Stray or feral cat. Photo by sakurai_dayo
I would like to put my spin on the Catster article entitled: “People Who Feed Stray and Feral Cats Make Me Mad” written by Meghan Lodge. The article makes a good fundamental point but it is written in a way which is very biased, inaccurate, and I say it is fiction. We should never make biased statements to support the point which we wish to make.
In my honest opinion, Meghan has made up a fictional story about a feral cat colony based on bits of information she has read on the Internet. She writes the story as if it were true.
The point she makes is that people who feed feral cats are a damn nuisance. She says that she regularly drove her car past a colony of 20 feral cats that were fed by “a local woman”. No names are mentioned and no photos taken. She says that she never hit a cat with her car but “plenty of other people did“.
So, according to her, plenty of drivers ran over or hit feral cats with their cars, at that point. Can you honestly believe that? I can’t. It is highly, no totally, unbelievable. It is fiction.
It does not stop there. She says that the woman who fed the cats provided little homes for the cats and just fed them and that she trapped and neutered a “couple” of cats! Come on Meghan, stop telling porky pies.
Meghan then says that the gene pool of this colony of feral cats resulted in “kittens with missing eyes, ears, and limbs“. That is a ridiculous statement, Meghan. There is a picture of feral cats feeding that accompanies her article and the picture is from an image library Shutterstock. The cats looks healthy. Meghan you are grossly exaggerating and you have lied.
She also says that all of the cats were anemic and infested with fleas. That might be possible for some cats but you are simple regurgitating the standard stuff you have read on the internet and fictionalized this account.
Meghan says that the number one reason why people feed feral cat colonies is because they don’t want the cats to go to shelters where they will be euthanised.
My reading of the Internet is that most people who feed feral cats do so as part of trap-neuter-return programs. If that is true they are treated for standard illnesses when they are neutered.
TNR works and it is the only viable way to mop up the mess created by irresponsible cat owners who let their cats go feral and breed.
Catster.com is owned by an advertising agency, “Say Media”. The only adverts on Catster are Say Media adverts. The site has become highly commercial at the expense of the truth.
I am not saying that Catster is a bad site. I am saying that they are pushing the expansion of their website too hard at the expense of truth and fair play and it can hurt the cat.
Read Meghan’s article if you wish.
I read this article a few days ago and agree that it is a regurgitation of negative internet information. I was pleased that the majority of responses to her article were in disagreement.
Hi Dee, I didn’t read the comments but just by reading the article you can tell it is made up. It is a patchwork of stereotypical feral cat problems, exaggerated and knitted together to make a stupid article. Catster.com don’t care. All they care about is hits to their site because their primary goal in making money from their advertising. As I said Catster is owned by an advertising company.
Meghan is obviously ignorant and had no right to write such an article biased against feral cats, it seems like she has taken a few facts and twisted them and expects people to agree with her rubbish.
Yes cat haters make me sick too, why can’t everyone live and let live and count their blessings for what they’ve got and be grateful they weren’t born to a life of struggling to survive that feral cats are born to.
So she admits she is mad. Her own words. Her shabby reasoning and statements go a long way to prove that as well her obsession with something that is no business of her’s and causes her no harm or inconvenience.
If this wasn’t so sad I’d laugh. She doesn’t like ferals but adopted two feral kittens. And she added to the problem by taking these kittens rather than adopting from a rescue or shelter. And this showed the cat reader that someone will likely come along to adopt home-born kittens, meaning its probably ok to allow litter after litter because someone will want them and if they don’t just cart them on down to the shelter.
I don’t want to read meghans article,cat haters make me sick.
I’ll be honest, I found the article irritating because some of things written were unbelievable especially the inbreeding causing congenital deformities. This really showed me that the article as a work of fiction.
i have never heard of such a thing in my life.but i have heard that inbred cats may have some minor health problems,but even that i’m not too sure about.also as far as feral cats being killed by cars all over the place??? there is a large colony of feral cats about 1 mile from where I live.they are right near a major highway 6 lanes of traffic(3 lanes for east,3 lanes going west) and i have never seen a dead cat on that highway anywhere near that cat colony.So to sum things up,you are right.It does sound like fiction to me too.
I live in a small town, so naming names isn’t a thing I’m likely to do in my articles. You are welcome to call the Thomasville-Thomas County Humane Society that trapped cats from one of the cat groups and ask about their health at the time of capture. The colony was living in a cluster of bamboo located near several high traffic businesses. Not everyone had the consideration to slow down, so that’s how cats were hit. Since handling that group and another colony near my home (different county), our local Humane Society has started their own TNR program, and a local cat rescue has opened a reduced cost spay/neuter clinic to help with the pet overpopulation.
I absolutely love cats, so that is why I get upset when I see people “doing good” by only providing food and ignoring the need for vaccinations and spay/neuter.
I agree that just feeding feral cats is not that clever but kind people hate seeing cats in distress. It is an emotional reaction and understandable for that reason.
However, I agree feeding really must be accompanied by TNR and effective TNR. It can’t be done half-heatedly.
We all have a duty to be kind to feral cats because we (humans) created them. They are our problem and we owe a duty to fix it in a kindly, gentle and humane way.