Under a mile from a woman who feeds stray cats a man shoots a cat with a .22 rifle

In CHAMPION TWP., Ohio, USA there is a woman, Nancy McCauley, who has lived in Champion since 1965 and who is compelled to feed stray cats. She is in violation of the local laws which considers feeding stray cats as creating a nuisance. She been served with a notice to stop.

Brian Bickel who shot a cat with a .22 rifle
Brian Bickel who shot a cat with a .22 rifle

Less than a mile from Nancy’s home there lives a man, Brian Bickel, 56, who is accused of crouching down along a retaining wall and shooting at a gray cat with a .22 rifle while the cat was walking along a tree line about 90 yards away.

He has been charged with killing the cat. He denies it although he admitted that he owns a .22 rifle and that if he did fire a shot he would have aimed high.

He did complain about stray cats though.

“Someone needs to do something about these cats as they are pi–ing on my flower beds and sh—ting on my driveway..”

Brian Bickel's rifle shot marked out by police
Brian Bickel’s rifle shot marked out by police

These are the classic complaints of cat hating people. He is clearly very irritated at the presence of the stray cats in his neighbourhood. He also complains about people feeding stray cats. I wonder if he knows of Nancy McCauley. I wonder of he got the idea of shooting cats from the McCauley story which has been well reported online.

These two people represent both ends of the spectrum of attitudes towards stray and feral cats across America. In this instance they are living less than a mile apart. There are millions of people in the US who want to do what McCauley does or do it out of kindness. In some places feeding stray cats is illegal but in most places it is legal and it often takes place as part of a TNR program.

There are aslo very many (but a lesser number) of people, almost always men, who want to do what Bickel did. This is a great dilemma in the USA where there are an estimated 80 million feral and stray cats.

P.S. It is not clear that the cat that Bickel shot was a stray or an owned domestic cat. It is being investigated. This is another, classic reason why shooting cats is madness. You could be killing someone’s companion. You’ll be sued as well as charged.

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