Australia’s deliberate poisoning of feral cats is essentially a crime
Elisa has written about the planned attempt to exterminate feral cats on the Dudley Peninsular on Kangaroo Island which my research tells me is in the Australian state of South Australia (link to article).
Felixizer toxic trap
The authorities of that state have set up automatic traps which dispense a poisonous gel onto feral cats. They say the devices can distinguish between feral cats and other animals but what about domestic cats? Or even small dogs?
The poison is sodium fluoroacetate (1080). This poison has been used in New Zealand to kill so-called pests. It is known to cause a painful, torturous and slow death (source: the animal rights group SAFE).
The program to poison feral cats in South Australia would ordinarily be a crime under their own Animal Welfare Act 1985 but no doubt they have labelled feral cats ‘vermin’ and ‘pests’ and therefore they fall outside of the usual animal protection legislation.
However, both in the UK and in the USA this behaviour would be a crime. In the USA, animal welfare laws are taken on a state-by-state basis but I am familiar with them. There’s no doubt in my mind that to poison feral cats in this indiscriminate manner is a crime (supported by Alley Cat Allies: ‘…Intentionally killing a cat is illegal in all 50 states’) . It’s a crime because of common sense reasons namely it kills cats in a painful way. Therefore it causes unnecessary suffering.
The word “unnecessary” refers to the fact that it is possible to kill feral cats in a more humane manner. I know that the authorities don’t think they can employ the usual TNR practices but it does not excuse them from committing what is essentially the crime of animal cruelty. In the UK poisoning feral cats is a crime under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.
I think this point needs to be made as it highlights the attitude of the authorities in the Antipodes (I’m referring to Australia and New Zealand who have similar attitudes in relation to feral cats). I’ll say it again; settlers created feral cats through carelessness. The authorities have a moral obligation to deal with them humanely but they don’t care. Australians don’t care about cheating at sport either (cricket). That’s immoral too.
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I have no words. I’d be out destroying the traps if they tried that here.
The real crime is putting cats where they can be ran over by cars, torn in half by predators, die from deadly poisons (in nature or man-made (and since man is a part of nature, those too are natural toxins)), or any other way that unrestrained cats are dying around the planet every day. Start convicting everyone who lets cats roam free or even promotes the existence of unconfined cats. Because THEY are the true animal-torturing criminals in all these stories. There’s a good reason that there are laws on the books in every country on earth that punish criminally negligent humans for animal-neglect, animal-abandonment, and animal-endangerment. Those who lost their cats to toxins in traps (or poisonouos reptiles or plants, or cars) need to be convicted and fined for allowing their cats to enter areas where it is deadly to them.
You people are the true animal-torturing criminals. not the ones who are trying to clean up your ecological disasters around the globe in the only manner that has been found to be effective. You certainly aren’t going to round-up all your invasive species cats. So you leave everyone else with no other choice. You conveniently blame everyone else for the very problem that YOU cause and create. Get out there and trap all your cats to save them, confine them to your own properties where they can do no more environmental harm. Otherwise, just STFU. The self-serving hypocrisy of you people is beyond the pale.
YOU caused this. Now stop cats from dying by trapping them all and keeping them in your own homes. Or, as I said, STFU–every last one of you self-serving cretins.
Yes, there is joint responsibility here. There are also too many people who don’t spay and neuter their cats and let them breed. But there is a difference between letting cats roam outside (which is legal almost everywhere) to face possible dangers and deliberately poisoning animals en masse. There really is a difference. You can’t say the people who let their cats go outside caused the poisoning of cats. That’s simply untrue. The Aussie authorities are being cruel to animals and what they are doing would be a crime in the UK for instance. That is true. Aussie’s behave like backward Texans. It’s all guns and killing. A complete disregard for the pain they are causing to sentient beings. Humans are killing far more native creatures in the Antipodes through their commercial enterprises and breeding (population growth) that cats can ever do. It is just human arrogance to blame cats. It all boils down to people no matter how you look at it.
If you know your cats are being ran over by cars, then it is YOUR responsibility to protect them from being ran over by cars. If you know your cats are being torn in half by mountain lions, then it is YOUR responsibility to keep them from being torn in half by mountain lions. If you know your cats are being bitten by deadly vipers, then it is YOUR responsibility to keep them from being bit by deadly vipers. If you know your cats are dying from getting Lily pollen on them, then it is YOUR responsibility to keep them way from deadly lilies and any other toxins out in nature. If you know your cats are roaming into the service-bays of local auto service stations and drinking any antifreeze that splashes on the floors, then it is YOUR responsibility to keep them from getting into those places of business. If you know your cats are getting into the warehouses of chemical plants and dying from exposure to those chemicals, then it is YOUR responsibility to keep them from dying from chemicals. If you know there are deadly traps in the area and your cats are dying from getting into them, then it is YOUR responsibility to keep them away from those traps. If you know your neighbor legally shoots all stray cats on their property (as is the case in all countries, that shooting cats on your own property is 100% legal), then it is YOUR responsibility to keep your cats from where they are being legally shot to death.
For you to do anything less in all those scenarios makes YOU the criminal.
Either do your part and trap all stray cats and keep them on your OWN property, or STFU as they all die from your own criminal animal neglect.
Speaking of putting your money where your mouth is when it comes to TNR and saving the lives of cats, and how few who promote TNR and do absolutely nothing to help, how many cats have you TNR’ed this year and kept on your own property? You won’t even donate more than the price of a bag of cat food to help anyone’s cats but your own ONE cat, let alone actually doing the physical work of saving the lives of any other cats on the planet. I’m surprised you’ve tried to keep yourself alive under the weight of that publicly visible end relentless blatant hypocrisy of yours. Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the greatest cat-licking hypocrite of all.
How many cats have YOU saved from certain death this year, the year before, and the year before that? Everyone who reads your blogs already knows that answer. ZERO.
There’s a phrase in the USA that you should come to learn and tattoo on your forehead, “Blowing smoke out of one’s own ass.” Then everyone will be warned right off instead of having to learn that about you over a period of weeks.
Accidental killing of cats is not a crime. The killing of cats by pumas is not a crime. Poisoning them deliberately is. That’s the point I am making. You have gone off track and are discussing something completely different to serve your own ends.
Also you can’t resist insulting people either. God you are a f**king arsehole. Banned because of the insults.