of them for our comfort and for our human desires to be met, then maybe just maybe we should at least have voluntary but funded TNR programs for people and have voluntary but legal and insurance-funded assisted suicide and end welfare programs that only promote unsustainably large families.

Whenever I hear about slaughter programs like this - we hear about them as pertains to deer and wolf populations more than cats and dogs here in the States - I find myself reminded of that scene from Crocodile Dundee where Dundee uses a poached kangaroo corpse to make it look like a kangaroo is shooting at the poachers scaring them away. I would like for these targeted feral cats to see that scene and take a few pointers from it. 👏👍👏👍👏👍 😻💕😻