Cape Hatteras Island is a long, skinny barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. It appears to be quite near where the well-known author about cats, Elisa-Black Taylor lives. She has written for PoC for many years.
The mission statement of the Friends of Felines Cape Hatteras Island is to gradually and humanely reduce the overpopulation of feral cats on the island through an effective trap-neuter-return, vaccination and micro-chipping program; very laudable and exactly the right thing to do.
With great sadness it was discovered that three of the cats in a colony on the realty property facility which had been there for the past 15 years had gone missing. The colony is located near the Outer Beaches Laundry Building in Avon. It was discovered that cat had been killed and thrown in a dumpster. In addition, it appears that all the cats of the colony had gone and the caretakers of that colony do not know what has happened to them.
It seems almost certain that there is somebody out there who wishes to do harm to feral cats and I am afraid to say that that is not that uncommon.
A co-worker with Debbie Martin cared for the 12 cats of the colony . Debbie said:
“We would never have suspected in a million years that something like this would happen,” said Debbie Martin.”
“He [Debbie’s co-worker] had some very bad news for me, that he had found three bodies in the dumpster back behind me and all the cats were gone. We don’t know what has happened to them. I think it’s very sad that there someone out there that’s harming animals. This is Hatteras Island. It’s a national seashore and we protect our animals here.”
Of course, the police have been informed as has the Outer Banks SPCA who are investigating.
What I find particularly impressive is that the Friends of Felines cat loving group appeared to have pooled their resources and are offering a $1000 reward for information leading to, I presume, the arrest of the perpetrator of this criminal act of cat abuse/cruelty. It has to be somebody who is out to kill feral cats but at this stage it seems we have no further information as to the cause except to say that the cats appear to have been shot. The cause of death is being investigated.
People are invited to make a donation to assist which they can do by making a check payable to “Cat Lovers of Hatteras Island” and then posting the check to the Yadkin Bank, PO Box 770, Avon, NC 27917 ATT: KATE.
Dr Marty Becker (He has written 22 books that have sold more than 7 million copies) says: Blessed are the people who feed stray cats. He is correct.
Source: Examiner.com (thanks Elisa).
So, let me get this straight. They’ve been hoarding cats for 15 years and this is supposed to be proof that TNR works to eliminate feral cat populations?
Who do you think you people are trying to fool, people with I.Q.’s below 60?
For heavens sake Jacque why don’t you stop demonstrating to the world that you are a fool and a stupid troll. Practising TNR is not hoarding cats. It is a humane and gentle process towards reducing the population of feral cats. You know that. I know that. You are just trying to wind people up and you are failing in that objective. If you make a further comment like this one you’ll be banned as usual and the ban will be permanent. If you write a comment make it sensible, please. All this comment does is tell the world that you are stupid and biased.
15 years with no reduction isn’t a “gentle process towards reducing the population”, it’s a total fail. Some TNR practitioners brag how they’ve been feeding their TNR colonies for over 25 years. And in the UK you have been feeding your vermin colonies for over 50 years–with ZERO reduction of cats in the UK. Today you are infested with more cats than you ever have before. The only time that TNR ever reduces cat populations is when someone goes in and completely destroys a TNR colony. So I guess you can say that this TNR colony was a success at eliminating cats! It finally worked! About 10 years too late, but at least it worked! That’s the ONLY time cats are reduced by TNR, when someone find the colony and destroys every last one of them.
If it weren’t for TNR practitioners training feral cats to congregate into localized colonies (which stray cats normally don’t do), and they train those cats to accept food supplied by humans, then everyone else wouldn’t be able to cull them so easily–with guns or with vermin poison in their now-accepted foods.
See, it all works out. TNR does help, but not in the way that you might ever think it does. That’s okay, just keep pretending to believe what you believe. It doesn’t matter. TNR cat-colonies will still be destroyed, and there’s not one thing that you can do about it.
Aren’t you glad that you are helping to make it so much easier for everyone else to destroy them all so much more easily by promoting the failed concept of TNR? You should be proud of yourself.
Wrong, there are a couple of things we can do. The acts of cruelty you have mentioned carry severe punishment, including prison. We can provide the police the necessary information. Given the current state of terror alert, I would think twice before proving my manhood by shooting running targets in a public space.
We should also make sure that people suffering from mental illness have no access to guns, for the safety of humans and all other living creatures.
Finally, we could kindly direct such people to professional medical care, and eventually donate to charities that address such desperate cases needing financial assistance.
Thank you Yogi Bear. Wise words and much appreciated.
Now that’s rich! That’s the very best example of……
this comment had all the hallmarks of it being written either by Woody or one of his followers and supporters. As usual it was a rant and it was insulting. For those reasons it has been deleted. If this person writes anything similar he will be banned permanently.
(Admin)
Just a quick note to tell you that I have deleted the comment by one of Woody’s followers if not by himself. I’m sorry that you had to receive a response like that.
Him or his follower has his the Examiner article hard too. I’m ignoring him as I’ve been very sick and been in bed since Saturday.
You’re looking at Greenville NC and I’m near Greenville SC.
Ah..I got that wrong big time. Elisa, I am sorry to hear you are sick. I hope it is not serious. Get well soon.
Lets just say I screamed, moaned, prayed for healing and prayed for death in the ER Friday night. For 5 hours.
Good news. The person who did all the bad comments on the Examiner article has had their info turned over to the Cape Hatteras police.
God, that sounds serious. I hope you are on the mend.
Many states have a Greenville 🙂
Not close to me but there’s been something brewing there for several months now. Those following the Cape Hatteras cats have been very worried about them. I’ve tried to keep tabs on the situation but I’ve been waiting for something bad to happen.
It looks like a nasty individual has planned to attack these feral cats and has carried out his plan or at least a part of it. As to your location, I noticed that Greenville was not too far from the coast and I know that you write about Greenville rescue quite a lot so I added two and two together and made five! I wish you the very best for the New Year.
This is so heartbreaking. I hope they catch the scum. If you can’t help the cats or don’t like them atleast leave them alone.
For me, it seems the world is divided into two groups. The people who look after feral cats who are genuinely good people with good hearts and the people who like to hurt feral cats and to denigrate trap neuter return programs, who are cold-hearted people without a heart.