Nico Dauphine Found Guilty of Attempted Animal Cruelty

The H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse, where the Superior Court of the District of Columbia is located. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and AgnosticPreachersKid.

After more than five months of delays, Nico Dauphine was, this afternoon in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, found guilty of attempted animal cruelty. (Sentencing hearing is scheduled for November 21st.)

Apparently, even “super lawyer” Billy Martin—brought in at the last minute—couldn’t save Dauphine. While the security camera footage (at least the portions released to the public via Fox 5 News) didn’t prove to be the smoking gun many expected, it was, it seems, sufficiently damning.

That, and Dauphine’s own testimony—which, I’m told, the judge simply didn’t buy. (Perhaps she was no more convincing in court—as, I’m told, she tried repeatedly to distance herself from her own very public statements opposing TNR—than she was during her infamous “Apocalypse Meow” presentation.)

According to a story in the Washington Post (published shortly after I had this post online), “Senior Judge Truman A. Morrison III said it was the video, along with Dauphine’s testimony, that led him to believe she had ‘motive and opportunity.’”

He specifically pointed to her repeated denials of her writings. “Her inability and unwillingness to own up to her own professional writings as her own undermined her credibility,” Morrison said.

Back in the News
While I’m pleased with the verdict, I think the fact that she’s been found guilty is actually less important than the fact that she didn’t get off the hook, if that makes any sense. This was a story that barely made the news when it first broke, and has been all but forgotten in the intervening months. A guilty verdict—regardless of the particulars—will, I hope, get the media interested again.

And, with any luck, asking some hard questions for a change.

Starting with: How in the hell was Nico Dauphine hired by the Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center in the first place? They had to know her reputation for both misreading and misrepresenting the science in her efforts to vilify free-roaming cats. Yet, her supervisors—including Peter Marra, of course—had Dauphine studying the hunting habits of pet cats.

As I understand it, hers is a highly competitive fellowship—surely there were other candidates who would have been a better fit. (Or maybe not—again, her reputation preceded her. If Dauphine was in fact the best fit, though, what does that say about the Migratory Bird Center and the National Zoo?)

Reactions
It’s going to be interesting to see how others react to today’s verdict.

Last I checked, The Wildlife Society’s Michael Hutchins hasn’t even mentioned Dauphine’s arrest on his blog—this, despite her extensive contribution to The Wildlife Professional (published by TWS) this past spring, when the magazine was devoted to “The Impact of Free Ranging Cats.” Nor have I seen ABC make any kind of statement. Will they remove Dauphine’s Impacts of Free-ranging Domestic Cats (Felis catus) on birds in the United States from the ABC website now that she’s been convicted, or does ABC still stand by her so-called research?

More interesting will be the reaction from those whose cats were lost—or nearly lost—as a result of Dauphine’s “community service” during her days in Athens. I don’t know that today’s decision will feel much like justice for them, though perhaps it’s a start.

Nico Dauphine on Trial (Day 3)

Testimony wrapped up Wednesday afternoon in Nico Dauphine’s attempted animal cruelty trial. Among the witnesses for the Defense: Peter Marra, Dauphine’s advisor at the Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center—who’s previously described TNR as “essentially cat hoarding without walls.” [1] Dauphine took the stand as well, and, as I understand it, did herself no favors career-wise (even in the event she’s found not guilty).

Wednesday evening, Fox 5 News released the surveillance video at the heart of the Washington Humane Society’s investigation. In it, Dauphine is seen attending to some mysterious task—picking up the cat food that was left out by a neighbor, according to the Defense; adding rat poison to it, according to the Prosecution—before entering the building.

A decision is expected Monday afternoon.

Literature Cited
1. Lepczyk, C.A., et al., “What Conservation Biologists Can Do to Counter Trap-Neuter-Return: Response to Longcore et al.” Conservation Biology. 2010. 24(2): p. 627–629. www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/pdf/Lepczyk-2010-Conservation%2520Biology.pdf

Nico Dauphine on Trial (Day 2)

The H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse, where the Superior Court of the District of Columbia is located. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and AgnosticPreachersKid.

It looks like Ed Clark won’t have the opportunity to, in the words of the government’s Motion in Limine to Exclude Testimony of Defendant’s Experts, offer “testimony regarding ideological debate and the environmental effect of cats.” Clark, president and co-founder of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, provided a brief update via the Center’s moderated discussion board Tuesday evening (brought to my attention by a helpful Vox Felina reader):

“I had to go to DC yesterday, to testify in a trial. Just as I crossed the river into DC, the attorney called and said the court was behind schedule and I would not be called… So, I turned around and drove 3 hours back home. I was waiting to be called all day to day. I just found out that the judge has indicated that he is not interested in the area of discussion on which I was to testify, so I am not going at all… In this case, I hope that is good news.”

I’ve yet to hear anything about whether or not the court recording of Dauphine’s July 2008 Athens-Clarke County courthouse appearance—during which she referred to her roundup of neighborhood cats as “community service”—will be allowed as evidence. Her testimony in that case would likely challenge any argument that her actions in the current case were, as her attorneys suggest in their motion of opposition, “reasonable” when it comes to the treatment of outdoor cats (owned or unowned).

Nico Dauphine on Trial (Day 1)

The H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse, where the Superior Court of the District of Columbia is located. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and AgnosticPreachersKid.

After months of delays, Nico Dauphine went on trial yesterday, charged with attempted animal cruelty. And according to court documents, she’s got plenty of help.

Ed Clark, president of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, has been called as an expert witness. Clark is an outspoken critic of “the establishment and maintenance of feral cat colonies in wildlife habitat,” though it’s not clear if he holds the same view of cats in urban areas such as Columbia Heights, where the attempted poisoning is said to have taken place.

It’s also not clear if he’ll actually get to testify (I’m told two witnesses took the stand today, but no names were provided). Earlier this month, government attorneys filed a Motion in Limine to Exclude Testimony of Defendant’s Experts, arguing that “Mr. Clark’s proffered testimony regarding ideological debate and the environmental effect of cats has no probative value with respect to the issue before the Court.”

“Defendant has proffered that Mr. Clark will testify regarding the ‘ongoing debate between veterinary and wildlife conservationists and members of the public who support the feeding and maintenance of feral cats.’ This debate, assuming that comprehension of it is outside the ken of the average layperson, is irrelevant as far as the issue before this Court. The sole issue before the Court is whether Defendant intentionally attempted to poison cats that ate or would have eaten the food left in front of Park Square by Ms. Sterling. In other words, the state of the debate between conservationists and cat enthusiasts will not provide any insight as to whether Defendant committed the acts that have been alleged and which constitute the crime of attempted cruelty to animals. Furthermore, the proffered ‘debate’ testimony does not go toward the United States’ ability to establish any element of the crime charged.

Similarly, ‘the effect of feral cats on the environment,’ which Defendant has proffered also will be the subject of Mr. Clark’s testimony, is not relevant in this case and should be excluded.”

The motion goes to outline the prosecution’s concerns about Clark’s expected testimony regarding the “reasonable steps an expert in this field would take to preclude the feeding of feral cats.”

“The United States assumes that Mr. Clark intends to testify that Defendant, as a wildlife conservationist, would not have poisoned cats in order to prevent the feeding of feral cats. This testimony would beg the question, asking the Court to assume that Defendant acted reasonably. Of course, the United States’ position is that Defendant acted unreasonably—indeed, criminally—by attempting to poison cats.”

“At bottom,” the motion continues, “it appears that Mr. Clark will be called to testify to the ultimate fact at issue in this case: whether Defendant poisoned cats… However, Defendant has not proffered that Mr. Clark has any specialized knowledge of or experience regarding Defendant’s behavior.”

Last week, Dauphine’s attorneys filed a motion in opposition to the government’s motion. They also added “super lawyer” [1] Billy Martin to the team.

Martin is best known for representing such high-profile clients as Michael Vick, NBA players Allen Iverson and Jayson Williams, former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, Monica Lewinsky, and former Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson, though his background includes a stint at the U.S. Attorney’s office “where he quickly rose up the ranks, prosecuting drug dealers, politicians, white collar criminals, corporations, corrupt cops, and organized crime figures.” [1]

A 2007 profile in Ebony describes Martin as one of the nation’s best—one of the few “on that very short list of high-powered, high-priced litigators who the rich and famous, and sometimes the infamous, turn to when they get into really big trouble.” [1]

That’s a lot of fire power for a “misdemeanor carrying a maximum penalty of 180 [days] in jail and a $1,000 fine.” I wonder who’s picking up the tab.

Literature Cited
1.  Harris, R., “Super Lawyers.” Ebony. 2007. 62(11): p. 218–222.

(Animal) Wise Guy III

Thanks once again to Animal Wise Radio hosts Mike Fry and Beth Nelson for having me back on the show Sunday.

Among the topics we discussed were The Wildlife Society’s position statement on Animal Rights Philosophy and Wildlife Conservation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s upcoming Influencing Local Scale Feral Cat Trap-Neuter-Release Decisions workshop, and the recent case of a North St. Paul, MN, man charged with failing to license—and allowing to roam freely—the unowned neighborhood cats he was sterilizing. (Charges were dismissed Friday, though the defendant is facing something like $5,000 is legal expenses.)

If you missed it, you can check the complete show in podcast format. An MP3 file (10 MB) of our conversation (approximately 20 minutes) is available here.

2011 No More Homeless Pets National Conference

I’m off to Las Vegas for the 2011 No More Homeless Pets National Conference! Not sure I’ll have time (not to mention the typing skills) for any live blogging, but I’ll be posting photos and occasional updates on the Vox Felina Facebook page.

Looking forward to the informative workshops, inspirational speakers, and—best of all—catching up with friends and colleagues I don’t see often enough. If you’ll be there, please track me down and say hello.

National Feral Cat Day 2011

National Feral Cat Day 2011 posterAs many of you are no doubt aware, Sunday is National Feral Cat Day, a holiday created 10 years ago by Alley Cat Allies “to raise awareness about feral cats, promote Trap-Neuter-Return, and recognize the millions of compassionate Americans who care for them.” This year, there are more than 320 events planned across all 50 states.

Even so, I’ll bet there are a number of scientists, journalists, and others who—despite devoting a great deal of attention to the topic the rest of the year—have allowed the holiday to sneak up on them, and therefore haven’t made plans. Here, then, are some suggestions for how some of these folks (listed in no particular order) might mark the 10th annual National Feral Cat Day.

•     •     •

Thank you to all those who—whether one day a year or year-round—raise awareness about, and care for, abandoned, stray, and feral cats, and promote TNR.

Hutchins & Co.

The Wildlife Society’s final position statement on Animal Rights Philosophy and Wildlife Conservation pits wildlife conservationists against animal rights advocates, further hampering an already difficult debate about free-roaming cats and TNR.

Last week, The Wildlife Society released its final position statement on Animal Rights Philosophy and Wildlife Conservation (PDF), declaring “that the philosophy of animal rights is largely incompatible with science-based conservation and management of wildlife.”

“The Wildlife Society recognizes the intrinsic value of wildlife and its importance to humanity,” says Michael Hutchins, Executive Director/CEO of TWS. “We also view wildlife and people as interrelated parts of an ecological-cultural-economic whole. But we’re concerned that core beliefs underlying the animal rights philosophy contradict the principles of successful wildlife management and conservation in North America and worldwide.” Those beliefs (listed below) “promote false choices regarding potential human-wildlife relationships and false expectations for wildlife population management,” says Hutchins. “They also undermine decades of knowledge gained through scientific research on wildlife and their habitats.”

At its core, the animal rights philosophy hinges on beliefs that: (1) each individual animal should be afforded the same basic rights as humans, (2) every animal should live free from human-induced pain and suffering, (3) animals should not be used for any human purpose, and (4) every individual animal has equal status regardless of commonality or rarity, or whether the species is native, exotic, invasive, or feral.

Strict adherence to these beliefs would preclude many of the science-based management techniques that professional wildlife biologists use, such as aversive conditioning, the capture and marking of animals for research, or lethal control of over-abundant, invasive, or diseased animals. For example, a recent TWS position statement advocates for control of non-native feral swine to protect and conserve native plants and animals and their habitats and to protect human and domestic animal health, yet this goal would be jeopardized by animal rights philosophy.

Instead of focusing exclusively on the “rights” of individual animals, TWS supports a more holistic philosophy of animal welfare and conservation that focuses on the quality of life and sustainability of entire populations or species of animals and their habitats. This approach allows for the management of animal populations and the use of animals for food or other cultural purposes, as long as any loss of life is justified, sustainable, and achieved through humane methods.

In sum, TWS’ policy regarding animal rights philosophy is to:

1. Recognize that the philosophy of animal rights is largely incompatible with science-based conservation and management of wildlife.

2. Educate organizations and individuals about the need for scientific management of wildlife and habitats for the benefit of conservation and other purposes, and inform people about the problems that animal rights philosophy creates for the conservation of wildlife and habitats and for society as a whole.

3. Support an animal welfare philosophy, which holds that animals can be studied and managed through science-based methods and that human use of wildlife—including regulated, sustainable hunting, trapping, and lethal control for the benefit of populations, threatened or endangered species, habitats, and human society—is acceptable, provided that individual animals are treated ethically and humanely.

“There is a profound conflict between many tenets of animal rights philosophy and the animal welfare philosophy required for effective management and conservation,” says TWS President Tom Ryder. “Established principles and techniques of wildlife population management are deemed unacceptable by the animal rights viewpoint, but are absolutely essential for the management and conservation of healthy wildlife populations and ecosystems in a world dominated by human influences.”

Superior Ideas
Etienne Benson, a research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, provided a remarkably detailed, thoughtful critique of TWS’s statement on his blog, calling TWS’s final position “no surprise,” but “a shame nonetheless.”

“The statement caricatures the animal rights movement and will make it harder for wildlife conservationists and animal protectionists, even many of those who are skeptical of rights-based reasoning, to find common ground.”

“When the leadership of the Wildlife Society asked its members to comment on a draft position statement on animal rights early this year,” writes Benson, “I had some hope that calmer and better-informed minds might improve what then seemed like an intemperate and ill-thought-out attack.”

(Benson, whose “research focuses on the intersection of science and politics in the practice of conservation,” provides readers with an informative, very readable introduction to the subject.)

While I lack Benson’s familiarity with the topic in general, and TWS’s position in particular, I, too, wasn’t surprised at last week’s news. Indeed, the language of the official TWS statement is nearly identical to what’s found in Hutchins’ own writings. In “The Limits of Compassion,” published in the Summer 2007 issue of TWS’s The Wildlife Professional, Hutchins warned of “serious and legitimate concerns regarding the use of compassion, sentimentalism, and animal rights to generate public concern for wildlife and, more specifically, about the possible implications for wildlife management and conservation policy.” [1]

In his 2008 letter to Conservation Biology, Hutchins argues, “Animal rights and conservation ethics are, in fact, incompatible, at the most fundamental level.” [2]

“It would be wonderful if we could all get along, but it is time to recognize that some ideas are superior to others because they clearly result in the ‘greatest good.’ As a conservationist, I reject animal rights philosophy. This unrealistic and highly reductionist view, which focuses exclusively on individual sentient animals, is not a good foundation for the future of life on our planet and does not recognize the interrelationships that exist among various species in functioning ecosystems. It is time to face up to the fact that animal rights and conservation are inherently incompatible and that one cannot be an animal rights proponent and a conservationist simultaneously. To suggest otherwise only feeds into the growing public confusion over animal rights, welfare, and conservation and their vastly different implications for wildlife management and conservation policy (Hutchins 2007a, 2007b, 2008a, 2008b).” [2]

So, where’s TWS’s “superior idea” for feral cat management?

I’ve asked Hutchins directly and gotten nothing but his usual boilerplate response:

“Our position on TNR and feral cat management is based on valid science, established law (the ESA and MBTA), and has high moral ground (both based on animal welfare and conservation principles). We welcome a chance to educate the public about this growing environmental problem.”

And I’m not the only one who’s tried to pin down Hutchins on this point. In July, when Hutchins was (again, to the surprise of no one) singing the praises of a recent Mother Jones article that misrepresented both the threats posed by feral cats and the effectiveness of TNR, he twisted himself into a knot avoiding the real issue. (Instead, Hutchins scolds commenter Walter Lamb, using what’s become a familiar refrain: “I’m afraid that I don’t find you credible to lecture the community of highly trained wildlife professionals about what does or does not have basis in science.”)

More recently, Hutchins’ put an end to any such discourse in the future. Complaining that “the TWS blog site has been recently targeted by feral cat and horse activists,” he announced that TWS would “no longer post comments from non-member individuals who are clearly biased in their thinking, and are arguing in favor of ecologically destructive feral animals based solely on their emotional attachment to these particular animals.”

Inferior Facts
Hutchins and TWS (and here I’m referring only to the organization’s leadership; I doubt very much whether these few truly speak for, as they would have us believe, “over 10,000 professional wildlife biologists and managers”) like to portray their opposition to TNR as science-based (the term is used no less than four times in their recent release alone), despite their abysmal track record when it comes to gathering and presenting the relevant facts.

If TWS was really interested in science-based discourse and action, they would have done a better job pulling together their “facts” for the Spring Issue of The Wildlife Professional’s special section, “The Impact of Free Ranging Cats.”

TWS’s “fact sheets” are no better. “Problems with Trap-Neuter-Release” (PDF), for example, suggests—despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary—that the trap-and-kill approach adopted by Akron, OH, costs taxpayers about $10 per cat. And in their rabies “fact sheet,” TWS misrepresents CDC rabies data, overstating the cost of post-exposure treatment by a factor of seven.

Yet, TWS members—and the general public, of course—are told that it’s the core beliefs underlying the animal rights philosophy that are “undermin[ing] decades of knowledge gained through scientific research on wildlife and their habitats.”

If Hutchins’—and, by extension, TWS’s—ideas are, indeed, superior, why all the dishonesty?

•     •     •

I’m convinced that there’s more common ground between wildlife conservationists and animal rights advocates—including, as Benson points out, “those who believe… both that endangered species deserve special protection and that being a member of a so-called ‘invasive’ species does not automatically make one eligible for carefree extermination”—than Hutchins and TWS are willing to admit. And, therefore, more hope that philosophical differences can be overcome or set aside in order to move the TNR discussion forward.

“If The Wildlife Society wants to continue arguing that all we owe individual animals is efficient use and a pain-free death,” argues Benson, “it’s free to do so. But the rest of us will move on to a version of conservation that is more positive, more open, more humble—more about strengthening connections than building walls.”

While I agree, my hunch is that “the rest of us” actually includes a number of TWS members who are fed up with Hutchins’ witch-hunt against free-roaming cats, and the indefensible tactics he employs in its promotion. What if the greatest threat of “philosophical incompatibility” isn’t from outsiders, but from within his own organization?

Literature Cited

1. Hutchins, M., “The Limits of Compassion.” Wildlife Professional (Allen Press). 2007. 1(2): p. 42–44. http://joomla.wildlife.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18

2. Hutchins, M., “Animal Rights and Conservation.” Conservation Biology. 2008. 22(4): p. 815–816. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.00988.x