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ORIGINAL: GreedyTop

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ORIGINAL: LaTigresse

Around here, the coyotes and BOP get rid of the ferals pretty fast.

For awhile, someone......they don't think I know who they are.....was dumping kittens, and their unwanted adult cats, at our place. Our cat HATES other cats. Add to that 3 dogs that dearly love to chase cats, and a fairly large population of coyotes, great horned owls, and bald eagles during the winter, we don't have the feral cat problem.

I hate to say but it's true, if we had any rangy feral toms hanging around I would shoot them. They are nothing but disease carrying pests. They usually cannot be domesticated and the shelters are already full.

Where my son's shop is, across the street was a woman that would constantly feed the strays. After a few years of that, there were dozens of cats running around the area. They would get into the car shop and shit and piss all over everything. Finally my son started trapping them and taking them to the shelter. After 30 cats, the shelter said no more. At that point my son's hired man started taking them out into the country and shooting them. It was the most humane thing they could do. Obviously the cat lady was not happy but she was the one to blame. She was irresponsible one...... in feeding stray cats, facilitating their breeding.

Understood. I am in a fairly urban area, so the "natural predators" are a non-starter. I am trying to find a spay/neuter/return/release org. around here, but apparently Chatham county frowns on such. The closest I can find is about 4 hours away. AND, they require a local (read, Jacksonville, FL - or local environs) address. Even farther, if I look to SC.

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ORIGINAL: SirNose

It may well make me a chauvinist, but I don't see people and cats as being very comparable.

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ORIGINAL: SirNose

[ I don't get ] Why you're risking a brick through window for trapping somebody else's cat to get that done when it'd be a lot easier to destroy the creature.

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ORIGINAL: GreedyTop

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ORIGINAL: LaTigresse

Around here, the coyotes and BOP get rid of the ferals pretty fast.

For awhile, someone......they don't think I know who they are.....was dumping kittens, and their unwanted adult cats, at our place. Our cat HATES other cats. Add to that 3 dogs that dearly love to chase cats, and a fairly large population of coyotes, great horned owls, and bald eagles during the winter, we don't have the feral cat problem.

I hate to say but it's true, if we had any rangy feral toms hanging around I would shoot them. They are nothing but disease carrying pests. They usually cannot be domesticated and the shelters are already full.

Where my son's shop is, across the street was a woman that would constantly feed the strays. After a few years of that, there were dozens of cats running around the area. They would get into the car shop and shit and piss all over everything. Finally my son started trapping them and taking them to the shelter. After 30 cats, the shelter said no more. At that point my son's hired man started taking them out into the country and shooting them. It was the most humane thing they could do. Obviously the cat lady was not happy but she was the one to blame. She was irresponsible one...... in feeding stray cats, facilitating their breeding.

Understood. I am in a fairly urban area, so the "natural predators" are a non-starter. I am trying to find a spay/neuter/return/release org. around here, but apparently Chatham county frowns on such. The closest I can find is about 4 hours away. AND, they require a local (read, Jacksonville, FL - or local environs) address. Even farther, if I look to SC.

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ORIGINAL: GreedyTop

I do know that. Just... being the crazy old AMERICAN cat lady that I am, it was a kneejerk reaction! (and hey, dammit, I was GOOD!! I didn't cal him names or anything!! LOL)

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ORIGINAL: Aswad

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ORIGINAL: SirNose

[ I don't get ] Why you're risking a brick through window for trapping somebody else's cat to get that done when it'd be a lot easier to destroy the creature.

See, your clarified statement is troubling.

Not because of species chauvinism, but because of cynicism and the implicit underlying fascistoid attitude to life and its value. I'm unaware of any redeeming aspects to this trait, and as far as I know it is a core trait. It appears to be an unambiguous flaw that reinforces the importance of correct attribution when judging merit based on action, as the difference in merit between a person with this flaw and Mengele is exclusively a matter of context. From my angle, where autonomy is a crucial aspect of human will and value, such a person is not complete in a moral sense. You touch on the very core of why Kantian ethics reject socially motivated penal codes, for instance.

You don't get why she doesn't just kill for convenience, cat or no.

Such a trait is particularly problematic in the scene, because of the context reliance.

We are in the business of changing context. That raises some red flags with me, because it seems probable that such a person would be without much of the underlying substance and character which might otherwise make it safe to play. The reason it's safe to be tied up in a room with me isn't because of law or culture or agreement, when you come right down to it. It's because I don't cut the moral corner of reducing creatures to objects of convenience on an instinctive basis, whether human or not. Doing so is a conscious choice for me, not a default my mind reaches for because it lacks something it's supposed to have. As such, that choice is always subject to the relevant safeguards and not contextual.

If you stand by what you said, I will sincerely encourage you to refrain from ever scening while the least bit inebriated.

Make some allowances that there may be other important things you don't get, and maybe can't get.

— Aswad.

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ORIGINAL: Focus50

Me, I think stray cats are a problem created by the irresponsible owner, not the cat and not those affected.

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And I'm impressed that you'd use a word like "unambiguous" (assuming it's actually a word) in one of your signature pontificating posts engineered solely to be an unnecessarily difficult read to we mere worker bees.

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ORIGINAL: Aswad

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ORIGINAL: Focus50

Me, I think stray cats are a problem created by the irresponsible owner, not the cat and not those affected.

Precisely. The cat is yet another "victim" in the situation.

Hence my preference for dealing with the owner when possible, and doing what Constanze is doing otherwise.

We seem to be in agreement, no?

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ORIGINAL: Focus50



For me, little diddums is heading for a tragic "road accident" from there. Cat-napping it for a medical procedure somehow feels waaaay more aggressive, invasive, even creepy. Kinda think the owner would notice, too, but who sends roadkill for an autopsy?

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ORIGINAL: Focus50

Wellll, the cat may well be a "victim" of its irresponsible owner, but it's still a problem for everyone else.

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ORIGINAL: LadyConstanze

Sorry, for me somebody who's killing a pet because it's convenient is wayyyyyy to creepy to be considered human. You mean killing is fine, doing something constructive is all creepy, so death is less "invasive" for you like a quick medical procedure? Phew, I am really really glad we have different values, I like to be able to respect who I see in the mirror.

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ORIGINAL: GreedyTop

Focus.. alllow me to nitpick:

fe·ral
1    [feer-uhl, fer-] Show IPA

adjective
1.
existing in a natural state, as animals or plants; not domesticated or cultivated; wild.

2.
having reverted to the wild state, as from domestication: a pack of feral dogs roaming the woods.

3.
of or characteristic of wild animals; ferocious; brutal.


Ferals, by definition, are not OWNED. They MAY have been at one time (several of the outdoor cats I watch out for around here obviously were, even if I can't currently RELIABLY get near them... Bibie for instance will sometimes allow me to pet her. Squeakers won't let me within a foots distance. a couple of the others dash away as soon as I even appear).


Just saying... ;)
;)

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ORIGINAL: Focus50
Rather than dispose of unwanted cats and esp kittens responsibly, there is (or was) a mentality of just releasing the "poor things" into the wild to fend for themsleves. And the "poor things" do very well - unlike the native birds, reptiles and most esp our unique array of marsupials.