Over many years, the experts and the websites have discussed the so-called “feral cat problem”. This is the procreation of domestic cats that become unwanted and which procreate in the wild and create feral cats. The root cause of this problem is unsatisfactory cat ownership.
Once you don’t neuter and spay cats and they procreate in the home and become unwanted when they go outside you begin the procreation of feral cats. It all starts with a person somewhere behaving irresponsibly in their cat caregiving.
Now, the way to fix that problem according to the experts in the books and according to Bing’s co-pilot is to educate the public about the importance of responsible pet ownership and the impact the feral cats on wildlife. They also state that you should encourage cat owners to desex their pets and keep them indoors to prevent them from becoming feral.
Other things that can be done are very nice such as TNR programs involving trapping feral cats and desexing them. It involves encouraging local communities to organise low-cost or free desexing programs for feral cats.
Also, you can regularly monitor feral cat colonies and address new arrivals promptly. Further, you can work with local animal control agencies or community group to manage feral cat populations effectively.
Is it working? No. We still have millions of feral cats.
Obligatory education as part of the school curriculum
Education is the key but is it taking place? It is in an ad hoc small-scale way. But if education is so important why don’t the authorities make it obligatory to extend the school curriculum with a class about domestic cat and domestic dog ownership? Put it in the school curriculum. Make it obligatory. You could do this by amending the existing law.
I would make it obligatory nationwide in whatever country one is talking about. It is time to stop shilly-shallying around and being gentle with the problem and hitting it head-on.
250 million feral cat population
For hundreds of years the feral cat population has gradually increased across the globe to the point where there are now probably an equal number of feral cats to domestic cats and the overall numbers are probably about half a billion on the planet. It’s time for change. It’s time to do something tangible, solid and pragmatic. It’s time to bite the bullet.
Time to impose strict regulations with severe punishments
It is no longer enough to say that cat owners need to be educated about desexing and about preventing the procreation of feral cats. It’s about imposing strict regulations on people to force them to do the right thing. Clearly, asking people to do the right thing is not working.
Proactivity much better than reactivity
The steps I’ve mentioned above are normally reactionary. They are trying to deal with the problem after the event. It’s time for proactivity to foresee the problem and prevent it happening.
Enforcement
One of the great problems of preventing the procreation of feral cats is that it is almost impossible to enforce animal welfare laws which will improve cat ownership. You could say that people shouldn’t have more than one cat or that they’ve got to desex their cats under the law. Or they’ve got to microchip their cats under the law. But how do you enforce this? What if people ignore the law? The problem is too big.
The problem is too big
The problem of feral cats in Australia for example is too big. They have started a mass killing program but it’s not going to work. It’s just going to cause animal cruelty.
But the fear of God into people
If you can’t enforce the law then the only way to make it work is to put the fear of God into people so that they voluntarily, willingly comply with the law.
For example, if the Australian authorities said that if cat owners don’t microchip, desex, and confine their cats to their home, they would be in prison for five years under a strict liability program (no defence), people would stick to the law! Or to be more reasonable, receive an AU$10,000 fine.
If the punishment is bad enough and onerous enough you don’t need to enforce the law with a police force. People comply with the law out of fear. So, the argument here is that if you really want to get to the bottom of improving cat ownership where the procreation of feral cats is stopped, you write new laws and you make the punishment for breach of those laws very severe.
Won’t happen
That won’t happen but it probably should if you really wanted to stop the suffering of hundreds of millions of feral cats across the globe. Yes, I’ve been badass in this article but it is the only way to tackle the problem proactively and in the long term. It needs a complete change of mentality.
Tiny minority of irresponsible cat owners
Let’s be clear, the procreation of feral cats comes down to a tiny minority of irresponsible people who simply are not applying their minds to the bigger issues. They are behaving carelessly. They are sloppy in their attitude towards cat ownership. This is deep-rooted. It is as mentioned only a tiny minority of people but they are enough to allow the procreation of feral cats. Once you place stray cat in the environment that haven’t been desexed we know that they can procreate very rapidly. It doesn’t take a lot of carelessness to create a lot of feral cats.
RELATED: Edit the genes of feral cats to stop them procreating
Australia
The needs to be stricter controls. Think about it. The Australian’s reactionary approach of killing feral cats is cruel. And it ineffective. Applying strict proactive measures with laws that impose severe punishments will prevent a lot of animal cruelty by the state. And it will get to the heart of the feral cat procreation problem.
Other methods in parallel
You can apply other methods in parallel. There needs to be more science on feral cat contraceptives. Rather than poisoning feral cats with some sort of evil device as has been constructed in Australia, you could deposit a contraceptive onto cats which stops them procreating. Far less cruel and ultimately far more effective I would argue.
You could use science to edit the genes of cats to stop them procreating. You could then selectively breed cats that cannot procreate. That is not beyond the bounds or means of science in today’s world.
