No-Kill Movement Means Death for Birds
In recent years it has become seemingly obligatory for local politicians to commit to taking a “no-kill” approach to animal control in their jurisdictions. That news might not raise the concerns of the typical bird conservationist, who may think that this simply means that unfortunate stray animals would be held in shelters long enough to find homes. But the no-kill movement is not innocuous – its mission is to stop euthanasia of any healthy cat or dog, no matter whether that animal has no prospects for a home, is feral, or is dangerously aggressive.
A fundamental element of a no-kill approach is to implement a trap-neuter-return (TNR) program for unowned cats, which stops stray and feral cats from being taken to shelters and instead promotes the unrestricted feeding and maintenance of cat colonies outdoors by “caregivers.” Bird conservationists therefore need to start paying attention to animal sheltering legislation or risk not being able to remove stray and feral cats from places where they threaten birds, whether they be back yards or nature reserves.
This no-kill approach for stray and feral cats results in increasing numbers of free-ranging cats, maintained in groups concentrated around feeding stations. Some of these cats are even redeemed from shelters by so-called rescuers and intentionally placed outside into new or existing colonies. TNR policies are generally coupled with an abandonment by local jurisdictions of traditional animal control functions for stray and feral cats.
Once a TNR program is in place, rules are changed so that it becomes illegal or extremely difficult to trap and take a feral cat to an animal shelter. Cats that have been neutered and are being fed outdoors are marked by cutting off the tip of one ear, and shelters receiving such cats will return them to the person feeding them or to any “rescue” group. In jurisdictions implementing TNR, it can become a crime to interfere with cat feeders, even if the cats number in the dozens and become a nuisance in parks, alleys, and residential neighborhoods. This situation can occur almost overnight, because most states do not require that local jurisdictions control unowned cats, only unowned dogs.
http://eatmorecookies.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/american-bird-conservancy-opinion-piece-on-trap-neuter-release-cat-colonies/
= new reply since forum marked as read
> Neutered cats have a hard time reproducing.
> We lose enough of our cats to coyotes and mountain lions as it is.
Apparently not enough though if you have "five clans" still around ...
Strikes me that the fairest thing to do with regard to "the balance of Nature out in the wild"
is to allow the cats to be hunted in the same way that coyotes & mountain lions are.
Or are you only in favour of upsetting the balance of Nature in only one direction?
(i.e., the direction of not classifying feral cats as the vermin that they are and continuing
to blur the lines between abandoned destructive pets and genuine wild creatures)
Cats should not be outside. They should ALL, at the least, be spayed and neutered and brought inside whenever possible.
This is what I feel about farm animals, most dogs, and all humans too. but that's just me
