Is it illegal to shoot a feral cat in Louisiana?

I don’t have to look up the animal welfare laws of Louisiana to answer the question in the title because there is an ongoing criminal case in New Orleans of a man who drove around New Orleans in his car with a pellet rifle looking for cats to shoot and succeeding in shooting a feral cat who had a name: Blackie.

Note: I have read the law and it applies to the shooting of feral cats which would clearly be a crime. Two main clauses are: § 102 . Definitions; cruelty to animals — § 102.1 . Cruelty to animals; simple and aggravated. – see full text here.

Kyre West shot a feral cat in Louisiana and is on trial

It was caught on CCTV (video surveillance cameras) and Blackie died of his injuries. The alleged criminal, as yet not convicted, is Kyre West. He has been booked with a felony charge of animal cruelty. He is currently in jail until he can post a $24,000 bond.

Under Louisiana law shooting a cat, feral or domestic or anything in-between, is a crime and if that crime is aggravated cruelty to an animal it is a felony (a more serious crime). The punishment on conviction is 1-10 years in state prison or a fine of $5,000-$10,000 or both. Hard labor can also be ordered.

There will no doubt be some exceptions to the general rule that shooting a feral cat is illegal in Louisiana but they will be rare exceptions.

West shot Blackie from his car on Wednesday at 04:23.

West has no prior criminal record and is a biology and pre-med student at Xavier University (or he was).

Blackie must have been semi-feral and cared for by someone in the community as he had a name. His death has broken that person’s heart.

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Comments

Is it illegal to shoot a feral cat in Louisiana? — 10 Comments

M. E. King on October 8, 2017 at 12:14 am said:
Another Kristen Lindsey no great loss to the medical community. Obviously another sick (nasty word)that shouldn’t be allowed near anything living human or animal.
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- Michael Broad on October 8, 2017 at 5:41 am said:
  Yes, I was pleased, very pleased actually, to see that the law was being enforced nicely. It is a good sign. A pat on the back for Louisiana law enforcement.
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TimeToGrowUp on October 7, 2017 at 8:27 pm said:
It is illegal if you only maim an animal, as he did. All hunters know this. A dead animal is a legal animal.
It is illegal if you kill animals that are not on your own lands or outside of defined public hunting areas or you were not given the written-permission of the land-owner. Depredation control, invasive-species laws, nuisance animal, and zoonotic disease containment laws supersede all other animal protection laws in every state, every nation, even in the UK. Deny it publicly all you want but you know it is true. Cats are legally shot in rural areas of the UK every day.
He was illegal on two counts. This doesn’t make shooting cats illegal. He broke laws that would also be a criminal act no matter what species of animal he shot at. IOW: not too bright. IOW: someone claiming this makes shooting all cats illegal is also not too bright.
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- Michael Broad on October 8, 2017 at 6:03 am said:
  BS. This cat was shot dead (the cat died later of injuries as I understand it). I have established in a prior post. that you cannot shoot a cat dead without that cat feeling pain in which case it is a crime unless one of the rare exceptions apply. It is you who is the ‘nutter’ – a cat hating nutter. And an extremely arrogant one too. God you are so piss awfully arrogant. Disgusting individual.
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  - TimeToGrowUp on October 8, 2017 at 12:35 pm said:
    Then I guess you have to take all hunters into court for “animal cruelty” including everyone who issues hunting licenses in every country, and every last stockyard worker for causing “pain” when killing animals for your grocery-store shelves and dinner-plates, including all those animals boiled-alive for your cans of cat-food.
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    - Michael Broad on October 8, 2017 at 12:55 pm said:
      The law specifies the animals that can be hunted and feral cats are not in the list – ever. Please take you medicine and lay off the booze and cannabis, Woody.
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    - M. E. King on October 8, 2017 at 3:30 pm said:
      This is an idiot argument for the sake of being an idiot. You are not allowed to shoot animals for meat in most cases unless you have a permit, tag or license. There is no open season on domestic pets. Laws regarding the right to dispose of loose pets or domestic animals are geared to farmers and ranchers so them may dispose of what is usually a dog allowed to run loose chasing or killing livestock. Cats especially feral, stray or colony cats are most likely to retreat rather than attack. The shooter had know knowledge of this cat and therefore even those laws could not apply unless the cat was attached to someone’s neck killing them.
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      - Michael Broad on October 8, 2017 at 3:42 pm said:
        ME, this is Woody. He is as mad as a barrel full of frogs 🙂
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        M. E. King on October 8, 2017 at 8:06 pm said:
        I thought he was just hateful. Sadly this twisted thinking is common.
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        Michael Broad on October 9, 2017 at 9:35 am said:
        Yes it is which is why I write these sorts of articles because these people think it is legal to shoot feral cats. It’s almost always not legal but they get away with it.
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