07-26-2017, 02:29 PM
I don't know why people keep harping on sterilization being the key to controlling feral cat numbers. First, it's never going to happen.
It took 20 years to close the Peter Boy case and recently a Big Island family starved a girl to death. I see no point in pretending we will enforce an effective zero tolerance policy for un-sterilized cats but not for child murder. Second, cats have been here for 200 years, during most of which there was absolutely no effort to sterilize them. Whatever population explosion was going to happen did and then plateaued when they reached the limit of the environment to support them. The modern phenomenon where feeding cats in the park is now viewed as culturally acceptable instead of bats**t crazy has hugely increased the limit on feral cat population. Feral cats are the Octomom freaks of the predator world. The one thing you can't afford to do is feed them. Unfortunately the one thing the feral cat folks absolutely insist on is feeding them. TNRing them is neither here nor there. It is not impossible to do TNR and have it be better than nothing but TNR is like trying to put out a house fire with a garden hose. Euthanasia is simply a bigger hose. Feeding is the disturbed neighbor throwing gasoline on the fire. The modern application of TNR is essentially feeding with a little sterilization thrown in so the feeders can give themselves an out. It should be called FFFFFtnr.
TNR survives and flourishes because of a severe aversion to common sense, reality checks, definitions, etc. What does it mean for a cat control policy to work? It is often said that we have tried euthanasia for X years and it "hasn't worked". If by worked you mean you ever get to stop doing it understand that nothing will ever work here in Hawaii (or anywhere else for that matter) since it is legal to keep cats and since people are free to come and go from the island with no oversight. Dealing with feral pets will be a maintenance task that we will have to do forever. As to TNR versus removal there is no mechanism by which putting the cats back works better than removing them. Either policy would have to be continued forever. However I reiterate that we are not even getting TNR. We are getting FFFFFtnr. Compared to that removal is the better choice. Almost anything would be better. Doing nothing would definitely be better by which I mean simply reining in the feeding.
ETA: Removed a "g".
It took 20 years to close the Peter Boy case and recently a Big Island family starved a girl to death. I see no point in pretending we will enforce an effective zero tolerance policy for un-sterilized cats but not for child murder. Second, cats have been here for 200 years, during most of which there was absolutely no effort to sterilize them. Whatever population explosion was going to happen did and then plateaued when they reached the limit of the environment to support them. The modern phenomenon where feeding cats in the park is now viewed as culturally acceptable instead of bats**t crazy has hugely increased the limit on feral cat population. Feral cats are the Octomom freaks of the predator world. The one thing you can't afford to do is feed them. Unfortunately the one thing the feral cat folks absolutely insist on is feeding them. TNRing them is neither here nor there. It is not impossible to do TNR and have it be better than nothing but TNR is like trying to put out a house fire with a garden hose. Euthanasia is simply a bigger hose. Feeding is the disturbed neighbor throwing gasoline on the fire. The modern application of TNR is essentially feeding with a little sterilization thrown in so the feeders can give themselves an out. It should be called FFFFFtnr.
TNR survives and flourishes because of a severe aversion to common sense, reality checks, definitions, etc. What does it mean for a cat control policy to work? It is often said that we have tried euthanasia for X years and it "hasn't worked". If by worked you mean you ever get to stop doing it understand that nothing will ever work here in Hawaii (or anywhere else for that matter) since it is legal to keep cats and since people are free to come and go from the island with no oversight. Dealing with feral pets will be a maintenance task that we will have to do forever. As to TNR versus removal there is no mechanism by which putting the cats back works better than removing them. Either policy would have to be continued forever. However I reiterate that we are not even getting TNR. We are getting FFFFFtnr. Compared to that removal is the better choice. Almost anything would be better. Doing nothing would definitely be better by which I mean simply reining in the feeding.
ETA: Removed a "g".