A man, we don’t have his name, is trying to make a statement about feral or community cats in Chicago of which we are told there are up to three quarters of a million. He is trapping cats and taking them to shelter on Western Avenue. He trapped 15 cats on the South Side on Monday and then proceeded to trap 15 more cats on the North Side on Tuesday. He then appears to have trapped 10 more on Wednesday and he took them all to the shelter on Western Avenue.
He is adamant that he is going to keep on doing it despite the shelter trying to convince him that there are alternatives. The shelter says that many of them don’t look injured and are in fine condition. Critically, the executive director of Animal Care and Control, Susan Russell, says that she believes that some of the cat are pets.
Therefore some of these cats are ‘owned cats’. What this man is doing is in effect stealing the cats which is a crime. He is not thinking about that possibility. He simply trying to make a statement but he cannot do what he’s doing without getting into trouble with the law eventually. In fact arguably this is also an abuse of cats. The cats are unnecessarily confined to cages. They may be euthanized. It puts a big responsibility on the shelter because they are exposed to euthanizing a outside domestic cat. Technically or actually that could also be a crime although no one will classify it as such.
The cats are being dealt with at the shelter in the usual way but this person’s actions are putting an added strain on the shelter.
This is quite peculiar behaviour but it does indicate that some people are frustrated and taking steps on their own without consultation and in possible breach of the law because they believe there are too many cats on the streets in Chicago. He probably feels that the authorities are not doing enough about it.
Source: chicago.cbslocal.com
Oh and lets not forget the cats that become victims of abuse because they are human trusting pets and easy fodder for the sick cat haters in our society.
The strain is being put on the shelter not by someone making a point of just how bad the feral/stray cat population is but by lazy ignorant pet owners who allow their pets to roam and refuse to S/N.
We refuse to deal with the issue at it’s source which would be the origins of the stray and every feral kitten/cat born of them.
We live in 2017 if you can’t be taught that S/N and keeping your pet in your yard or home is necessary then there needs to be significant fines in place to convince you otherwise or pets removed from negligent households. Despite education the instances of overrun rescues making the news and shelters with waiting lists along with an increasing number of animals in shelters shows we are not headed in the right direction in pet population control.