by Elisa Black-Taylor
(USA)
Should I die because I’m feral?
Good morning readers. I normally have a lot of good things to say about P.E.T.A (I have used “PETA” in this article as they use that format). People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has more than 2 million members and supporters and they’re the largest animal rights organization in the world.
Today I’m upset with them. They’ve been making the news the past few months on the feral cat population issue. Today I want to defend the feral cat colonies PETA wants to trap and kill. Yes, dear readers, they want to kill feral cats.
Their defense on this issue involves the lack of quality of life the organization believes is the existence of the feral cat. They receive calls every day from people who have found cats shot, mutilated, attacked by wild animals, hit by cars, drowned, poisoned and beaten. PETA argues these cats would be better off trapped and euthanized than left to fend for themselves in the feral colonies.
Not only the injured cats, but all ferals.
The feral colony caregivers who trap neuter and return (TNR) and PETA do agree on one thing. The problem was caused by human neglect, either by cat owners abandoning their cats or allowing the cat to roam unaltered in the neighborhood. This is the number one reason EVERY cat should be spayed or neutered at a young age. No cat should be allowed to breed just for the sake of breeding. A female cat doesn’t have to have “just one litter” to make her life complete. This is human thinking, and it’s time we change this.
PETA doesn’t believe in feeding feral colonies except for the purpose of trapping. They believe feeding a feral cat makes it strong enough to mate and only increases the reproduction problem. I don’t know about the readers here, but I’m going to feed any cat I run across. The first thing I do when I see a cat outside is take it some food. Guess that’s just the way I was raised.
PETA believes all feral cats should be killed once they are trapped. Research has shown that won’t fix the problem. There are simply too many colonies. They’re on farms, in back alleys and at the end of rural roads. Once one colony has been removed, another will soon take it’s place in the neighborhood. This has been proven time and again. Feral colony caregivers are making progress with TNR. It’s going to be slow progress, but I applaud their time consuming efforts. I’ve cared for strays and ferals for 30 years now.
The feral caregivers of the world have the right idea with TNR. I believe ferals serve a purpose. They keep the rodent population in check. Even ship captain’s had the good sense to have a few cats onboard to control the rats.
My belief that ferals are serving this purpose really doesn’t matter in the long run. Because feral colonies are going to be a part of both city and country life for the foreseeable future. There’s simply no way to eradicate the problem. So society may as well accept ferals, TNR, caregivers and those of us who support them. At least there are people everywhere who are trying their best to improve the quality of life for these poor cats.
People created the problem and some of us are trying our best to take care of it humanely by caring for these cats. This includes food and basic shelter.
It’s just a shame many consider euthanasia is the best answer.
I hope everyone enjoys the photos of some of the ferals I’ve cared for. Shadow was a beautiful long haired Manx, but he didn’t like people. I tried once to bring him inside. He let me know right quick he preferred the great outdoors. They had a good quality of life. I saw they were fed and a neighbor provided an old barn for shelter. There ARE alternatives to death.
Are there any caregivers out there who would like to speak out in favor of their feral colonies? Does anyone agree with PETA. on this issue? I’m just curious where the readers here stand.
Elisa
Selected articles by Elisa on feral cats:
See a list of Elisa’s articles
Sources:
Link broken so removed Oct 2012
http://www.peta.org/about/why-peta/feral-cats.aspx
http://www.moderncat.net/2010/09/14/tnr-week-a-brief-history-of-tnr-qa-with-ellen-perry-berkeley/
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Don-t-turn-your-back-on-fe-by-People-for-the-Eth-101022-19.html
Comments for | ||
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| Nov 29, 2011 Rating  | Cats kill birds Cats kill birds, sometimes several per day. It is inhumane to keep the cat inside all the time, and irresponsible to let it out to kill birds. Therefore, I agree with PETA. Cats should not be owned by humans. |
| May 05, 2011 Rating | help Anyone have any suggestions. I found three ferral kittens in my car hood and have tried to domesticate them with not much luck. One cat hisses but doesn’t scratch or bite so we have managed to pet her and see hope with her. The other two wont let us touch them they scratch and try to bite, my husband has to wear gloves and protection around his arms. I dont have anymore time to work with them. I dont want to call animal control because I know they will just put them down. I think its not their fault they are just scared and don’t know any better. I am going to try the humane society but have been warned they are probably full and wont take no more pets and after looking at them and some other places a lot of them dont take ferral cats. I dont know what to do. email me with suggestions please iluvmychico7@hotmail.com |
| Dec 06, 2010 Rating | i agree with tnr I have adopted two feral cats through the tnr program called Spay and Stay. They are great. They hold fund raisers for caretakers who need food, they do anything they can to help you. Our cat midnight we trapped ourselves and decided to keep her. Otherwise she ould have been left to the elements and she was pregnant when we took her in. The other cat Mariel wandered into our backyard from a trailer park about 6 miles away. The lady said shed take her back but shed have to live under her porch which I assume is where she was living. We just kept her too. She has 8 paws. Spay and Stay microchips them, gives them all shots, flea protection, and worming. They nik the ear so you know they have a chip. They also hold little seminars on how to make shelters and protection for them. I never thought Peta would suggest such a thing. Im very disappointed in them. I really dont think that is ethical treatment of feral cats. I love my feral cat Mr Grey. If he doesnt come for a few days I ger upset. Hes very wild. He did trust me enough to let me touch his head a few weeks ago. But now hes all skittish again. Someone probaly did something to him. Damn Humans. |
| Nov 22, 2010 Rating | Donations Just as well I dont donate to this organisation as I would be demanding my money back – much better to use it to TNR a cat. |
| Nov 18, 2010 Rating | PETA get us all badly liked Time after time when campaigning or collecting out on the streets I get’Are you one of them PETA freaks?’ So I do sympathise with you Ruth. They are controversial and this latest idea of theirs is very cruel.Each and every cat has the right to live. They’ll be hearing a BIG protest from me! |
| Nov 18, 2010 Rating | Peta are wrong I agree, Peta are wrong and I am surprised at them. I had heard about this. I don’t get their thinking. Thanks for highlighting the problem. I agree with Elisa’s conclusions. In my opinion the only way is a nationwide TNR program coupled with a nationwide program of cat caretaker education.
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| Nov 18, 2010 Rating | PETA are wrong No, I don’t agree with this at all, I don’t see why PETA should assume the right to decide that feral cats are better off dead and I don’t see why they should die just because they’re an inconvenience to PETA who should just butt out and leave their care to people who are willing to TNR and feed the colonies. For an organisation that is supposed to be on the side of animals they do come out with some controversial thoughts but this time they have gone too far and I think there will, and should be, a huge backlash about this. |
| Nov 18, 2010 Rating | PETA Thanks for bringing this to notice Elisa. I wonder if the people who donate money to PETA know they want to use some of it to kill cats ? We don’t donate to them and I detest being called a ‘PETA freak’ just because I care about animals. I think it’s disgraceful to plan to take innocemt cats lives and shocking that PETA say they shouldn’t be fed so they don’t breed as much! They seem to have no compassion at all for the poor cats homeless and living rough because of the man made problem. We don’t have the many colonies here in the UK that you have and TNR mostly done by Cats Protection works very well. But even if we had, like you I’m sure we cat lovers wouldn’t stop feeding them on PETA’s say so and leave them to starve and be trapped to be killed. We all need to protest loud and long to PETA !! Come on the troops !!!!! 
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I used to support peta util today I have been caring for a a stray and many of her kittens that I had fixed through peta she lived behind my house for a couple of years and I couldn’t get her inside to spayed. She was very sweet and loving but wouldn’t let me pick her up so I bought a trap because I had an appointment with peta mobile clinic to have her spayed. i fianally got her in my house 10 weeks ago a day before she had her last litter. Today I tried to get her in the trap but she wasn’t falling for it so my husband put thick gloves to get her in the trap and thought I was finally going to get her spayed,they have a $60 feral fee for all cats that come in traps thats supposed to pay for hiv test and shot,rabies and spqy. Theu killed her and said she had hiv, but she was not sick! They killed her because they thought she was feral! i wish I would have known their policies I will never let them kill another animal I love!
Yes, we know what people like you think but you completely lack humanity and a sensibility towards other sentient beings that we put there. They are our responsibility. We have to treat them decently if we are to behave morally. You don’t understand that aspect of feral cats.
a dead feral cat is a good feral cat
I wish I could get my hands on ye,how dare ye think ye are judge and executioner of those innocent cats,ye want to shoot something then shoot yeself.
They have been known to trap pet cats that belong to people,some even had collars but PETA slaughtered them anyway.
We have a large bird sanctuary in the area that feral cats are ALWAYS invading. The state (MD) doesn’t want anything to do with controlling or trapping them simply because they don’t have the resources or room in the shelters and that if I wanted them trapped and fixed I would have to pay for it all, thanks to irresponsible owners who just allow their un-fixed animals to roam about. Recently I shot and killed 4 roughly 4 week old kittens and wounded the mother who was climbing a tree towards a nest. I’m not proud of this by any means, but it has to be done to protect some of the endangered birds like wrens and warblers we have here.