Is there a genuine difference between the attitudes of the citizens of the southern and northern states of the USA in respect of feral cats? It seems that there might be and if so it is probably a part of the overall cultural differences. It is probably accepted that there is a difference between the attitudes and culture of the people of the south and north.
Is it fair to say that Americans living in the south are more likely to be religious fundamentalists (think: bible belt), less open-minded, less well educated, more traditional etc. compared to Americans living in the north of the country? Southerners are also said to be friendly but northerners sometimes call them rednecks.
In return, southerners call their northern counterparts Yankees. The term “redneck” conjures up images of poorly educated, ignorant, rural poor white people who are likely to treat animals less well than educated people. I am told there is more gun crime in the south. Are there more guns in the south?
How does this show up in attitudes towards feral cats? Well, there are two recent examples.
The South
Marion County, Florida has a cat confinement law and there is a commercial business treating feral cats as pests in Florida. Dee (a regular contributor) who lives in Florida, paints a picture of cat life in Florida which is quite anti-cat (is that fair?) or at least that is the impression I have.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission does not outlaw TNR but neither does it endorse or support it. Their policy is:
“to protect native wildlife from predation, disease and other impacts presented by feral and free-ranging cats.”
This is not necessarily anti-cat but it hints and prioritising the lives of native species over the non-native feral cat and at the killing of feral cats if necessary. Although, they don’t specifically endorse killing feral cats. However, their policy document originally referred to the ineffectiveness of TNR. It was modified due to public criticism.
The North
In NE Connecticut (one of the New England states) the government has awarded a $175,000 grant to the North-eastern Connecticut Council of Governments for TNR of feral cats. That is a sizeable sum of money for TNR and it is state funded. That seems an enlightened decision and quite rare to me.
Volunteers will be co-opted from a 9-town-area to assist and it is expected that 1,000 feral cats will undergo trap-neuter-return.
Most of the funding will be spent on veterinary fees for neutering and spaying plus any other treatments deemed necessary.
John Filchak, the council’s executive director is optimistic about TNR citing that in areas it has reduced feral cat populations by 55%.
A Connecticut town called Killingly (slightly macabre name) has a proposed law making cat neutering obligatory. You can see a trend towards proactive, preventative steps to reduce feral cat population sizes in Connecticut, which is the only way to make long term progress.
Ancestry
The north and northeast ancestors are Germans, English, Irish and French. The ancestors of the south are Americans, Puerto Ricans while Florida has predominantly German ancestry. The extreme southwest is predominantly Mexican.
Conclusions?
The north is perhaps more inclined to take long term humane preventative measures against feral cats while the south is more inclined to be reactive and to consider trap and kill.
Photo top of page: Daria Zeoli via Your Daily Vegan (image modified slightly).
You have the cat article in you email 🙂
My friend who was killed last summer was from Michigan. His dad was from the south. The one thing he noticed between living up north than in the south is in my neck of the woods you don’t walk the sidewalks to town at night or you’ll be stopped and most likely arrested. He had a seizure disorder, which led to his death, but the Anderson police arrested him 3 times for public drunk and it was his nervous system issues. He finally stopped being harassed after he took the officers to court and won thru a jury trial. A lot of cops will stop a lady driving alone after midnight just because it isn’t done much here.
Perhaps the old idea of north and south being very different that I have from the movies 😉 is out-of-date or exaggerated. I do sense though that there is a more traditionalist God fearing mentality in the south which lends itself to being more human-centric and therefore less feral cat concerned.
I remember working in Franklin, NC back around 1993 and thinking I was going to the little mountain community where my grandmother was raised. WRONG! People from up north and from Florida had bought out the farms and the original settlers of the area had either died or taken the offer to see and move away. There’s not really any north/south boundary in the Carolinas anymore. And OMG how RUDE those people were. I had one man not watching what he was doing and walked right into the hood of my car. Flipped right across the top of it with me sitting still watching him. THEN came over to cuss me out. And in the store people would crash into me with their shopping carts and not even say excuse me. I’ve solved that problem by putting a whole pineapple with the sharp leaves pointing out at the back of the cart. They run into me now and they’re gonna get hurt. No way will I ever go back to Franklin again. That mountain community is NOT what the Foxfire books portray. And I’m a direct decendant of the Carpenter family in those books.
Now I live in a small town in the middle of nowhere that doesn’t even have a traffic signal it’s so small. The old families are still here who settled the area 200 years ago and people are friendly.
Thanks Dee for those insights.
The Bible Belt states aren’t really the way described years ago. Florida and the Carolinas (north and south) have been pretty much excluded because of their transient, retirement, and tourist appeal. They’re just a mixture of north and south now. So, for me, I can’t really say whether northerners or southerners differ in attitutes toward cats or not, from my perspective.
However, there does seem to be a differnce in attitude about cats between the northern retirees and the implanted Florians. The retirees seem to have a very low tolerance for cats. I can only guess that they may not have been used to seeing cats year round in their wintry world up north.
Only my opinion, but I think that Texas is the absolute worse state when it come to the humane treatment of animals.
The remaining states still seem to be Bible Belt, ie. Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri. These are pretty much big hunting states, so maybe their mindset toward animals is different sometimes.