DLNR cat killing apparently to ramp up on Kauai

[MarkP]

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".

[Kapoho Joe]

Time for TNK, trap n kill.

[Hunt Stoddard]

I suggest that no strategy will work unless the general public is on board. In other words, part of the feral cat problem is the "human problem". Even if every feral cat is trapped, euthanized or TNRed, or whatever, if pet owners fail to spay/neuter their pets, then allow them to have litters (up to 12 new cats per year per unspayed female cat), then chase the newborns away, unfixed...well, the problem will regenerate and continue.

If people want to solve the feral cat problem, they need to put money where their mouths are. Publicly fund a program, give them real dollars, real offices, computers, vets, trucks and personnel dedicated to the problem. As is, there are ragtag groups of underfunded volunteers (basically), working in the dark, literally.

[Durian Fiend]

quote:

---

Originally posted by MarkD

Yes, clubbing with sticks. As humans have killed animals for.......oh, say for about 200,000 years.

---

Two thoughts: 1. I imagine that humans in this day and age inclined to club an animal to death would have to be in a state of semi starvation, or have suffered some personal injury from the critter. Otherwise, seems a bit too sadistic for the average person.

2. Michael Jordan in his prime would have difficulty catching and killing a cat by this method. Good luck with that!

But I'm all in favor of reducing the number of feral cats in Hawaii.

And for pet lover balance, I also favor a reduction in non feral dogs. Too damn many of them barking and crapping everywhere.

[terracore]

The stereotype of the 'crazy cat person' has some scientific merit. Cats carry a parasite that infects rodents and humans. The parasite causes rodents to lose their fear of cats, which makes them easier for cats to eat. The parasite life cycle can only be completed in cats, therefore when the parasite modifies the rodent behavior it ensures the parasite survival. The same parasite infects humans and causes personality changes. Some of these changes lead some humans to feed feral cats. I'm not going to do all the googling for you, but here is a start:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...y-changes/
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/1/127
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmo...yndrome.22
http://www.medicaldaily.com/crazy-cat-la...ior-390436

(there are thousands more, you can find them in just a few seconds, reading them takes much longer).

In other words, people who feed feral cats might not be thinking rationally, because they may have a mental illness caused by exposure to the cats themselves. You can't argue with a segment of the population who's mental facilities have been modified by the parasite that requires preservation of cats for it's own survival. I know this sounds like a science fiction conspiracy theory, but if you do any amount of research, and haven't been infected, you will appreciate the facts and research that have been done on this matter. If you want to argue against them, it might not be too late for you to get treatment.

[MarkD]

.. humans in this day and age inclined to club an animal to death...seems a bit too sadistic for the average person.

Back in the day when I was killing feral chickens (am happy I have moved and do not have to bother with that anymore), when I finally caught the birds, I had to dispatch them.

In retrospect I should have got a killing cone (didn't even know what one was then). Hold the birds upside down and put their body in this cone which is about 3 inch wide at bottom. It allows their head to protrude through. And then decapitate with a knife or wring neck or some variation thereof. Standard farming practice, I guess.

I suggest that no strategy will work unless the general public is on board.

Agree. And I doubt that will ever happen. Animal rights folks have been busy spreading their message that all animals must be accepted and valued. (Sound familiar to PC?) In other words there is no such thing as pests.

Recall some years back we even had an individual down in Opihikao who wrote letters to the T-H every week encouraging "integration" of the coquis. (He was even allegedly spreading them). On Oahu people are being taught by the animal rights folks to embrace the feral chickens and peacocks.

Cats are marvelous pets. If we can't even get rid of feral chickens in central Honolulu we are not going to cull feral cats. (Do not doubt that DLNR will be able to cull some cats in remote natural areas, but the closer our land managers get to civilization with this campaign, the more protests that will arise. Favorite tactic of animal rights activists: Vandalizing traps.)

[Hunt Stoddard]

terracore - I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that would prove to be a very dubious scientific proposition. The connection between felines, toxo, and infected rodent behavior is no doubt the product of millions of years of symbiotic evolution. (Unless you're proposing that there were crazy cavewomen).

MarkD - I'm not against the TNR method. If organized and well-funded I'm certain it would work. So there's a record of it not working; a hundred badly funded ad-hoc programs never worked, what a surprise. Consider it this way: Suppose in 1960 Kennedy delivered a speech saying "I propose to end the feral cat problem by the end of the decade..." He'd be laughed off the stage. Trust me, we put a man on the moon; we can solve the feral cat problem.

[kalakoa]

we put a man on the moon

A previous country of the same name was able to accomplish great things.

We are no longer that country today.

See also: microagression, trigger words, safe spaces.

[MarkP]

There is a blueprint for "solving" a feral cat problem that has worked well on dozens of small islands around the world where, similar to putting a man on the moon, a one-time investment of money, resources, and effort can get you there as long as you don't stop part way. The feral cat problem in the rest of the world is vastly different. It is doomed to be an ongoing maintenance problem forever. As such there can never be a solution in the way some people define it. The closest thing we can come to is a lifestyle change. Over the last couple of human generations as people have moved off the farm and distanced themselves more and more from nature, a counterproductive wrinkle in human behavior has developed in which some people dedicate large amounts of time and money to pumping cat chow into the environment. Given that even modest estimates of how quickly cats can reproduce would have the cat population reaching into the billions within 20 years of initial inoculation of the environment and given that 200 years after cats arrived in Hawaii we still only have maybe a few million, if that, it is obvious that something has been limiting the population. In Hawaii there are no predators so that something is primarily a lack of more food and to a lesser degree medical care. The above mentioned practice of pumping cat chow into the environment and vaccinating against disease is resulting in the only possible consequence, an increase in the feral cat population. Sterilization can be a good thing but is almost never done at a great enough rate. It must furthermore be viewed separately from feeding. Sterilizing good if enough of it is done. Feeding bad no matter how little is done. TNR or more accurately FFFFFtnr is the worst combination of compulsive overfeeding and hoarding hidden behind a smokescreen of emotion and rationalized by marginal efforts to sterilize. It is like letting your kids decide when to have dessert or when to do their homework.

I was active in the Civil Air Patrol for many years teaching cadets to fly. Senior members of CAP had criminal background checks so were unlikely to be criminals or pedophiles. However any organization that deals with kids has a risk factor and so there was something called Cadet Protection Program Training. It consisted of a videotape produced by and borrowed from the Boy Scouts where we were admonished not to let non-vetted people volunteer to help out. If someone wanted to help they could darn well go through the proper channels. So that was two nationwide organizations that went out of their way to call attention to the fact that there was one way that they were creating a risk factor so that the risk could be responsibly addressed and mitigated. You wouldn't think that any organization would go out of their way to point out "Hey, what we do actually gives pedos ideas and opportunity" but two major kid oriented organizations do because it is the only way to be responsible and deal with the risk. Now contrast this with feral cat groups. There is no central organization to set any kind of standards. In most instances TNR actually violates ordinances against littering, abandonment, trespassing, and various public health laws so the participants already see themselves as not beholding to the rest of society. Most people would agree that there are cat hoarders in the world meaning people who live in unacceptable conditions with dozens of cats confined in a house with no sense that there is a problem. However if you suggest that TNR programs would attract such individuals like youth programs attract pedos (how could they not) and ask what measures are being taken to prevent hoarders from infiltrating and taking over, the concept is ridiculed and rejected. That right there is proof that the inmates are already running the asylum.

There is only one way to cut through this miasma. The DLNR may finally be finding the spine to do it.

[Hunt Stoddard]

All the more reason to publicly fund a program designed to specifically target the problem; it could be under the DLNR, I don't care. This is the perfect example of concluding something can't be done because nobody ever had the will to properly try. Yes, underfunded ragtag, volunteer/amateur programs rarely succeed.