By Elisa Black-Taylor
Michael wrote about the mystery Detroit cat recently. He said it was probably a first generation Savannah cat. Marc said this:
If this cat showed up at mine I’d feed it and try to protect it from getting shot or euthanised having been trapped.
Well, the inevitable has happened……
Residents of a northeast Detroit neighborhood have spent the past month being afraid of a wandering Savannah cat, who is now dead. News media played a major role in it’s death. I apologize for the long read, but it’s necessary. The first part of this article explains how the media portrayed the Savannah, with the last part being written by the rescue who tried to save it.
The cat was described to WJBK Fox2 News as
“It’s tall. It has long arms, a very long tail, and a small head.”
Reports made by those who have seen the cat report it as being four feet tall, and weighing more than 30 pounds. The media has helped bring about the death of this big cat, who has now been identified as a Savannah. Those in the media have portrayed a monster, unafraid of humans, who prowled the streets hissing an fearless. One resident in the area called the cat an “evil thing.”
Those in cat rescue tried to catch the cat. Paws for the Cause Feral Cat Rescue tried to trap the cat, whom the rescue says is more afraid of humans than humans are of it. Director of the rescue, Matt Bruzek, along with his wife Laura Wilhelm-Bruzek, explains how the Savannah most likely ending up on the streets of Detroit.
“It’s a Savannah cat. They’re bred with an African Serval and a domestic cat and depending on how far down the breeding chain they are they can be fairly wild. My guess is someone had it that wasn’t familiar with the breed. Thought it was a really cool thing to have. Decided it wasn’t for whatever reason, and threw it outside.”
There are an estimated 10-20 stray cats for every stray dog in the Detroit area. Metro Detroit Police and Animal Control were both called in to help, but neither showed up. Nearby Oakland County has seen so many budget cuts that programs to round up stray cats was discontinued.
Neighbors told Local 4 that the cat is roaming the streets near Alcoy Street and Bringard Drive on Detroit’s east side, and that it was killed last Thursday. Then a similar cat was reported being seen on Friday, leaving everyone to wonder whether there are actually two cats prowling the neighborhood. I’ve been told by someone in the neighborhood that’s a lie, and people were just telling the news media what they wanted to hear.
Paws for the Cause Feral Cat Rescue had asked residents not to harm the cat, and to call them at 586-804-7297 or call the Humane Society. Traps set over the weekend turned up empty, with one trap stolen. The rescue issued a statement on Snow’s Page on Facebook that tells the story of this beautiful cats death.
As promised, here is what unfolded this evening: We have been trying to trap the Savannah day and night since Saturday. We received a picture from a media outlet of a dead Savannah that had been shot on Thursday. We continued to trap even though we knew it was probably a lost cause, simply because of conflicting reports.
We spent a lot of time gaining the trust of the neighborhood and that is why were able to decipher what was truth and what was hype. I was also given the address of where the cat was believed to have been killed yesterday, but did not approach the residence. I was contacted by the owners of the cat today- because the picture of the deceased cat was the property of the media outlet I was not permitted to send it out, therefore had the possible owners meet me in the area we have been trapping.
They confirmed it was their cat, Chum. I also confirmed it was Chum based on personal pictures they supplied. This cat jumped out of a screened in window over a month ago. They have been searching for the cat but it traveled over 4 miles and they simply were not searching the correct areas. They were extremely distraught, so while Matt consoled them I took a walk to the area where the cat was suspected of being killed.
I explained who I was to the man at the residence and asked him if he knew where the cat was so I could at least return him to his owners. He walked me to a garbage can where Chum had been dumped and sure enough he was inside:( We took him out of the trash and brought him to the owners who again confirmed it was Chum.
We gave both channel 4 and 7 the opportunity to ask questions and see the cat so we could put the story to rest and end the ridiculous hype. And as expected, they left all the details out. We then took Chum with us and followed the owners back to their home.
Let me say that this is the most horrendous media reporting I have ever encountered. We had information daily that would have aided in resolving this story and the media chose to hype it up instead. We also did 20 minute interviews with each channel on Saturday where we thoroughly discussed the breed of cat and explained that there was NO cause for alarm or fear and the media used none of that in their on air reports.
I also need to add that the Michigan Humane Society was contacted numerous times from the first sighting of this cat and refused to aid the residents. This could have been resolved weeks ago and a cat would still be alive. While the media should be ashamed of their actions, this cat was shot and killed on Thursday, before the first public reports on Friday. They refused to report what we already knew was true….just for the sake of sensationalism.
Because of the relationships we have formed in the neighborhood (which is in a very bad area of Detroit) I will not be able to publicly answer questions about the person who shot the cat or if any actions will be taken against him. This is to protect myself as well as the residents who helped me to find Chum.”
Rest in Peace beautiful baby…You will not soon be forgotten.
Elisa
Sources:
- facebook.com
- news.yahoo.com/blogs/oddnews
- clickondetroit.com/news
- deadlinedetroit.com
It made me so angry I just hope the same thing happens that shot this poor scared cat! I own 2 Savannah cats and the media is totally another guilty party in this sad mess!
Often the media is very irresponsible, hyping up a situation that should be calmed down and some common sense applied.
This is horrifying, but sadly unsurprising. I owned a Savannah Cat myself briefly once. Or rather, a Savannah Cat owned me.
The breeder who I received her from warned me that she had been diagnosed with a heart defect and might not have a full measure of life. Indeed, the breeder had not sought to sell her, keeping her until the age of ten months when I expressed an interest in her.
Tabitha was a gorgeous and sleek F2 Savannah Cat. Playful and lively. You’d never know she had a week heart. She loved to chase string toys and try to catch the Evil Red Dot. She also liked laying in my lap and purring while I petted her after playtime.
She lived thirteen days in my care.
One morning she was simply gone. As nearly as I can tell, she passed on in her sleep. She looked like she was still sleeping peacefully, and I suppose she was. She is buried alongside another cat who I loved and cherished for over twelve years in my back yard. Thirteen days or not, I will never forget the Savannah Cat that touched my life.
Wow, thirteen days. Do you have a photo? You can upload into a comment. If you add some more information, I’d like to make an article from it. It is a nice story. “My 13 Days with an F2 Savannah Cat”.
I do, actually. And contrary to what my initial post might imply, I do know the difference between weak and week. Still kicking myself over that! Give me a few hours to organize my thoughts and put together something presentable and I’ll send it to you along with her photos. I’m pretty sure we had at least two.
Great. I didn’t spot the typo. I do it all the time. Totally word blind these days. I look forward the pics and extra words.
Can I leave a place in my article where I basically say “these are pictures of her” and you imbed the pictures and then I say “And this is a special picture” and you imbed another picture separately? And how should I send it? Via the standard submission method on the PoC front page or something else?
Sure. If you just make another comment or two (one photo per comment) I will create the article. I’ll publish it and then you can amend it if you like. That is the best way to do as the image upload to comments is very successful. For the time being don’t be too concerned about image positioning. We can refine that later. Thanks Daniel.
I’ve submitted both parts using the front page submission form. Four pictures with the first part, one with the last. I hope I wrote something worthy of the site.
Thanks Daniel. I’ll do this now. I have one photo from you in the photo library. The submission form is less reliable than the comment image uploader! Technology issues…You can add more images in comments once I have published it.
I’ve heard the northern states don’t have as many shelters. That’s why a lot of dogs and cats go up out of Greenville. I’m still waiting for the news to break about the shelter sending dogs to New Hampshire with kennel cough, distemper and parvo. Everyone is crying out for new manager. When they had the massive adoption/rescue on Friday, I’ve heard it said the shelter director didn’t poke her nose out the door at all to help. The volunteers and staff are the ones who saved the day. Almost 250 dogs adopted or rescued in one day.
This is so terrible what a very upsetting story.I wish people wouldn’t be so careless and so cruel about big cats.
Take a look at this page. . There are more and more people who are sick of the way animals are treated in shelters. I’m sitting on the Greenville shelter story because I have to have more evidence come in, but basically the shelter didn’t vaccinate on intake (not proven as fact) and then sent quite a few dogs up north and they are now dying from parvo and distemper. It’s gotten dangerous to name names in articles because there’s a lynch mob mentality where people are sending death threats to the person and their family members. I’ve had to pull a few of my Examiner articles and Examiner had to pull one article because of death threats. I refuse to name names now, and refer people back to the source article. Citizens want the shelter to change policy, but the shelters won’t listen in most cases. The Facebook page Greenville County Pet Rescue is keeping everyone updated. They’re closed for 2 weeks and holding even the dogs who have been identified as long. One guy is going nuts and afraid his dog will be euthanized.
Wrong link. That lady is going to lose all but 2 puppies to this crap. Here’s the link I meant to send https://www.facebook.com/TheCommunityPetProject
This is disturbing, Elisa. Perhaps I have no right to say this but I think the shelter system in the USA needs a stock take – a review – to see what is going on and to think about new policies and ways of doing things. There are some fine shelters but too many poor ones as far as I can tell based on my research while running PoC.
Is there not a law governing the way shelters are managed? Do you know what the law is that regulates animal shelters in the USA?
‘My guess is someone had it that wasn’t familiar with the breed. Thought it was a really cool thing to have. Decided it wasn’t for whatever reason, and threw it outside’
This is exactly why it is wrong to breed half wild cats and show them off as docile pets! Such as the one led by a child, on a harness, having been exercised before a video showing her off was made, exercised to the point her mouth was open! The ‘I want one of those’ brigade only have to see that and if they have the money they can buy a cat like that, not knowing the first thing about caring for him/her. Maybe some breeders are careful about who they sell a cat to, but whoever bred this one couldn’t have been! It’s always the cat who pays the price in the end and this one paid with her life.
Just as all the already domesticated unwanted cats are paying with their lives while breeders breed more cats for fame and fortune!
It makes me sick 🙁
I don’t have a thing to add. All of you are absolutely right.
I hang my head in shame because of the way animals are treated by my fellow countrymen.
Don’t Dee. There are lots of great things about America. There really are. But to lots of Europeans, the gun laws and the private zoos and wild cats as pets seem very strange indeed.
It is just a different culture. The problem for me is that a cat has been shot when it should not have been shot. That annoys me.
I think the Justiun Bieber monkey story sums up the difference with regard to animal laws and exotic animals etc etc. The US is full of nice people – it must be very hard at times feeling trapped and surrounded by some of these things that are happening with regard to animals.
There are many wonderful people and things here indeed. However, there are issues as baffling to me as they are to you.
I am appalled that animal killing and the use and abuse of animals for entertainment purposes (like zoos and circuses) are just accepted.
Likewise, my feelings about guns or any other serious weapon are very negative.
It may a sort of generational thing because I come from the peace/free love era ie. quite the hippie. I never even allowed my children to have toy weapons such as guns, bow and arrows, slingshots, etc.
You’d be happier in England 😉 Possibly true but just joking. America is a fine country in many ways. As I said there are some cultural things that for Brits that grate. We use the same language (more or less) but oh so different a country. Perhaps that is why we find the differences in culture stark.
I feel misplaced, for sure.
I have an old and dear friend who has lived in London for the past 15 years. We talk on birthdays and other special occasions. He is so happy there and, especially, loves the work situation. I don’t hold a job anymore; but, his situation beats the hell out of anything here with only 2 weeks vacation per year and 3 holidays off are the norm.
If not for his wife, I know I would be welcomed. Maybe, I need to “poof” her too! My new favorite word!
I don’t know what “poof” or “poofed” means 😉 Please tell me. It must be an Americanism.
We are quite quaint here in Britain! LOL
Poof means DISAPPEAR, UP IN SMOKE, GO AWAY!
It’s a term used by magicians!
lol poof up here in the North means a man batting for his own team, a fairy, a limp wrister, a gay, lol lol
Now, that is funny, Ruth AKA!
Never heard that before.
This is what happens when rare pets are sighted by the common man on the street,a sad end to this expensive Savannah cat.The owners of this Savannah cat were irresponsible owners having the money to purchase a costly pet but unable to maintain it.My common Traditional Persian cats have the tendency to go out of the flat door if the same is kept open and hence wonder the agility of a half bred wild cat like the “SAVANNAH CAT”.Unlike India, in America every second person owns a gun and hence it is not surprising that this extremely rare and valuable pet was shot dead.In India a exotic cat would be stolen and sold, definitely not shot dead.
Those are wise words and if someone in Detroit thought like an Indian…. (a) the cat would be alive and (c) the person would be financially better off. Win Win. What happened? Too keen to shoot and not think.
Cats are very capable and agile. They never miss the slightest opportunity to do what they want and then move fast. U have a lot of cats and since they are free to go where they want in the house they easily find the opportunity to escape. I have to go through doorways many times a day carrying litter boxes, buckets of water, tools. brushes, mops, etc. and it is hard to prevent a cat from slipping outside when my hands are full and the door is difficult and heavy.
I have had cats disassemble jalousie windows to get outside, and they are pretty good at opening doors with lever type handles. I imagine a determined Savannah is much more difficult than a 4.2 kg Turkish Angora female.
It’s easy to say the owner should have taken more care, but being 100% prevented from getting outside entails very strong cat-proof doors and windows, and having several doors between the cat and the outside in case one is left open or the cat dashes through it, etc. It also means keeping the cat securely locked-up and deprived of any freedom. You can be as careful as you like but the cat only needs 1/2 second to slip though the net.
I agree with you Harvey. Therefore in a country where a cat this size, looking like a wild cat, will be shot if it escapes, the precautions you mention should be in place. It is a massively high standard.
It begs the question whether these cats should be bred. Sorry to state that. It is the same as having servals as pets. When they escape you can pretty well assume they won’t make it.
That poor cat must have been terrified. The poor thing. In a way I’m glad it’s over.
Can you imagine how scared he must have been… where did he sleep at night – what did he have to eat…. I also guess being wild he had no inbuilt sense that he should return home to safety and was just wandering a lanscape completely unsuited to him.
Media clowns.
It’s hard not to feel immense hate. I’m glad at least they found him dead rather than this circus going on after his death.
This is so typically American.
I knew that – being America – he would eventually get SHOT.
I’m not a psychic, I’m not clever, it doesn’t take half a brain to know what happens in a country full of people with guns and a history of violence, bad education, gun deaths and so on.
He was going to get shot. It was almost certain a gun would get to him (with a typical trigger happy dickhead behind it) before somebody trying to help.
If it was a man eat5ing tiger and I had a gun I stil wouldn’t shoot it if I didn’t have to. Sorry. IT’s mentality that comes BECAUSE of guns.
Don’t try and somebody tell me that holding a gun is like holding frying pan – some inanimate object etc etc bla bla bollocks.
A gun makes you feel something when you hold it. Potential, power, excitement.
Its not like holding a lighter – its a bloody gun.
………….and that’s why the US is a place where you can guarantee the outcome of a story like this – you know the tragedy practically before it starts.
Firstly the lax animal laws out there allowing people to have bigger cats is the starting point to this whole bullish*t. It’s only a matter of time in a land of people with guns and the ability to buy a tiger if they so please.
All that happened lies somewhere in the middle of that last sentence.
Lets just go home now and cry for the poor cat and stop hoping something will get better over there. It won’t.
I’m sorry – maybe it will better slowly – I guess I need to learn a little patience so sorry about that. I shouldn’t have said things won’t ever get better.
I live in the US, Marc, and I’m telling you things aren’t ever going to get better. Look at Detroit. That will be the whole country within twenty years, maybe sooner, except for a few gated communities where the super rich live. It’s not just an economic decay. Poverty doesn’t cause crime, it really works the other way around. It has nothing to do with guns. It has to do with the attitude that world owes me something and I’m above having to work for anything. Detroit has the some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. Those laws did nothing for them.
When you have morally bankrupt people you have a giant hell hole like Detroit and our nation is lazy, selfish and morally bankrupt. With or without guns you end up with Detroit when you have government policies that discourage work and break up families. That’s what we have with promises of more and and more of it. At the same time we have such an anti-business climate that there aren’t any jobs anymore even if you want to work. Finally, everybody ends up on the dole. And human beings with too much time on their hands leads to all sorts of no good. I’d be more afraid of a man who has no job and no prospects (gun or no gun) than a man with a job and a family to care for who owns several guns.
You are very honest Ruth. I know that. Britain is not that different. Where America goes Britain follows.
National debt takes funds away from building a better country. In Britain with our £1,377.4 billion debt we pay about £500,000 in interest every minute or something like that.
USA has 16+ trillion of debt. Debt is the biggest single problem in the USA. It is due to an inability to live within one’s means. A worldwide human problem.
It will get worse in the USA because government don’t have the will and backbone to reduce national debt.
The Greece scenario is on the horizon. Britain is not much better.
It is like a juggernaut. It is almost impossible to change course at a certain moment in time.
It’s interesting and you have a specific angle which is very important. Idle hands are the devil’s playground in a sense.
I see great validity in focusing on that as you do – I still feel the relative ease at which those idle hands can be holding a gun has an effect on gun deaths. In a sense if there were a quarter the amount of guns it would make a difference. The fact that Detroit has tight laws shows that laws can’t stop the guns being there – if they are available right next door. It’s still too easy to obtain them. I wonder if it has less to do with laws and simply more to do with physical quantity. They are there – they are around – they can be got – add that to your idle hands and there is so much potential for danger.
In England I wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for a handgun. Not a clue. I’ve never even seen one in England in my whole teenage life there into my early 20s. I saw a few hunting rifles but very rarely and only in posh country houses. More simply – there are less of them to go around.
That’s why I think it can’t be solved in the US. There is too much business selling them there and it’s too much part of culture. You can buy bullets at walmart – its amazing really.
I agree with you that if everybody had jobs and a stable life it would greatly change things. But guns will always be a few feet away when a problem arises and thats scary if, like me, you have never seen or held them and just know about them. I’m sure in the US people are used to seeing them and holding them and having them in the cupboard for protection etc. People of all walks of life in the US have a relationship with them inherently built in their brains. Even those who don’t have or want them are familiar with them out there.
I believe that closeness is both mental and physical and without it murders in the US would cut down by 95% in one year. It’s easy to shoot a person but not to hack them to death with a knife. You can be a coward and kill with a gun.
Take away the guns and you take away the deaths and prisoners by 95% – with no guns – none of it can happen. That’s why over here it doesn’t happen much at all.
What I am saying is simplistic – what you are saying is much more useful in terms addressing the problem because I don’t think they will ever be physically removed so my point isn’t constructive.
Marc, you make many good points. I’ll probably come back and respond to others. The quote is one. It is easy to kill. We all have the ability to do it and it is not far from the norms of life. Forget about life being “precious”. It isn’t.
Killing with a gun is like trolling almost. There is space between the perpetrator and the “victim”.
Remove some of the difficulty between you and the violence and it can be done because it is in us all, good and a bad.
That is one reason why I say that having lots of guns facilitates extreme violence – ultimate violence, killing – of all kinds including against cats.
And idleness promotes it too. It is a big subject.
If the USA actually enforced gun laws things would change. The weapons charge is the first charge plea bargained away. A person possessing a gun illegally has to be punished just for that, whether they commit a crime with the gun or not. If a gun is used in a crime the penalties should be higher. They are supposed to be, but that’s not what happens at sentencing. We are taking guns away from law abiding citizens while at the same time not punishing those who use guns to commit crimes for the use of the gun in the crime. This is a recipe for disaster. There is no reason for the crook not to use the gun, but the victim may not legally be able to have a gun to defend himself.
The person who shot this cat committed a crime– needlessly discharging a firearm in city limits. Animal cruelty charges are seldom filed, seldom are the penalties high enough. This is true for gun crimes as well. How can the USA be locking up so many of its citizens but at the same time giving a pass to animal abusers and those illegally possessing guns? I don’t get it, but that’s the way it is.
They love to shoot those rifles, you know. If you’ve got one or two or three, ore more you gotta use them sometime and what better target than a stray, lost, confused, large, domestic cat?
It won’t change as you say. Generations of indoctrination has fixed the culture firmly into the craniums of mainstream America.
It depresses me because there are more cats in America than anywhere else in the world.
I’ve held a gun, Marc and it didn’t make me feel powerful or want to go shoot it. And target shooting can be enough. I never fired a gun but I imagine it’s something like hand lighting fireworks, but on a smaller scale. It’s an explosion firing a projectile in either case, one is just bigger than the other. I enjoy working fireworks shows in part because I like lighting that fuse and hearing and feeling the lift charge propel that shell out of the mortar. Just for that. I’m not always thinking about the shell breaking in the sky, though I listen for it. I don’t always think about the people enjoying the show. I just want to light another fuse, see the exposed black match catch and get down into position before the flame reaches the paper, anticipating that boom of the lift charge lifting that shell, coming out of the gun at 300 miles per hour. Those are powerful forces. The physics behind them are fascinating. Experiencing it is addicting. I imagine shooting a gun is like that.
But just as I don’t want a shell to become a round tripper and kill someone, a person can not want their bullet to harm anyone, and yet really enjoy the chance to fire a weapon.
My husband told me that terrorists would love to get their hands on e-match. To us it’s just a tool to do our jobs and using e-match is safer than hand lighting. But it has the potential to detonate a bomb. We don’t go build bombs just because we hold in our hands very effective detonators.
The objects themselves are neutral, the physics behind their operations equally neither good nor evil. It’s the human beings who are flawed. Unfortunately, now that humans know how to make gun powder, explosives and firearms we can’t get rid of that knowledge. We can only do our best to see that this knowledge is not used for evil purposes, which includes punishing severely those who kill with guns or bombs.
All of Detroit is a bad area. How does anyone in the Detroit area have money for a $20,000 cat? My guess is they were not responsible caretakers (obviously) and the first thought in my head is that Chums owners are probably into some type of illegal activity to be able to afford him.
Most cities have an area of blight, usually near the center of town. Literally all of Detroit is blight. And that means lots of shootings. Milwaukee is going down the same path. I’ve lost count of how many shootings we’re up to for the year. At times we’ll have 20 in a single week and now they don’t just happen in the central city. Several have been in areas I still consider good neighborhoods, but not for long if current trends continue.
However, the problem isn’t guns, it’s the people. There are just as many guns around in the country and the suburbs and you don’t get this level of carnage. I think the USA will see the day when the whole country is like Detroit. Already I can see it in even small towns. All the rich people have moved to the outskirts of the little town I was born in and the quaint, beautiful, historic houses of Baraboo are all run down and shabby looking. The locals don’t see it, but I’ve been away and I remember it very clearly from the 1970’s and ’80’s so that today I drive through the town thinking, “It’s starting to look like a ghetto around here.”
I think we will have tiny pockets of fantastic wealth, gated communities for the haves and the have nots, all the rest of us get to live in “Detroit.” Violence against people and animals will increase as people feel hopeless and helpless.
I respectfully disagree because when you have 300 million guns in the country you want to use them. Shooting at targets will not satisfy in the end. So, when an excuse comes along to shoot something you take it. Natural human behavior. The more difficult option that requires patience and stealth – trapping or just talking to the cat in a friendly way with food – hardly entered people’s heads.
Anyway guns and the attitudes of people are part of the same thing. One feeds the other to detrimental effect.
I have read about Detroit. They are a busted city. Bankrupted by profligate borrowing and massively irresponsible city management. The federal government won’t bail them out, which is correct.
This cat was a rare cat, a special cat. People who keep these cats should be highly responsible and raise their game in cat caretaking. The story is a failure on a number of levels for me and only one animal loses: the cat.
But, Michael, growing up in the country we had several guns in our house as did everyone else. No one ever thought of bringing one to school and shooting up the place. You didn’t even hear about shootings in domestic violence cases like you do today. Put a bunch of good people in a room with thousands of guns and no one is going to shoot anyone else. The thugs will bludgeon each other to death with stones if that is all that is at hand. Guns have absolutely nothing to do with the moral decay that is Detroit. Their use is but a symptom. My late husband owned a few guns, many of the men I know own guns, we have one around here someplace, locked up though. Jeff also has a pellet gun and a BB gun someplace. Almost everyone I know owns a gun or two. A few people I know participate in legal conceal carry having taken the class and applied for the license. Not one of those people I know ever has used his or her gun in an illegal manner. Back in the pioneer days everybody had guns, but people didn’t behave the way the thugs in our cities behave. Well, if they did they found themselves hanging from the nearest tree.
Somehow, we have lost our way and tolerate behavior we never would have tolerated in the past. The criminals have all the rights while the good people cower in fear. Fear for their lives and property, but also fear of saying anything. We have to be sufficiently compassionate. We can’t appear racist. While our country goes right down the toilet. But that giant flushing sound I’m hearing has nothing to do with guns. If we were still the nation we once were it wouldn’t matter how many guns were around.
Also, the gun violence gets media attention, but there is so much crime committed where a gun isn’t used. The shootings are the tip of the ice berg. I could tell you stories that would curl your hair, and none of them involve a gun, but are terrifying none the less.
Yes, agreed. But people are weak. They are subject to temptation. They get drunk. The good people turn less good. There is this and that. A million possibilities that breaks that barrier which prevents the good person using that bloody gun. All good people can be bad people. It is not far away. The human race is totally flawed.
You are right, Michael. If I’m going to be consistent then I have to agree that there are no good people. Some are less bad than others though. But add alcohol and all bets are off.
I though it was wrong of them killing this innocent house cat! Why don’t they kill all the Children there or People if they love too kill innocent Pets ;-( ;-( ;-( they were wrong
Thank you. Personally, I would rather see a person shot than a cat. Although both are horrible. This is just a case of hyped up, pathetic, behavior by over excited people who have their brains out of gear.
I hate to say it, but I agree , Michael. Because when a person gets shot he usually had something to do with it. Most of the victims of the shootings are gang members and drug dealers. There are some exceptions– stray bullets fly– but usually the victim of the shooting is someone society will be better off without no matter how much everybody rallies around in the neighborhood saying he was a “good kid.” Yeah, then why was he walking around with a gun at two a.m. instead of being in bed because he had school the next day?
But the cat is always innocent. He’s just trying to survive. The cat never deserves that. Some humans don’t either, but nine times out of ten it isn’t innocent humans getting shot. That tenth time is pretty sad, but the humans still have a choice– don’t date a jealous, controlling person who owns a gun. Don’t go to that part of town where bullets are likely to be flying after dark. There are exceptions, and some murders are committed in broad daylight or with other weapons than guns. But I always seem to feel worse when an animal is victimized in any way, because animals completely innocent and don’t understand what is happening to them or why.
Well said, Ruth. There is never a reason to shoot a cat (of any size). We did it. We created it (the situation). We should fix it, humanely. This is one aspect of America that constantly returns. Shooting something, anything, that frightens people.
The answer is not to be bloody frightened, you idiots. Sorry.
This is disgusting. Is there any evidence of Chum threatening or attacking anybody? What is the reason for shooting him then? That idiot with a rifle only reacted to the media hysteria about a wild dangerous cat on the loose and thought that gave him a licence to kill it. Afterwards he would be hailed as a hero by the stupid press, no doubt.
1. The media reporting was irresponsible and non-factual.
2. The media did not encourage people to help in his rescue
3. The media hysteria led is a direct cause of the killing of Chum by portraying him as a dangerous big cat.
I hope there is hell to pay over this.
Well summarised. I give up with the American attitude to wild cats and wild cat hybrids. I think one of the underlying reasons for the hysteria is that a lot of people keep wild cats as pets especially servals so when a largish cat is roaming around they think it is some sort of escaped wild cat that can attack them and exaggerate the size.
A number of servals have escaped in the past. And Savannahs get mistaken for wild cats.
Sigh….this makes me mad. Very angry because it is all so pathetic. Excitable idiots with rifles who can’t wait to shoot a domestic cat that is used to being stroked for God’s sake.
Stupid media hyping it all up as usual creating a situation that was bound to end like this. Pathetic.
Stupid owners of the cat who failed this cat. Totally.
What a bunch of idiots. The cat loses as usual.
It makes me want to give up and scream.
When are people going to grow up?
They shot a $20,000 dollar domestic cat for heaven’s sake.
This makes me sad because I think it was my cat. His name was Cissero he,was an African wildcat. He was taken from my home during a burglary. I loved him. We looked for him for years.
Hi Elaine, you comment is very interesting. Are you sure? I am almost certain this cat was a Savannah cat. Are you saying that you had an African wildcat as a pet? That is the first time I have head of that. Thanks for commenting, ELaine.