Vox Felina’s Five-Year Anniversary

It’s difficult for me to believe now, but when I first created Vox Felina five years ago, I worried that I would one day run out of material to blog about. Today, 314 blog posts, 850 subscribers, 4,028 likes on Facebook, and 1,028 Twitter followers later, I can see my concerns were completely unwarranted. Which, of course, is a shame. Like just about everybody else involved in animal welfare, I would like very much to put myself out of business.

As I explained in my first blog post, I see the hijacking of science by TNR opponents as a significant barrier to developing sound public policy. I’ve spent a great deal of energy over the past five years trying to set the record straight, and remain committed to that mission. There is, as regular readers will surely recognize, much work to be done.

There’s also work to be done on the blog itself. Five years on, the layout is looking rather dated; a new look with additional functionality (e.g., responsive theme for easy reading on phones and tablets) is long overdue. And, maybe it’s time to allow comments on each post, too—something I’ve been reluctant to do from the start.

So, stay tuned—and thank you all for your ongoing support.

L.A. Audubon President Puts Wildlife at Risk

Below is a letter I wrote in response to a recent L.A. Weekly story. Unfortunately—especially since I learned this only after compiling and submitting my comments—the paper doesn’t seem to publish any letters, despite providing an online form for precisely this purpose.

Seems a shame to let it go to waste… Read more

Prank Culls

Recent research from Australia finds that lethal methods might actually backfire, increasing an area’s population of free-roaming cats.

While evidence of TNR’s effectiveness continues to mount, the case for the “traditional” approach to community cat management (i.e., complaint-driven impoundment typically resulting in death) grows increasingly indefensible. Of course, the very fact that the debate over “the feral cat problem” persists illustrates the point: if trap-and-kill worked, the evidence would be plentiful by now, and the debate would have ended.

Nevertheless, there are those who cling desperately and inexplicably to the perverse hope that we might be able to kill our way to a day when there are simply no more outdoor cats (including pets). A recently published Australian study, however, challenges such wishful thinking with unusually compelling findings.

Indeed, the researchers involved found that the “low-level culling of feral cats” [1] led not to a population decrease, but an increase in their numbers. And, because the number of cats being trapped decreased over time, it appeared the lethal efforts were actually effective.

Don’t expect a press release from the American Bird Conservancy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, PETA, or any of the other organizations that continue to promote the senseless killing of outdoor cats. Read more