Catseroles and kitten mittens.

[urbpan]

Domestic cats are some of the worst invasive species when allowed to roam free and breed. They kill native prey species and compete with native predators. (They also spread diseases like rabies and toxoplasmosis.) In Australia, a place free of placental mammalian predators for millions of years, they are especially bad. That's why they can get away with a feral cat recipe contest while in America we couldn't get a simple hunting season going, on the grounds that it was "cruel and inhumane" (As if somehow hunting feral cats is more cruel than hunting feral pigs, or for that matter, any animal.) Unfortunately for those who would eat cats to extinction in Australia, it turns out they aren't especially good eatin'. Their fur could be a good product to motivate a cat hunt, but you couldn't import it into Europe. Fur, useful as it may be, has fallen out of favor in recent decades, anyway.

What do you think? Any good way to control feral cats that you can think of? Capture/Sterilize/Release is one solution, but still puts cats out in the wild, to kill birds and spread disease. Part of my new job is dealing with feral cats, and not all of them are saved. It seems like a waste to toss a carcass in the trash, or incinerate it, when it's made of useful meat and fur. Or is pragmatism uncalled for with the sensitive issues surrounding beloved species? Do all cats (and horses) deserve decent burials? What to do with the glut of unwanted and pest animals?

Comments

[squid-ink.livejournal.com]

..forgot to mention.. in alot of countries (I'm thinking specifically South and Central America, and in the parts of Africa where I've been).. packs of feral dogs are a huge problem, but they kill cattle and other livestock, which threatens a person's livelihood. They're shot but not eaten. (I havent' been to the far east).

besides, where I live.. there really are very few feral cats. They're strays that have been dumped by people, they are domestic animals, not wild. Cats are also not protected by law like dogs are (in terms of licensing, animal control can't pick up stray cats..in our town they do, but by law they can't). That needs to change.


I'd sooner eat a dog than a cat, but I'm vegetarian so I'll pass.