It Takes a Village

After spending nearly all of Saturday “on standby,” it had become clear by late afternoon: the mother cat, though she’d carefully relocated two siblings, wasn’t coming back for this little one. So, after a quick trip to PetSmart to stock up on supplies, I drove to the home of a former colleague who’d been keeping watch over the family for the previous few days, and, just like that: I had my first bottle baby.

Here’s this tiny kitten, three weeks old at most, in the hands of a complete novice. What could possibly go wrong? I didn’t even want to consider the possibilities. Read more

Three Cats Lost in Fire at Animal Coalition of Tampa Clinic

I should have been working on a blog post to mark the four-year anniversary of Vox Felina—something light and, more likely than not, a little bit snarky. Instead, I found myself staring in disbelief at my laptop screen late Saturday evening, as the news slowly registered: three cats were killed in an early-morning fire at the Animal Coalition of Tampa clinic.

While a dog had apparently managed to escape, a post on ACT’s Facebook page explained that the fire took the lives of “our beloved Jazz, Boy, and Mama.”

Arson is suspected. Read more

O (Environment) Canada!

In “Estimated Number of Birds Killed by House Cats (Felis catus) in Canada,” published late last year in Avian Conservation and Ecology, Environment Canada research scientist Peter Blancher estimates that cats—owned and unowned—“kill between 100 and 350 million birds per year in Canada,” and suggests that this level of predation “is probably the largest human-related source of bird mortality in Canada.” [1]

I submitted the following comments to the journal in response to Blancher’s article, but retracted my submission upon learning that (1) the length is nearly twice as long as what is permitted, and (2) that I would be required to pay an “author fee” of about $340.

I’m not naïve enough to think that posting my comments here is comparable to having them published in ACE, but, given the considerable work involved—and, more important, the obvious policy implications of Blancher’s paper—I think it’s important that they be available. Read more

Faith Misplaced?

Old news: Richard Conniff’s March 23rd op-ed in the New York Times, in which he used his experience of losing a cat he cared for as an opportunity to misrepresent TNR, and vilify animal welfare organizations that support it. Although Conniff’s piece lacks the kind of focus one expects from an op-ed in the Times, it’s clear to anybody familiar with the issue: he’s using all the familiar “science” and scaremongering to justify lethal roundups.

And like so many others who have taken the same position, Conniff is happy to talk about anything except the evidence that lethal methods can do the trick.

The reason, of course, is because such evidence doesn’t exist. Read more