# I'm an evil murderess...and I feel very badly



## Candace (Nov 29, 2007)

This has been a bad year, critter in the g.h. wise..

I've been battling mice and rats and they've done quite a bit of damage. I've caught some rats in traps and baited. Two weeks ago I caught a huge rat in a trap that caught it in the shoulder. It must have lived for a long time and drug the trap around the g.h It didn't die and easy death. that made me feel badly. And today, I was watering in the g.h. and heard some noise in my paph area. Out pops this guy, scaring the hell out of me, by the way.







It just sat there shivering and wouldn't move. It definately has something wrong with it-maybe the bait is making it ill. I checked on it an hour later and it's in this same spot shivering. I debated about putting it in a box, but if it's dieing, then no sense moving it. I know it's war and I have to kill them, but I don't like it one bit. It would help if the mice weren't so damn cute...


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## likespaphs (Nov 29, 2007)

why not just get a snake and let it loose in the house? perhaps it's for the same reason i don't have one, it'd freak me out!


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## Heather (Nov 29, 2007)

Is that a mouse or a rat? If a rat, I thought they were nastier looking, he's kinda cute.


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## NYEric (Nov 29, 2007)

that's a mouse! Whack it with the broom now!


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## Candace (Nov 29, 2007)

It's a mouse. I've only been trapping rats so far this year. All my snakes are hibernating, but I'm sure I'd be overrun with vermin without all my garters out back.

My husband won't whack it and I can't:< I was almost crying over it this morning.


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## littlefrog (Nov 29, 2007)

It would be more humane to put it out of its misery. PM me if you want to know how we do that in the lab, it is easy but I don't think anybody else wants to hear it.


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## Persephone (Nov 29, 2007)

*Even though I don't have a greenhouse*

we have problems with our kitty bringing home live mice to play with. We usually capture them with a shoe box and a piece of cardboard and bring them a distance from our house. We also have heavy duty construction grade gloves that my daughter used to use as her mouse catching gloves. For a while, I had a mouse who lived somewhere behind my computer and every once in a while it would appear scampering across the back of my desk.

If you want detailed instructions about using the shoebox method let me know....but I think you've got the idea.

They _*are*_ very cute.


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## Candace (Nov 29, 2007)

I picked it up by the tail and removed it from the g.h. There's definately something wrong with it and I'll be very surprised if it's alive in the morning. It's one thing to put bait out and have the critters "disappear" but quite another to watch it in progress. I would surely be a vegetarian if I had to butcher my own food. And I don't care for veggies much. I'm just a softie at heart and these sort of things bother me for a long time.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Nov 29, 2007)

It doesn't look like a house mouse to me...looks more like a "field mouse", in the NY area its the white footed mouse, probably a related species where you are, Peromyscus is the genus. Cute, but capable of carrying hantavirus...which is very nasty. Unfortunately, 90% of the mice I catch in my house, right here in Queens, NYC, are white footed mice...and there have been (fortunately) rare cases of hantavirus in Long Island and Queens...so I do what I can to kill the buggers no matter how cute they are. My cats help...but I wish that they wouldn't be in the habit of leaving chewed off heads behind..........Take care, Eric


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## DukeBoxer (Nov 29, 2007)

Oh man, you guys are too nice, when I was younger I worked at a garden center and me and a few of my friends used to go and pick up the pumpkins in the fields when they were ready. The guys picking them used to leave them in big piles and the best part was getting to the end of the pile and watching all the field mice scatter, lets just say not all the pumpkins made it back to the store to be sold, some got smashed in the field.


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## Candace (Nov 29, 2007)

> It doesn't look like a house mouse to me...looks more like a "field mouse"



Yes, it's a field mouse.


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## TheLorax (Nov 29, 2007)

I feel for you Candace. I've watched what you watched and it left me feeling horrible. I've never used snap traps or poisons since. I didn't realize how inhumane they were. 

If you poisoned it, it could end up in the food chain. Probably best to dispatch the next one you find in that condition and put it out of its misery. 

This is a product we use that dispatches them instantly-
RatZapper Ultra
http://www.ratzapper.com/index.cfm
We may have purchased ours from this site but it has been a while so you might want to check online pricing. 
These RatZappers are quick and humane and there is no risk of a higher order predator eating a poisoned rat and dying. Matter of fact, you can toss the dead rats over your fence allowing critters such as opossums and raptors to safely have a go at them. 

Bait with chunky peanut butter but sometimes we bait with berries, raisins, canned cat food, or anything that we think they might go for. Stick it in small caps and slide them into the zapper. 

Batteries last for about 8 kills. We get rechargeable batteries now. 

They also have a smaller mousezapper model that works very well that we picked up at a hardware store.


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## Grandma M (Nov 30, 2007)

While out in the corn field, when my brother was a kid, a mouse ran up his pant leg. The mouse really clawed and chewed up my brothers leg before my uncle could squeeze him to death. That was almost 40 years ago but my brother still has scarring on his leg. After that we stayed a long way back when they were picking up the piles of corn stalks left out in the field.


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## littlefrog (Nov 30, 2007)

My old boss used to tell me of experiments they used to do with caffeine and rats. Evidently at least once a rat ran up one arm of the lab coat and did laps for a while...

I worked with lab mice for ... oh 10 years or so ... but don't anymore. I think rats are probably easier to work with. Last spring at the Michigan OS show I stunned my orchid growing friends by catching a mouse that was loose in the registration area. Took me about 15 seconds, faster than a cat. So I still have 'mad skilz' as the kids would say. I had it caught before the ladies were up on their chairs.


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## goldenrose (Nov 30, 2007)

maybe Rob shouldmake a trip to CA, Sir Pied Piper of ST is on the way!


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## Candace (Nov 30, 2007)

Lauren, that ratzapper gadget looks like something I'd be interested in. Is it horrible asking Santa for an electrocution device? How does it zap them exactly? Through their feet when they stand on the platform? I'd probably only get one so would still need the traps until I saw that the zapper worked.

I guess all the years of owning mice, hamsters, gerbils and guinea pigs as a child has caught up with me.


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## NYEric (Nov 30, 2007)

littlefrog said:


> PM me if you want to know how we do that in the lab, it is easy but I don't think anybody else wants to hear it.



I want to read it here. :evil: 
You people are too much. If you were incapacitated and a hungry field mouse caught you on the floor it would eat your eyeballs as hors doeurvs. Everything is food in nature.


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## TheLorax (Nov 30, 2007)

Not horrible at all asking Santa for an electrocution device. I sent one to a personal friend as a birthday gift. He said it was the best gift he received. 

I don't know exactly how it works however there are a lot of horse people using them because of feed present at the stables. Where there is feed, there is a rat. I know the dairy farmers are beginning to use them too. Most of the people around here are relying heavily on them because they do not want poisoned animals ending up in the belly of a hawk or fox or their neighbor's dog. Me, I want it to be over with as quick as if it was a bullet to the head and the RatZappers do just that. 

Animal control will come and pick up any trapped stray or feral cats to be adopted/ humanely destroyed and they will deal with relocating opossums, fox, and such but they don't deal with rats. Everyone has to fend for him/herself in that department and these RatZappers have been out for a while and people have been using them.

Presumably it isn't all that complex of a device. What I do know is that it is quick, very quick. They're also simple to empty and we just walk them out to the field or toss them into the woodlands.


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## biothanasis (Nov 30, 2007)

Hello all,

*Candance:* Using poison to eliminate rats and mice will just make them stronger and immune to this kind of poison after a few generations... So I guess you should definetely avoid it.... and as TheLorax said it would enter the food chain... What about your cats? I thought you have one or two, don't you? Or you can have a Kestrel... or an owl...(I am just kiddingoke
Good luck...!!!! I know it is difficult....


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## Candace (Nov 30, 2007)

My cats are indoor only, so no threat to the outdoor rats and mice. I do worry about them winding up in the gut of a neighbors cat or dog, though. 

I think I'll send the link to Santa for Christmas and if Santa doesn't come through then I can buy one on my own. I do see you can buy a "case" for it, so I'm assuming it doesn't do well with water, rusts, shorts out etc. I guess I'd also need that in a wet, g.h. environment.


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## TheLorax (Nov 30, 2007)

I have one for mice in the greenhouse. It's fine. The others are all in barns strategically located in areas where the rats have been seen. I don't much bother with them because the barns aren't on this property. They check them as routine these days. Nobody wants rats anywhere near animal feed. For that matter, nobody wants the stray cats that get dumped off anywhere near animal feed either. They tend to like to "mark" their territory.


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## streetmorrisart (Nov 30, 2007)

This really bummed me out. There’s the realization that everyone who has pests wants to get rid of them and for good reason. It took me a long time to understand why my mom would be so angry at the moles and rabbits. Then I started to deal with lesser indoor pests myself, so I began to get it. Mice and other little rodents are so cute though. I have a hard time separating the ones that destroy plants we try so hard to grow well, the ones David Peterson is inspired by in writing Mouse Guard (the same in this case) and my husband’s need to snap lab mice’s necks for research. My response to seeing that pic is thinking how cute the mouse is and being saddened by its suffering mostly. I don’t know how one should deal with such things…almost makes me not want a greenhouse except I might have Dot’s adorable frog too! 

I’m with you Candace in loving meat and knowing it’d be all over if I had to “do it myself”. Ugh. I cleaned out some old tofu I’d used to add to spring rolls initially, and the smell of it made me question whether it could have ever been food (I haven't the discipline to change its water daily). Also, good for you for keeping your cats indoors; that solves so many problems.


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## TheLorax (Nov 30, 2007)

The problem is not so much that they are destroying our plants or animal feed but that they are a threat to public health as well as to our environment. Cats and Rats came over to this country with the colonists. They don't belong. Sad reality is that even rats are cuter than the dickens and make excellent pets.


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## swamprad (Dec 2, 2007)

Cats and rats? What about the rabbits? So far I've had 5 broccoli plants nibbled to nothing. Yesterday I took the cat's litter box and sprinkled it around my broccoli and cabbages, hoping that the smell of a ferocious cat's urine will cause them to scamper away. Right. We'll see.


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## practicallyostensible (Dec 2, 2007)

A humane trap might be your best bet, after all you might end up with a cat like mine...


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## TheLorax (Dec 2, 2007)

The rabbits are part of the natural food chain so I am more tolerant of them. Besides which, coyotes and hawks get them all the time so their numbers are kept in check. Same deal with squirrels. I do have to put up chicken wire around desirable plants and I do have to wrap the trunks of fruit tree saplings or rabbits would strip the bark off which girdles the sapling. Goes without saying that vegetable gardens have to be fenced in around here but that's not just for rabbits but for deer too. 

It's the stray and feral cats that really bug me. Seems as if a new one gets dumped off weekly and sooner or later it ends up hanging around the base of my birdfeeders or crapping in my flower beds. People see the farms around here and figure farmers and horse people need barn cats so they take their problems for a drive in the country. For the record, farmers and horse people don't want barn cats. It's an urban legend that cats kill rats. Cat's don't kill rats but they do kill everything else they can get their claws on like our birds and frogs and chipmunks and such. Cats, both males and females (even when they are neutered) can spray. Nobody likes to have to pitch a bunch of animal feed because it's been sprayed by a cat. Hay is expensive these days. Most of the dumped cats were kittens that grew up and started clawing the crap out of their owner's expensive couches or grew up and turned into house pissers. Unfortunately, many of the ones that get dumped aren't spayed or neutered because they were last year's Christmas present to little Johnny or Suzie so they reproduce if you don't trap them fast and the offspring are feral. These cats are destructive and they aren't a part of the natural food chain. They disrupt the natural food chain. Hate to be so blunt but most of the farmers around here shoot stray cats. Most of the residential people try to poison the cats to get rid of them because the houses are too close to use a gun. 

I don't think the litter from your cat's litter box is going to help you out here with your rabbit problem. I've tried it before. Maybe you better buy some stakes and put up some chicken wire. Other than that I could give you some nice rabbit stew recipes if you'd like. It's not like rabbits are an endangered species.


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## TheLorax (Dec 2, 2007)

Is that your cat there by your pet rat? The white of your cat by the white of your rat makes for a great photo. Our rat is gray. I thought we were the only ones who had pet rats. Aren't they great pets!


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## practicallyostensible (Dec 2, 2007)

I just have to vent for a second. I really can't stand the whole feral cat situation. First off, I am a firm proponent that cats should be kept in the house. Second, I hate the fact that there is some cultural ideology that pins cats as totally self sufficient. I came into ownership of both my cats because people had abandoned them when they moved out. One was so thin that you could see her ribs through her fur, and completely anemic because of the amount of fleas she was infested with. Some time after she was abandoned, she was then caught by the ASPCA, spayed, and then re released on campus to keep the rodent population down. I found this out when I took her to the vet and recognized the notch in her ear as an identification mark (fyi they go through every few years and catch and kill the re released cats when the population gets too high). Obviously, she wasn't 'catching' much. She started hanging around my place, and I'm such a sucker I couldn't leave her out in that condition. 

Besides this, most free cats make a significant and negative impact on the eco system. i don't know what happened to my two cats, no prey instincts whatsoever. 

Yeah, that's my cat and rat. I purchased two brother, dwarf, velveteen-coated rats a year ago, and they have proved to be some of the most rewarding pets I've ever had. Not to mention how freaking adorable they are. 

Alright, I'm done hijacking this thread.


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## TheLorax (Dec 2, 2007)

I'll go one step further. I think people who are into TNR have a screw loose. They definitely don't have the best interests of the cat in mind or they wouldn't be releasing these cats to get poisoned by idiots, run over by cars, ripped apart by people's dogs, starved out, infested with parasites, infected with diseases, or what ever. Not much more I can say but it's inhumane to toss them out onto the streets like they do relying on some "landlord" to feed them. I've got one missing parts of its ears and tail from frostbite that was tossed out. I also have another one that has the tell tale notched ear. Why someone would have neutered and tossed that obese old slob out into an alley of Chicago thinking it could survive a week is beyond me. I'm told they figured out he was a pet because he was wrapping himself around their legs and all but trying to get in their back door. The notched ear and recent neuter was a clue he was meant to be released. 

Me, I've got 7 indoor only all former stray cats. I can't absorb anymore or I'll end up in divorce court. I live trap over here, Our county picks up for free. The former pets go to a shelter and the ferals get destroyed. It's as simple as that. I've tried to talk neighbors out of poisoning cats and have even offered to loan them my trap but some don't want to be bothered with baiting the trap and calling animal control when they catch something. They think the poison is quicker and could care less if they get somebody's indoor/outdoor cat by accident. Whatever, I give up. 

And you're right. Cats are just like rats and are a highly invasive species that takes a tremendous toll on the environment.


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## Heather (Dec 2, 2007)

Julia, I don't think you hijacked at all. This is actually a really interesting thread about things I know nothing about because I live in suburbia. I've learned a lot from all of you about this. 

What really struck a chord with me was the nature of animal "invasives". I work for an organization that is constantly talking about and working towards ridding the US of invasive plants, and yet who's working to rid us of animal invasives? The irony of this is that when people think of conservation, it is usually animal conservation that tugs at the heartstrings of the philanthropic, not plant conservation. Forgive me, I haven't researched it, but is there any organization working to preserve the native animal species of North America and rid us of the invasive ones? 

What we worry about here is our indoor cats who enjoy going out for an hour or two on a nice day to get some exercise, not coming back because a coyote got them. I keep my girl inside except for an hour or two when I'm home on the weekends, or after work during the summer and I keep a close eye on her but I live in fear of her wandering too far. Another indoor kitty like this disappeared here a few weeks ago and I'm sure she got eaten.


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## goldenrose (Dec 2, 2007)

Heather said:


> Julia, I don't think you hijacked at all. This is actually a really interesting thread about things I know nothing about because I live in suburbia......
> What we worry about here is our indoor cats who enjoy going out for an hour or two on a nice day to get some exercise, not coming back because a coyote got them .....
> Another indoor kitty like this disappeared here a few weeks ago and I'm sure she got eaten.


This is unfortunate BUT very true! Exercise extreme caution! I personally know of several cases in my area. In one case the owner had two mini poodles in her backyard, not even 10 ft. away & coyotes snatched one of them. A second case, a man was walking his Golden Retriever in the forest preserve, in broad daylight, as he normally did. One coyote appeared about 25-35 feet in front of them on the trail & when he went to turn back & go the other way, there was one behind him & then 2 from each side appeared! He just stood there, doing nothing & surprisingly the dog remained very calm. The coyotes left/gave up after about 10 minutes, that would be the longest 10 minutes of my life! The 3rd case was just plain stupidity. This person had a fenced yard, that backed up to the forest preserve. She had observed the coyotes at her fence line on several occassions, yet she regularly took her 5 shelties, off leash, out for a 'nature walk'. She gets close to home & realizes she's missing a dog. I guess she thought the coyotes were nocturnal.


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## TheLorax (Dec 2, 2007)

Suburbia is anything but immune to the invasion process. Actually, most TNR colonies are in cities because they rely on the good nature of unsuspecting humans to provide food for their cats. I haven't run into a TNR operation yet that allocated funds for food let alone ongoing veterinary care for any of the cats they release- won't be holding my breath either. Never have understood why they simply don't buy land some where and create an actual enclosed shelter as opposed to releasing on public and private land where their cats can go and gobble up wildlife at an unprecedented rate. My area just happens to be totally surrounded by large cities and we are this pocket of ruralness that everybody and their brother equates with country so we get bombarded with dump-off cats. Why drive up to actual farm country when you can drive 10 minutes and be smack dab in the middle of horse farms.

Fire ants, feral pigs, zebra mussels, emerald Ash Borer, European Starlings, those cute little English house sparrows, horses, red-eared slider turtles, Asian carp, giant snakeheads, dogs, cats, Brown tree snakes, rusty crayfish, gypsy moth, cane toads, Cuban treefrogs, green iguanas, Nutria, mute swans, and a real sleeper... earthworms. 

And this is but a drop in the bucket that I can rattle off. The above are major drivers of extinction and ecosystem change. And yes, people are doing what they can to eradicate them. Plop any one of the above into a search engine + the word invasive and see what you come up with. Education is paramount. 

http://www.issg.org/database/welcome/
http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/
http://www.ucsusa.org/invasive_species/ 

I have friends who have cats that they walk on leashes. None of mine would but I've seen it and their cats seem to enjoy their walks. I have friends who have fenced back yards who let their cats outside for a bit here and there while they are fiddling around but the cats are in totally enclosed areas and they aren't able to leave the property. Me personally, I resent the cat owners who intentionally toss their cats outside so they don't have to buy cat litter or clean cat litter boxes or because they've never seen their cat catch anything. I also resent the cat owners who have house pissers who rather than take the cat in to determine if there is a biological root to the problem... dump them. Yup, vets cost a lot of money. And I am now a proponent of de-clawing. Didn't used to be but so many cats get dumped because they trashed curtains & couches that I guess I weighed the pros and cons and declawing was the lesser of the evils. Cat gets kept or cat gets dumped.

Heather, something is being done. It's not talked about because people don't want to get jumped but something is being done. Little steps and never underestimate the impact a few can make. Volunteers for my county are taught how to break the neck of a Mute Swan when they come across them. It's a quick dispatch method. The people who maintain Blue Bird trails are dispatching the English House Sparrow left and right and www.sialis.org will assign anyone who is interested a mentor to help with eradication. The University of Florida I believe was teaching residents how to dispatch the Cane Toad and the Cuban Treefrog. Audubon and the Sierra Club are also teaching people how to deal with invasive species and the cat seems to top their lists. Earthworms, toughie because we've been sold a bill of goods that they are good for all of us. Earthworms I've been dealing with and quite creatively I might add. Here's a decent blurb on earthworms if you are interested, scroll down to the photos-
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialanimals/earthworms/index.html

These issues become polarized which is most unfortunate as emotion v. logic enters the equation. What it boils down to is which fur, feather, and fin do you want to save? Our resources are not unlimited although there are those who would have us believe differently. 

Perhaps it is time for me to hide right about now.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Dec 2, 2007)

I am not going to argue anything I see here. I'm a cat lover, with 2 in the house...and they remain in the house! My son takes Jimmer (my 11 year old male cat ) outdoors sometimes for some SUPERVISED yard time, otherwise they remain indoors. Cats are listed (along with rats) as one of the most destructive invasive animal species. As much as I love cats, their numbers must be reduced in the wild...they have been responsible for the extinctions of several species of birds, and are endangering 100's more. There is a fascinating article in today's NY Times Magazine, about a guy in Texas who was arrested for shooting a feral cat who was preying on endangered piping plover's. Despite the fact that the birds are endangered, and the cat was one of a large colony, sympathies are going against this guy.


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## TheLorax (Dec 2, 2007)

Here we go again, emotion v. logic. Is there a legal defense fund that can be contributed to for this man in Texas? Lemme guess, PETA is involved.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Dec 3, 2007)

Actually not...(I would love to blame PETA, but for once they are not a part of it...but I must admit that I haven't finished the article....) its the cat lovers! The article should be available on the NY Times website...Eric


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## TheLorax (Dec 3, 2007)

Good find Eric, I don't keep up on any of this any longer. I finished the article. Here's a link to it-
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02cats-v--birds-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin 
excerpt-


> Up on the bridge, a tollbooth attendant named John Newland heard the shot. Newland, a quiet man in his 60s, often fed the cats under the bridge. He called them his babies. Newland bolted out of his tollbooth and saw Stevenson’s van. “I got you!” Newland screamed. “You quit shooting my cats!”


 Then Mr. Newland should take his precious babies all home with him and keep them inside. And since he claimed ownership and in consideration that Texas most probably doesn't exempt ferals from their rabies laws... why isn't some sharp new lawyer out there trying to make a name for him/herself right about now? After all, Mr. Newland did claim they were his babies now didn't he? Hmmm, interesting thought. Here's another interesting thought. What about the Migratory Bird Treaty Act? What about the Endangered Species Act? Why not create some new case law by pursuing Mr. Newland for feeding his "babies" at the expense of the Piping plovers? 

These speak volume to me-


> A few years ago, we ran an ad offering to pay for an outdoor enclosure, to keep the cats in. We got no takers. I’ve encouraged city officials to do something about the cats out there, and they did nothing.”



The author of the article wrote this-


> It occurred to me that this was the crux of the feral-cat problem. If you came at the feral-cat advocates with blunt force — with feeding bans or old-fashioned trap-remove-and-kill programs — they would fight, claws extended, in the political arena. But if they lost, they wouldn’t give up. They would vanish into cracks and crevices, slinking out to feed their cats when the coast was clear.



This is a crying shame-


> The charge against him, animal cruelty, carried a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.



This defies logic given all that we now know-


> The state’s case hinged mainly on the contention that the murdered cat was a pet belonging to John Newland, the tollbooth attendant. “They’re using the term ‘feral cat,’ but that’s not the situation here,” Paige Santell, the Galveston County assistant district attorney, told me. (Until recently, killing a feral cat was a legal gray area in Texas. State legislators, inspired partly by the Stevenson case, made it illegal earlier this year. )



I'm also sorry that Wisconsin ended up not passing legislation that would have made domestic cats an unprotected species because the vote was 6,830 in favor of allowing hunters to kill them and 5,201 against. 
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=662272&page=1
Shame Wisconsin couldn't join the ranks with Minnesota and South Dakota because the residents of Wisconsin backed the hunting of cats based on that well respected study. Although my state hasn't formally identified cats as an unprotected species, my town has a quasi trap-remove-and-kill feral program. Cats that are trapped that aren't feral are transferred to an animal shelter. 

http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200503160743.asp


> Meanwhile, the contribution of feral cats is 100-percent aesthetic. We like kitties. This raises an outrageous double standard. Dogs — our closest allies in the animal kingdom — can be shot for harassing wildlife or livestock. But free-loading cats are protected when they massacre birds for sport. Where's the justice?


 
Don't get me wrong, I love my hard-wired highly evolved killing machines to death but I spay and neuter them all or get them after that has been taken care of and I keep them inside.

Oh this gets me so frustrated. I work so hard cleaning up my property to make it a haven for native species and people keep dumping cats. So there you go Heather. Some people who are in a position to do something are quietly going about their business within the parameters of the law. I would like to add that English House Sparrows and European Starlings enjoy no protection from the laws that protect our native species. This basically means it is legal to dispatch them and is encouraged in many areas. Quick blurbs on the issues here-
http://www.ourbetternature.org/starlings.htm
http://www.sialis.org/hosphistory.htm

This is what a European Starling can do to an indigenous Purple Martin-
http://www.entrancesbysandy.com/id254.htm

This is what an English House Sparrow can do to an indigenous Bluebird, scroll down-
http://www.sialis.org/hosp.htm 

Cats aren't the only highly invasive species taking a toll on migratory birds although they are way up on the list of contributors to songbird decline along with habitat loss and windows.


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