Picture of boy holding rifle and dead ginger cat he shot

2 NOTICES: WARNING AS THIS PICTURE IS NOT PLEASANT. Secondly, in some ways I am sorry to publish the picture. Yes, I am reluctant to do it. I have blurred the child’s face and the text on his shirt to anonymize him although Facebook has not.

I know how people become sick of this sort of picture. It is unsettling and distressing to a lot of people and we become tired of them. However, set against this genuine concern I feel that we have to discuss and criticise the actions of people, particularly kids, who think it is okay to be cruel to animals. The outdoor cat, stray or domestic, is always a target for shooters (people who like to shoot and kill animals for pleasure).

Boy holds dead cat in left hand and rifle in the right
Picture: Facebook.
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

Of course cat haters and hunters would argue that this boy, who looks about ten-years-of-age, is doing a great job and should receive praise. He’ll go on to shoot many more cats, some of whom will be someone’s cherished pet and he’ll enjoy hunting bobcats and anything else that moves provided it isn’t human although he may not stop at humans.

Sport hunters would say they that he ‘euthanised the cat’ and provided a service. BS I say. It is just plain cruel and if they don’t realise it I feel sorry for them. A part of their brain is missing. This photo is particularly disturbing because it is a boy. As Empty Cages Worldwide said:

“One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or torture an animal and get away with it!”

Disgust

Yes, this child is no longer innocent. His father has taught him to enjoy killing rather than to respect animals. He has been taught that it is okay to shoot animals for fun and disregard: the pain he is causing for his fun, the fact that the cat might be a pet, the inherent immorality of killing animals for pleasure. I feel sorry for the boy. He’ll live with his peers who will in the main see his behaviour as normal. But outsiders to his community, enlightened thinkers, the decent people of the world, will look at him now with sorrow and when he is an adult with disgust.

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58 thoughts on “Picture of boy holding rifle and dead ginger cat he shot”

  1. i know in this reality ..we have to kill life …in order to have life …everything eats everything….its insane. we kill a large number of animals..and those animals may have killed other things…not saying killing pets,cats or other is ok …but come on! where did this pity for animals come from? its ok to kill and eat chickens,cows pigs by the millions …but kill a cat and you will burn in hell forever..insane!

    Reply
    • Frank, I can think of a few things to say in response to your comment which I thank you. Firstly, humans don’t need to eat meat, the flesh of animals that we brutally kill in abattoirs. So we can stop this. Secondly, the way we treat livestock is indeed brutal and often unethical. You may remember Paul McCartney saying that if abattoirs had glass walls nobody would eat meat any more. Thirdly, livestock, animals reared to be killed are not the same as family companion animals. Cats and dogs are treated like family members. There is an emotional connection with them which runs very deep. We have an unwritten contract with our companion animals which is that they provide us with companionship and we provide them with security and food. Within the contract it does not say that we can kill them or abandon them to become feral and then kill them for the fucking hell of it. We are in breach of that unwritten contract. It is unethical and immoral and clearly wrong. I hope that this is understood by you.

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    • What makes cats special over those other animals? They are destructive pests especially in Australia we’re hunting feral cats is an entire industry that helps protect people’s livestock and property from damage. Cats are not special I hope the hunt was a good bonding experience between the boy and his father more people need to learn to hunt there are far too many sissy liberal types out there

      Reply
      • Well, I detest people like you. I even detest your stupid username which indicates you take pleasure out of breaking up marriages. And you clearly like to shoot animals for fun. You have no sensitivity whatsoever towards the pain you cause. And this ginger cat might be someone’s pet. And even if the cat is a feral cat, people put that cat there because of their carelessness. Everything about the picture screams human failure. It’s pathetic that you think that the bonding experience of going out to kill an animal is worth more than the animal’s life. The world would be a lot better place without you in it.

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  2. There is no context given for this photo other than the author’s psychobabble about this kid having no innocence left or whatever and he will hurt humans in the future, or something.

    Feral cats kill countless small wildlife, compete with native species and spread parasites and disease to pet cats, livestock and humans. Good riddance to feral pests, pigs, cats, pythons, dogs, goats, all of them.

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    • What about feral people? People spread more disease to people than all the animals combined. Why don’t you criticise people? I say good riddance to miscreant, idiotic people who like to shoot animals.

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      • Nice way to divert from a reasonable question. What feral people this isn’t an apocalyptic wasteland feral cats are a genuine problem and the lives of human beings and our welfare is far more important than worrying about the welfare of a handful of stray cats if they need to go they need to go being able to feed my family comes first and if a cat is being destructive to my livestock or property then You’re darn right I’m going to shoot them. People can offer something to society to rehabilitation a cat just takes up space and resources kind of like a woman lol

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        • My God, your comment is a ramble of bad grammar and poor sense. It really is hardly worth reading. It’s just not worth responding to it. You’re clearly one of those idiots who like to shoot animals and consider stray and feral cats as pests even though you made them feral cats in the first place. And who is the greater pest; the human or the feral cat? Who does the most damage to the planet? The human or the feral cat? Have a good think about that and I think you will come up with the answer: human.

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  3. No matter how either side tries to twist it here this is not about hunting and the debate over the ethics of killing wild animals for food or letting someone else do the dirty work and wrap it in plastic. ( I may have given away my own point of view here;) ). This is about a child shooting domestic pets with a rifle and the parent being proud of his little offspring for it.

    Reply
    • You’re absolutely right! How would he feel if someone shot his pet- then posted it on Facebook?! Totally disgusting 🤮

      Reply
  4. Firstly, the word “pure” doesn’t appear in any of my posts with respect to wildlife, or in any context whatsoever. And what do you mean by “pure”? Non-GMO? Is that somehow “un-PC” according to the tenets of your ideology?

    As for where you’ve heard this before, you didn’t hear it from me. Neither I nor my family are “purebred” anything–our heritage encompasses Middle-Eastern, west African, western Pacific islander and western European. There are probably more colors in my immediate family than you have in your entire voting district. So please do me the courtesy of not “projecting” your own racial hangups and assumptions on me and mine.

    As for why I’m here, it’s to disagree with Michael Broad, not to put too fine a point on it. I find his arguments unscientific and emotion-driven, and his advocacy irresponsible. That doesn’t make me a “troll”. Now go find your own bridge–I was here first.

    Reply
    • I think you are Jim Stevenson or one of his cohort and you are a troll. And you hate cats and it is that which drives you. You are a bird lover. And obsessed with toxo-talk. You speak of science but your arguments are catastrophically distorted by your hatred of the cat and toxo-talk. If the cat was as bad as you say the federal government would have done something about it but…nada.

      Reply
      • The first two words of your post constitute its primary falsehood. The second is the same tired accusation of being Jim Stevenson (whom I have never met), as if it were impossible for more than one person on the ENTIRE INTERNET to disagree with you.

        Your other simplistic accusation is that I’m a “bird lover”. Actually, I’m a fish, amphibian and reptile lover. And I will not hesitate to compare my scientific acumen against yours any day.

        My arguments are not “catastrophically distorted” by bias. Neither are the peer-reviewed scientific reports which I’ve posted in your forum on more than one occasion. And the telling flaw of your argument is that you have not ONCE explained HOW my arguments are distorted. Disparaging is not refuting.

        As for the Federal government, both my former employers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have published warnings concerning T. gondii-contaminated coastal runoff affecting nearshore marine environments, including the uptake of T. gondii oocysts by filter-feeding marine organisms such as mussels, clams and oysters, making raw consumption unsafe.

        But the true measure of your dishonesty, and your inability to refute me concerning the public health threats constituted by the feral cat scourge, is that just a week ago I posted on the “woman shooting hubby over cat” thread 23 incidences of human cases of cat-vectored murine typhus, which you ASKED me to do, and then you refused to publish them.

        Was that information “boring” as well? Or merely embarrassing because challenged me to provide FACTS, I did so, and you couldn’t REFUTE them?

        Reply
      • Michael this is one of the California cat haters. We also have one in Minnesota, Pittsburgh, New Jersey and North Carolina.

        Reply

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