Browsing the archives for the Michael Hutchins tag
Song Sparrow, Whitby, Ontario. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons and Mdf.
New study attempts to demonstrate how the presence of predators alone can reduce songbird reproduction by bombarding birds with round-the-clock audio recordings of predator noises. One co-author of the study goes further, attempting to implicate cats.
The purpose of scientific inquiry (am I wrong about this?) [...]
As 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, [...]
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 [...]
After cancelling its public webinar in June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service takes its tax-funded witch-hunt against free-roaming cats on the road—and behind closed doors.
When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cancelled its Impacts of Free Roaming Cats on Native Wildlife webinar at the last minute, it was, we were told, due to [...]
“Evidence continues to pile up,” writes Michael Hutchins, Executive Director and CEO of The Wildlife Society, in yesterday’s blog post, “that Toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by a parasite (Toxoplasma gondii) that lives in the guts of cats, may be responsible for serious human health problems.”
Hutchins was referring to a recent study in which researchers found “Infection [...]
On June 25, 2002—nine years ago tomorrow—Akron, Ohio’s Ordinance 332-2002 went into effect.
The “cat ordinance,” as it’s typically called in newspaper accounts, made it illegal for cats to be “off the premises of the owner and not under restraint by leash, cord, wire, strap, chain, or similar device or fence or secure enclosure adequate to [...]
North American Opossum with winter coat. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Cody Pope.
A study published last month in the online open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases suggests a new twist in the relationship between free-roaming cats, Toxoplasma gondii, and toxoplasmosis infections in marine mammals.
“The most remarkable finding of our study,” notes co-author Dr. Michael [...]
Among the findings of a recent study:
Five of 18 cats trapped “between the spring and fall of 2008 and 2009” in central Illinois’ 1,500-acre Robert Allerton Park tested positive for Toxoplasma gondii antibodies. Five of the seropositive cats were trapped at the same site; there, one white-footed mouse (of 21 trapped) also tested positive, and [...]
Given her 15 years’ experience writing the paper’s Pet Tales column, one might expect the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Linda Wilson Fuoco to know something about free-roaming cats and TNR. Or, failing that, leverage her 30+ years as a newspaper reporter and find out.
If her latest column is any indication, though, she’s simply not interested.
The Roundup
Late last [...]
“SF Weekly is San Francisco’s smartest publication. That’s because we take journalism seriously, but not so seriously that we let ourselves be guided by an agenda.”
At least that’s what the paper’s Website says.
Now, as somebody who reads SF Weekly only rarely, I want to be careful not to generalize. But if last week’s feature story [...]
To hear The Wildlife Society’s staunch opponents of TNR tell it, the media’s just not interested in stories about “the impacts of free-ranging and feral cats on wildlife.”
“This January when thousands of blackbirds fell from the sky in Arkansas, articles about mass extinctions and bird conservation were a dime-a-dozen. When the Deepwater Horizon oil [...]
The conversation continues on Audubon magazine’s blog, The Perch, with Travis Longcore doing everything he can to dodge the straightforward question I posed: If TNR and the feeding of feral cats are outlawed, then what will become of the many, many cats no longer receiving human assistance?
Among the topics he prefers to discuss are—and I [...]
In his most recent post, Michael Hutchins (CEO/Executive Director of The Wildlife Society) once again misses the point…
Michael,
As you might imagine, I was disappointed with your response to my post. It was really just more of the same—a vague defense of the peer-review process, scientific publications, and so forth. Meanwhile, you have yet to dispute [...]
“The reason that we have a peer review process is to assess the quality and likely validity of scientific data and their interpretation… One goal of the peer review process is to assess an author’s command of the existing literature and whether or not it is being cited selectively to support the author’s views, without [...]
Although it’s taken me two months to respond, it took less than two weeks for Vox Felina to come under attack by feral cat/TNR opponent Michael Hutchins, CEO and Executive Director of The Wildlife Society. In his post, Hutchins accuses me of trying to “out-science the scientists,” and refers to my critique of the essay [...]
