This blogpost title (Removing cats -- who is really doing it?) will be an alert for situations I come across where volunteer "cat feeders" are taking it upon themselves to get cats off the streets and back into their homes--something I don't see anti-cat people supporting with either time or funds.
This is Stubby. He is surviving in the tornado zone in Joplin MO thanks to some human help.
In Joplin, volunteers are feeding cats at points throughout the damaged areas, advertising cats as they see them, and matching them up with lost reports. They've had a number of successes, and of course advertising these cats also means they are more likely to be adopted.
Otherwise, surviving cats would become part of a future feral population.
This is just one more way "crazy cat people" prove to be calm and professional rational volunteers who see a problem and put serious work into solving it.
Thank you for this post. I find it disturbing my neighbors sometimes make fun of me, as a crazy cat lady, and yet I've fixed 36 cats who have roamed through my yard alone here on this block, since moving here, rehoming over half of them. I even trapped a rabbit neighbors wanted dead because it would eat their gardens and got him to the Corvallis "rabbit whisperer", who got her fixed and found her a home. She didn't get paid for that and I don't either. This block is lucky to have me. I don't understand why those helping fix and rehome cats are vilified and never honored as community volunteers. The "crazy cat people" I know spend so much of their own time and money improving their communities they/we should be getting awards right and left. Instead, we're called names.
ReplyDeleteJody, I have come to believe that it really has to do with an active dislike of cats. I can't find any other reason why otherwise rational people--scientists, even--will suggest that sterilizing deer is a worthwhile experiment (even though it is highly unlikely to succeed in most cases)--and yet no US biologist appears to have ever sterilized a feral cat colony to see if it works. When I did nuisance wildlife control work, even though I was under suspicion for promoting humane options, I was welcomed in the wildlife control field. As soon as I began trapping primarily cats, I began to be vilified by certain pest control and wildlife control "professionals" (Not, I will point out, any of those who knew me personally). The only thing that changed was what I was trapping. The of course there is the very real problem of hoarders and burned out rescuers, with which we are associated. I guess we are no worse off than good lawyers and good tax collectors. They must get tired of the stereotypes as well.
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