Browsing the archives for the Merritt Clifton tag
Wildlife Services’ killing campaigns are not only brutal, costly, and ineffective—they may actually contribute to an increase in the population of the coyotes targeted by the agency.
In the second part of The Sacramento Bee’s three-part series investigating Wildlife Services, published Tuesday, reporter Tom Knudson sheds some light on the dubious rationale behind the agency’s methods. [...]
According to a story in last Saturday’s Akron Beacon Journal, the American Bird Conservancy “estimates there are 90 million wild cats nationwide, part of a free-roaming population that is killing more than a half billion birds annually.”
Beacon Journal readers unfamiliar with ABC’s free-roaming cats “message” probably assumed those “estimates” correspond to real numbers, give or [...]
Once again, the American Bird Conservancy is using scare tactics to gain support for their long-standing witch-hunt against free-roaming cats, this time suggesting a connection between TNR and rabies exposure. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstrate no such connection.
Maybe the folks at the American Bird Conservancy were simply feeling left out, [...]
“Reassessment: A Closer Look at ‘Critical Assessment of Claims Regarding Management of Feral Cats by Trap-Neuter-Return’” has been revised and expanded!
This paper, a brief review and critique of the essay “Critical Assessment of Claims Regarding Management of Feral Cats by Trap-Neuter-Return” by Travis Longcore, Catherine Rich, and Lauren M. Sullivan, now includes sections [...]
Smithsonian magazine is, according to its website, “created for modern, well-rounded individuals with diverse interests” and “chronicles the arts, history, sciences and popular culture of the times.” Jess Righthand’s recent article, “The World’s Worst Invasive Mammals,” seems—despite its inclusion in the online edition’s “Science & Nature” section—better suited for the pop culture category.
Indeed, the story [...]
For years now, the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has been promoting erroneous and misleading information in their tireless effort to vilify free-roaming cats. No organization has been more effective at working the anti-TNR pseudoscience into a message neatly packaged for the mainstream media, and eventual consumption by the general public. Speaking to the Wall Street [...]
In my haste to get my previous post online, I neglected to address a critical point (later brought to my attention by a particularly helpful reader). So, a brief follow-up…
In “Feral Cats and Their Management,” the authors point out—correctly, in this case—that “most feral cats (62 percent to 80 percent) tested positive for toxoplasmosis.” [1] [...]
“Have you seen this already? This is awful.”
That’s what somebody posted on the Vox Felina Facebook page late last night—along with a link to an MSNBC news story. The headline was an attention-getter, no doubt about it: “Report: Kill feral cats to control their colonies.”
But beyond that, MSNBC had practically no details. A little digging [...]
