I always said domestic cats were only good for target practice!

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Seems Wisconsin has a problem with feral domestic cats, and they want to eliminate it by making them legal to shoot (with some rules of course).

Proposal would make feral cats fair game

So lets hear it, are they a nuisance to be killed out of hand, should they be left alone, or does someone have some other idea of how to control their population (hopefully something that doesn't involve mass expenditure of tax dollars)?

Personally, I think that any cat that comes on to my property should be fair game (and sometimes are ), but I am a cold heartless right wing nutcase!

[ April 13, 2005, 23:26: Message edited by: Blackthorne TA ]

 

I heard them talking about that on the radio a few days ago. Apparently, across the border here in Minnesota, it already is legal to shoot feral cats. That was news to me.

 

Why don't they just sterilize them to control the population? And don't tell me about the expenditure of tax dollars. That is the reason you pay them. To have the state solve some problems. Otherwise we can all take a gun in hand and start solving our problems with bullets.

 

Seems the gov'ner has become the laughingstock of the country. His highly esteemed coleages are looking at Wisconsin and breaking into cackling fits. As such, i heard that the gov., wanting to keep his pride intact, wishes to go against the proposal and find another solution. Pity, the proposal would have made product extremely cheap and easy to come by for certain restaurant's...

^"Otherwise we can all take a gun in hand and start solving our problems with bullets."
Exactly, the gov's appealing to the population base on this one... they have to stay popular in order to get reelected after-all!

 

I don't think it would do much good. Starting to shoot cats in cities would be just plain dangerous and stupid and I think that's exactly what would be the result of this. On the countryside I could understand this but are the cats really of any trouble outside cities? Somehow I this sounds like "rednecks want more things to shoot and those annoying cats would do just fine."

I think trapping would be a much better idea, we used to have a neighbour who did that, and the funny thing is that our other neighbour allways had cats that "mysteriously" disappeared and they didn't have a clue what happened to them. We never had the heart to tell them.

 

Feral domestic cat sounds like an oxymoron to me...but I know what you mean. It wouldn't be such a problem if people spayed and neutered their cats. It's people who started the problem why should the cats suffer? If it poses a danger then yes you should be able to defend yourself but otherwise I say the state helped cause the problem, the state should fix it. Have the cats fixed to prevent future feral cat overpopulation. I'm not big on killing anything, I even catch and release flies. Just call me a warm hearted left wing cat loving nutcase.

 

Exactly what Tal said. In fact, that's the main arguement for the opposition - specifically that people will start shooting other people's pets. Of course it could be deliberate, but quite honestly with the way it is proposed right now, any cat not wearing a collar could be shot, even if it was someone's pet. Furthermore, even if the cat was wearing a collar, you could shoot it, take the collar off, and say it was legal.

 

Cities... Wisconsin?

You sir, have clearly never been to Winsconsin.

Ok, actually Madison is a pretty cool city, but I do believe when they say you must have a hunting license to shoot those lil' angels, you can only do it in, you know, places where hunting is permitted.

Personally I think people have to be responsible with their pets and if they're causing trouble on other people's property (or, eh... reproducing, and subsequently causing trouble), yeah shoot 'em. I wouldn't do it myself, but I'm all for it.

One vote for, "Liquidate the cats!" from a left-wing nutjob (and take away their voting priveleges too!)

Now they need to make a law like that regarding children!

 

Well you are right I've never been to Wisconsis, but hey I live in Finland so I consider places like my hometown Hyvinkää (population 40 000) to be a city, or atleast almost.

Anyway I have to say that ArtEChoke that people should not actually let their cats be free outside nor their dogs. I understand that in many cases a pet might run off but then it's practically the fault of the owner if it gets shot or run over by a car. Still I find the trapping idea to be more reasonable if the cats are really that big of a problem which I doubt they are.

 

I have a problem with barn cats taking a dump in loos hay right where you are trying to work. I'd love to be able to shoot that one, but I don't like guns...

 

It's generally safe to shoot just about any cat, feral or not, so long as it's dark and there's no one around. Some kindly neighbor shot one of ours a year ago; she staggered back into the house, bleeding. The vet couldn't save her. If you could tag the feral cats with a big bullseye, it might work.

 

Even if the cat is not wearing a collar it may have identity of a different sort. Cats can be tatooed or even an identity implant. My cats won't wear collars. They remove them. I don't live in a city and my cats do get out. Live trapping on Wednesdays is permitted here. Our biggest problem is geese mainly because people feed them. Some people also feed the cats which can cause a nusiance to the neighbors.

A law making it legal to shoot cats? Bad idea for all the reasons stated above.

 

Bad idea. My family had two cats; they were allowed to go outside when they wanted. We didn't put collars on them because we were afraid they might get caught on some brush or something and get stuck. They knew how to get home, so they never got lost. (Trust me, cats know where the food bowl is.) And don't worry, Bob Barker would have been proud: we had both cats spayed. Or spaid. Or whatever.

And, as Cernak points out, it is pretty easy to take care of any cat that's causing problems. If you can't shoot it, either because you don't have a gun, or because it wouldn't be safe, just call the animal control folks and they'll be happy to help. As it is, my dad did kill a big old tom that attacked our cats. We called his owners and they didn't do anything about it. One night it made the mistake of attacking Molly right outside the door. Two .22 rounds later, it wasn't hurting them, or anything else again.

The point of this somewhat rambling post is just this: You have a responsibility to take care of your pets. So be responsible.

By the way, it can be pretty hard to see if a cat is wearing a collar, especially at night. And if it's a feral cat, by the time you get close enough to tell, it's somewhere in the next county.

 

Considering the tragedy that this country has gone through in recent years, school shootings, kids getting their parents handguns, amber alerts, and the horrific loss that parents have gone through, that comment is in very poor style. I am not speaking here as a mod, but as a citizen of a nation that has seen more than its share of child shootings, for no good reason, other than a society that has a sick-to-death fascination over guns. Usaually, you show way more class than that, Chokie.

 

Shoot cats? No. No way.

 

Maybe I am biased as I have 2 cats in my house but this will encourage those testosterone fueled men to go shoot peoples pets to satisfy their fragile egos. It might also encourage torture i.e. shooting to cause pain instead of a quick death.

 

In reality, I have nothing against other people keeping cats as pets, but if you have a pet it is your responsibility to keep it contained. If you cat is going on to other people's property, then you better be prepared to kiss your cat goodbye, and it is your fault, not theirs, as you didn't live up to your responsibility.

It this case they are not talking about killing cats in cities. They are talking about eradication of an unnatural species, which was artificially introduced into the environment, and are upsetting the natural balance.

As a side note, my neighbor's cats are safe the first few of times they show up in my yard, but after that they are going to meet with some demise. They either get trapped and then tied out for the coyotes to eat, or shot. Years ago I put out poisoned tuna, but after watching a little girl cry her eyes out after the cat managed to make its way home and die in front of her, I only kill them with either a headshot, or by setting them up to be food for native predators (well they become food either way, coyotes will eat dead cats too). I don't get my jollies off of it. I used to catch them, and then take them back to their owner, but they never took responsibility for them. One person even took their cat, and set it down in front of me and told me that it is "cruel and inhumane" to keep cats contained, and that it is their nature to roam. He also said it was cruel to sterilize them. So his "baby" as he called it ended up in a wolf's belly (lived in a different part of the country back in those days).

I have family that live on farms, and most of them actually take in every stray they can find and they have them fixed to make sure there is not a population problem. Cats keep the vermin down on the farm. Farmers also know that if one of their cats wonders off on to another farmer's land, it is likely to catch a bullet or some buckshot.

[ April 14, 2005, 15:33: Message edited by: Darkwolf ]

 

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!

Maybe my point was a tad oblique... I wasn't trying to trivialize school shootings, jeez. What I was trying to do was to beat the, "well this just opens up the door to legally shooting: dogs, cows, whales, mooses, antelopes, coyotes, pumas, condors, iguanas, cotamundi, koala bears, and pandas" argument to the punchline. Because if I'm for, "cat shootings" then I must clearly be a nutjob who's open to all these other great things... bah, nevermind.

I'm like school on Thanksgiving... no class!

Ok, now knowing the state Wisconsin, on a casual level anyway (having been there once or twice), I can tell the people here who think this is insane that Wisconsin has a LOT of wide open area. Its the kind of place where you can get a good amount of distance between your house, and someone else's house. Lots and lots and lots of distance.

Now this is pure speculation on my part, but I'm guessing, that due to sheer amount of space available to these guys, raising animals is not uncommon, in a farming-sorta-sense. I'm also guessing that if these cats are reproducing out there (no ownership, responsiblity or doctors treatment of said cats) these things are more-or-less wild animals with happy-fun-diseases and everything. I've seen cats that have gone feral, they're scary, and I completely understand why someone wouldn't want these filthy hostile things hunting on their property.