Cats and squirrels...grrrrrr

It seems that we manage to get treatment for people bitten by rabid cats before they actually die. I suppose that you will accuse the State of Michigan of making this up:

28. CASE #M01RA001852 DATE: 8/13/2001
COUNTY: Jackson
SPECIES: Cat
COMMENTS: Stray mother cat with one kitten taken in by family. 3 1/2 month kitten bit 5yo daughter. Mother cat and kitten delivered to animal control. Kitten quarantined by animal control and isolated, mother cat euthanized at 4 days. Kitten became ill shortly after and submitted for testing. Child receiving P.E.P.

In Switzerland they don't always make it:

"The circumstances, clinical symptoms, and outcome of a case of human rabies are reported. The disease was conveyed by a housecat. Since the report gave no cause for concern, antirabies vaccination was not considered to be necessary. After a delay of 157 days prodromi appeared and the patient was finally hospitalized 3 days later displaying signs of the encephalitic stage. After 2 days, the patient went into the paralytic stage; death occurred 3 days later due to refractory circulatory and respiratory failure. In endemic rabies areas such as Switzerland, human rabies may, as demonstrated by our case report, always sporadically occur. Rabies should be considered in cases of encephalitis or encephalitis-like syndromes."

We do better:

"Commissioner of Agriculture Gus R. Douglass is again reminding West Virginians to make sure their dogs and cats are vaccinated against rabies following the exposure of two Greenbrier County residents to rabies from an infected housecat."

HSUS:
"Animal control agencies were established decades ago
primarily to control the spread of rabies among dogs in the
street. Cats are now the most common domestic vector of
rabies, with 249 cases reported in 2000 in the United States."

PETA has more support than all of your organizations combined. What does that say about your groups? Why can't you find a valid organization that supports TTVAR? Because they don't exist? You think that the HSUS and ASPCA are fear mongers? Even the whackos at PETA don't agree with you. That's why I kept them on the list.

Your sources are not just questionable. They are obviously flawed to the average person. They actually pay this Mead person to do studies when he/she doesn't even know how long cats have been in the UK?

"C. J. Mead, 1982: "[T]he birds in suburban and rural parts of Britain have coexisted with cats for hundreds of generations"

That is the quality of your sources. Utterly and totally dead wrong. No "fear, speculated, not enough studies, belief, but cannot support, etc." Just plain stupid. Hundreds of years, yes. Hundreds of generations, no.

Florida doesn't speculate or spread fear, just truth. In fact they spell out just how illegal your practices are in their state:

Managing Feral/Unowned/Stray Cats (updated 01/06)
The concept of managing free-roaming/feral cats is not tenable on public health grounds
because of the persistent threat posed to communities from injury and disease. While the risk for disease transmission from cats to people is generally low when these animals are owned and routinely cared for, free-roaming cats pose a continuous concern to communities. Children are among the highest risk for disease transmission from these cats.

While free-roaming cats can be vaccinated against rabies, this does not address the ongoing need to provide them health care, medications and prevention of other zoonotic diseases. Should one of these cats bite or scratch a person, it would need to be captured and observed for 10 days for signs and symptoms of rabies, even if it had been previously vaccinated. If the cat is not found, the person bitten would need to undergo rabies post-exposure treatment.

In the past 10 years, cats were reported with rabies more frequently than dogs in Florida. The overwhelming majority of these cats were free roaming animals. Human rabies in Florida was largely controlled by the removal of stray dogs when dog rabies was common during the first half of the 1900s.

Ideally, cats should have regular veterinary care and be maintained inside people's homes. Allowing cats to roam free is not in the best interests of the community’s health and deliberate release or abandonment of feral or domestic cats is not sanctioned under Florida’s conservation and cruelty laws. Based upon F.S. 372.265, cats are not “indigenous” or native to Florida, and due to their adverse impact on wildlife, no permits have been or will be issued by the FWCC to make lawful either the
release of feral/free-ranging cats or the establishment of feral/free-ranging cat colonies. Relocating and releasing non-native species into the wild is a violation of F.S. 372.265 and FAC 68A-4.005.

Just the facts.

Stelco You had the last word are you happy? You didn't change my mind!

Can't teach an old dog. ;)

After I read your last post I looked out my back door and saw two cats watchong the birds at the feeders and birdbathanother watching the fish in the pond. Squirreles eating peanuts but these dangerous cat just basked in the sun. Live and let live.

Using figures provided from sources other than mine, which I assume are biased toward allowing cats to roam and feral cats to be cared for and therefore low:

“In a recent poll, it was estimated that 17.5 million people feed 35.2 million stray and feral cats in the U.S.”

“A wildlife biologist recently said that researchers were "obsessively preoccupied with predation by cats and often overlooked other causes of wildlife depletion." An investigative journalist found many U.S. researchers using the Stanley Temple study in Wisconsin and the Churcher study in Britain, were unaware of the international studies conducted during the past forty years, all clearly reflecting the predominance of feline predation on mammals over birds.

1940, Oregon: Mammals 61.8%, Birds 18.9%, Carrion 10.7% Garbage 8.3%.”

35.2 million cats X killing 18.9% birds = 6 million, 652 thousand, 8 hundred birds killed by feral and free roaming cats annually in the United States. Anyone who believes that this is acceptable needs a reality check. My sources say that cats kill more than 100 million birds annually, but let’s stick with just about 7 million birds. You people call me cruel. It appears to me that cats do a lot more killing than I could ever imagine with an army of bird killers.

People who allow cats to roam are irresponsible and a great threat to their cats and wildlife.

kimmers, Very nicely written! It conveys my feelings about free roaming cats to a T!


To some otheres: I had a friend who had 22 cats ( yes, 22) ~All 'Free Roaming" to which I believe is wrong, But, anyways, I would be over her house at times when some of the cats were hit by cars when they were crossing the street ( I was there and witnised 3 of the hit and run episodes) ( How very sad!!!) I think the sadest one I seen was when one got hit and it broke both back legs and it was crawling across the road to go back home with it's front paws with both back legs streetched out dragging behind it!! ( It had died in her arms) And some of the others had different skin rashes and lumps and bumps from who knows what from being exposed to the outdoors and of course others had gotten into catfights and were pretty mangled up in the face! And then of course, She also was telling me of how they were always getting the baby birds out of the nest's that were around her house, And of course the neihbor across the street was always complaining because the cats were using her property as a litter box and were always in her garbage!! But Geeze, Why should the owner complain??? Theres nothing quite like the smell of cat urine all over your yard even though you don't own a cat!! And so what if you lose a few cats to cars as they don't know better about crossing the street, You have more or can get more, Nothing like really loving your pet!! And besides, No one's going to tell you you should keep your cat in the house!!! And as for all the birds that are killed, Well, Most neglagent cat owners don't really care about the birds that get killed, But if it were law that dogs were allowed lose and they were picking off the cats left and right, I'm sure it would be a whole different story then!!! We 'Don't' need the cats to pick off rodents to use for an excuse, Owls, Hawks, Snakes ect. All do a good job at it!! By the way, I love cats, But "NOT" when it's an '' 'irresponsible neighbors' cat who is using my garden for a litter box, Or who is leaving paw prints and scratches all over my vehicle, Or raiding my birdhouses for the baby birds!! I don't own a cat right now, But, I don't believe I or anyone else should have to put up with all the damage that is done by someone elses cat because they don't feel they should have to keep there cat contained!! So, If the cat gets hits by a car, gets diseased, gives rabies or other diseases to other animals/people, Gets tortured ( As there are some pretty disturbed people out in the world who would enjoy that) Or ends up 'missing' because someone has finally had enough of the damage they have done, Doesn't matter does it?!!~ Because Hey, No ones going to tell you you need to keep your cat contained!!!! Theres nothing like Loving your pet right?!!!!
I agree with you stelco, People don't realize the great jeoperdy they put there cats and wildlife in by being so irresponsible!!!

This message was edited May 11, 2007 12:14 AM

I do agree with you Stelco...rescued this little devil out of a "raccoon trap" and she's become our office cat. She hasn't been outside for 2 years and is in her glory! For a ferel cat, she's become very human loving and has no need for the outside world.

KatG, What a beauty she is!!!! So happy to hear she was rescued from that trap!!!

Hi Iris:

She really is a sweetie! My staff begged me to keep her and I was like...Naaaaaaaah! Only because I have two little Yorkies I bring to work most days. They get along famously though- nobody knows if they are a dog or a cat! hahaha. She's a beauty and I'm glad I could give her a good home.

Sounds to me like she got a GREAT HOME!! And it's so nice that she gets along well with the yorkies!

Nice job KatG!!!

I’ve been made out to be an evil killer and cat hater in this thread.

Trying to explain that hunters control an imbalance in nature caused by humans gets me vilified.

What I didn’t mention (on purpose) is this. I found a feral kitten under a stump near my property line. I took it to the vet and they guessed it to be two weeks old. I took time off of work to wean the kitten and when it was old enough I adopted a friend for him from a no kill shelter. They were both house only cats, but it wasn’t the best choice for them. I lost my house and my cats (everything) to a fire just over a year ago. I went into the smoke twice to try to save my cats. They hide. Because I was only thinking of my cats I forgot my keys and wallet that were right next to the door. I left the burning house without an identity. I only have a few pictures that I happened to have at work of Gimpy and Lucy and I haven’t been able to look at them yet. What some people don’t understand is that if you really love your pets you try to do everything that you can to keep them safe and healthy. Sometimes that’s not even enough. I still think of my cats every day and I guess that I’ll always blame myself for something that I couldn’t do. If I could only have saved those two cats the past year would not have been so difficult.

The evil one.

Stelco I.m sorry to hear about you cats and your home. My heart goes out ot you. We are very fotunate to have very lazy streetwise cats and live in a neighborhood where no one objects to roaming cats. We also have a large pop of birds and squirriles.The cats just look at the other critters and go back to sleep.If I saw them taking an interest in the birds the would be in the house for sure!

stelco, so very sorry to hear about what happened to your cats, your home, and all you lost. It's so devastating! Try not to blame yourself for not being able to save them ( I know it's easy for me to say that but not so easy for someone to do) But sometimes, No matter how hard we try, There are things that are just out of our reach to be able to do anything about. I''m sure they are Happy, Playing, And Waiting to see you at Rainbow Bridg

sir your article is so good i really like its. very useful for us
Pest wildlife control

Thanks for the article, Stelco. Though I don't agree with everything in it, I have a lot to think about now.

This message was edited Aug 6, 2020 10:15 AM

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