At what stage does a shelter disallow a person from adopting cats from them? And how commonplace is it for the same person to return to a cat shelter and ask for another cat as the previous one was killed, or lost? Or perhaps the better question is how often do people ask friends to adopt a cat from a shelter if they are continually losing theirs to coyotes in order to avoid being branded careless at the very least and negligent at worst? These questions are put forward on the basis that the statement in the image below is truthfully. It sounds like it is. The image is on a site I had not visited before: 9gag.com.
“In a new study of coyotes living among people in the heart of Tucson, cats were the coyotes’ most common meal, making up 42 percent of their diet….” CS Monitor website. Dec 2009
A lot of feral, stray and outdoor domestic cats are taken by coyotes in the US. The majority of cats cannot successfully escape a coyote attack. We don’t have statistics as the number of cats attacked by coyotes.
One of the most profound differences in cat caretaking between the USA and the UK and other northern European countries is that in the UK 99% of cat guardians let their cat free roam outside while in the USA a large percentage confine their cats to the inside of the home. The reason: coyotes primarily. Another major reason: cat hating people who like to harm cats or trap them and dispose of them. There are many more dangers for cats although there is, in general, a lower traffic density and therefore less car accidents. This indoor cat acceptance has in turn encouraged a practice that all true cat lovers find abhorrent: declawing. Some cat owners feel they can declaw their cat because they don’t need them if they are always inside the home. They fail to understand the true nature of declawing and its potentially catastrophic consequences to cat health and welfare.
SOME MORE ON COYOTES AND CATS.
