Nēnē Gosling Death Points To Disease Carried By Feral Cats

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

She feeding them out of goodness of her heart ( and pocket )

This graph spells out the problem very well!

Question.  
Will the kind and compassionate cat lady continue to feed the 11 million cats she’s created and would seem to be responsible for (from graph) or will she abandon them to starvation at some point?

[HiloJulie]

Excellent question HOTPE.

I don’t know the answer, but I’m sure that the cat lady would respond with shrill lunatic incoherent screaming, blood curdling laughter and dozens of cats being thrown at you just for even asking questions.

[MarkP]

I am not a complete loser, but I have had problems my entire life. I assume that I am somewhere on the autism spectrum. My life has been an almost constant series of social blunders and failures. Part of that is an inability to read the room. Right now I am deeply frustrated about how people are processing data as it relates to the whole feral cat problem. I clearly should just give up because generally speaking people don't WANT to understand.

The table above is the one I have seen again and again and people just eat it up. The engineering nerd in me demands to know what environment this data applies to because if it is true for the north slope of Alaska then it is definitely not true for Florida and if it is true for Florida then it is not true for Alaska. If I believed that the original author of the data was competent then I would have to conclude that they were lying to me by the mere omission of the needed background information. Much more likely is that the statement (cats reproduce THIS fast), the data used to bolster the statement, and/or the messenger delivering the statement just don't meet the standards to be taken seriously no matter how much they tug at the heartstrings.

The graph above does not spell out the problem well. Look at the bottom line. We have been debating this topic on Punaweb alone for 10 years already and there are not 12,000,000 cats in Hawaii!

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

The table above is the one I have seen again and again 

MarkP, 
I always assumed that calculation was a possibility, not a probability.  Not every litter will survive in the wild. The graph does show how quickly unchecked population growth can get out of hand.

The human population was estimated at 70,000 about 50,000 years ago (or so).  We’re at 8 or 9 billion now.  That’s with war, famine, pestilence, and distraction from reproduction by endless scrolling through social media.

[HiloJulie]

Well Mark, unfortunately there is no statistics for feral cat colonies broken down to specific geographical areas. 

The statistics are nation wide and/or broken down into, as HOTPE says, possibilities versus probabilities. 

What we do know is an unchecked feral cat population will cause catastrophic environmental damage. Further, every institution here on the Big Island charged with regulating environmental impacts as well as wildlife conservation and protection all say feeding feral cat colonies is bad. For the cat as well as all other species, including humans.

And yet we have people, regardless of what facts and statistics show to the contrary, continue to do what THEY think is right. To the detriment of all. 

But then again, the real statistics should be the measurement of human stupidity, as that’s really the core problem.

[MarkP]

My point is not that cats don't reproduce fast; they do. My point is that something else has traditionally been keeping the numbers lower than they would be given the table above, which I actually consider reasonable for what it is. My point is about what the data tells us about how and where to apply our efforts. The cat population is indeed capable of increasing at a shocking rate, and it does, up to the point that lack of food provides an upper limit. Sterilizing our way out of the problem is just about the hardest and slowest way to go but it is favored because it is perceived as being humane. Feeding the cats is also favored again because it is perceived as being humane. In TNR as it is practiced today by volunteers we combine the least effective population reduction measure (sterilization) with a policy that removes the traditional cap to population growth (feeding).

Threading this needle of feeding enough to be humane without making the problem worse would be hard enough but we leave it in the hands of volunteers who proudly consider themselves as righteous crusaders who have earned the right to tell the rest of society to shove it. That's why TNR fails.

[terracore]

The engineering nerd in me demands to know what environment this data applies to because if it is true for the north slope of Alaska then it is definitely not true for Florida and if it is true for Florida then it is not true for Alaska.  

I also don't know anything about the graph but can speak from experience that harsh winters are what limit feral cat populations when people aren't feeding them.  The young, the weak/sick, and the old will perish directly from the cold, the lack of food in the winter can make healthy cats weak enough the cold can kill them.  However, it is the winters that also kill off many of the parasites in the environment that affect cats.  How this relates to the tropics, I do not know.  There isn't the winter cold killing cats but also nothing to diminish the parasite and disease loads in the environment.  Almost all the stray/feral cats we've seen here on the farm were suffering from some kind or multiple ailments including varying degrees of blindness from LFA stings. In Alaska the strays/ferals generally looked healthy until they were found frozen.  TNR programs usually include vaccinations, but they are limited in efficacy because many of them are required to be given in a series to be effective and they only get one in a TNR situation. Also many of the vaccines only work if the animals haven't acquired the disease yet and in many cases they already have them before they are caught.  TNR might be effective if people stop feeding them, but I'm only aware of it being implemented in areas where people are feeding them.  At this point I view TNR as a public relations effort by people who support feeding stray and feral cats and not a viable solution.  The environment is already self limiting in how many cats it can support, it is the feeding that artificially changes this.  Sterilizing some of them might put downward pressure on the population, but it isn't going to restore the balance of what the environment would do naturally if people weren't feeding them.  TNR exists because people are feeding cats, and they want something to point to that falsely demonstrates they aren't part of the problem. TNR doesn't exist because people want a solution to the cat problem, it exists so they can justify continuing to feed them, and it drains limited resources that could otherwise be implemented towards effective animal welfare programs.

[MarkP]

TNR exists because people are feeding cats, and they want something to point to that falsely demonstrates they aren't part of the problem. TNR doesn't exist because people want a solution to the cat problem, it exists so they can justify continuing to feed them, and it drains limited resources that could otherwise be implemented towards effective animal welfare programs.

I agree with this. While a slow reduction might be possible under ideal conditions, those conditions never exist and you would not choose TNR if eliminating the cats were your primary goal.

['elepaio]

Just 'vax' the cats .. done deal.

[HiloJulie]

To put this into a slightly different perspective - and while no "official" tally exists by any agency in Hawaii, it has been generally accepted that an estimated 2,000,000 feral cats roam free in the entire state, with 500,000 each on Hawaii, Maui and Oahu.

There are about 1,400,000 people in the State of Hawaii.

And the 2,000,000 estimated cats DO NOT include the domesticated cats living in homes.

So, I would say we have a cat problem.