Posts tagged with Nico Dauphiné

“Cat Wars” Roadshow, Part 1

23 Feb 2017

Somebody needs to explain to the folks at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University the importance of managing expectations. According to the institution’s Facebook page, Peter Marra, who’s speaking this evening as part of its Town Square series, “will outline the evidence he and co-author Chris Santella have presented in their new book Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer.”

“He will discuss the scientific evidence confirming that free-ranging cats are killing birds and other animals by the billions and the devastating public health consequences of rabies and parasitic Toxoplasma passing from cats to humans at rising rates.”

Spoiler alert! Marra and Santella provide no such “evidence” in their book.

That’s not to say that Marra won’t have plenty to talk about of, course. Earlier this month, he ramped up his campaign of misinformation, scaremongering, and magical thinking with an appearance on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight in which he further misrepresented his junk science.

So, who knows what he’ll come up with tonight.

It’s more than a little troubling to see the Academy promote Marra’s witch-hunt, hosting him as part of a program “designed to engage and provide relevant educational content to the public on environmental issues.”

“Town Squares focus on critical global issues in environmental science by featuring prominent thought leaders and their findings on biodiversity, freshwater issues, climate change, and evolution. Environmental advocates, scientists, and community members come together for an opportunity to further their knowledge about environmental and sustainability matters through accurate, real-time scientific information.”

I don’t know about other events in the series, but I think it’s safe to say that many attendees of tonight’s talk will leave the venue less knowledgeable, not more.* On the other hand, if they’re looking for “real-time information,” Marra’s shown he’s more than willing to make up his “facts” on the fly.

* Even so, I’m sure Marra will have his supporters. Indeed, somewhere in the audience might be his former colleague, Nico Dauphiné, who left her prestigious post-doc position at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center after she was found guilty of attempted animal cruelty. Now Nicole Arcilla, she’s a post-doc researcher in Drexel’s Biodiversity, Earth, and Environmental Sciences department.

Thinking Inside the Box

29 Jul 2014

It’s difficult to determine how these things get started—how the results of a well-documented experiment conducted nearly 40 years ago become twisted into the frequently made—and widely-accepted—claim that “even well-fed cats hunt.”

This would appear to be a case of validity through repetition: repeat a claim often enough and, eventually, people will come to believe it’s true—never bothering to check the original source. (Pro Tip: For added efficacy, click the heels of your ruby-red slippers together while repeating the claim.)

This, it should go without saying, is not how science is supposed to work. Read more

New York: Where’s Your Grit?

12 Jun 2013

“I’m pretty sure both sides are going to hate it,” warned New York magazine writer Jessica Pressler, referring to her feature for this week’s issue, “Must Cats Die So Birds Can Live?” When I first spoke to Pressler in March, she’d indicated that she knew the subject was complex. Her most recent e-mail, however, sent just a few days before the story was published, made it clear that the piece had taken an unfortunate turn: “In the end there were so many different bits that needed to be covered,” Pressler explained. “A lot of it ended up being about the argument between the two sides.”

Still, hate is a strong word. How about enormously disappointed? Read more

The Show Must Go On!

4 Feb 2013

On May 25, 2011, J. Scott Robinson, Director of the Office of Sponsored Projects for the Smithsonian Institute, sent a three-page proposal (PDF) to Randy Dettmers, a biologist in the Division of Migratory Birds for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, outlining the scope and budget for a project called “Effects of subsidized predators on bird populations in an urban matrix.”* The work was to begin in just one week and continue through the end of September, conducted by Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute researchers Peter Marra and Nico Dauphiné.

“We look forward to working with you on this important project,” Robinson wrote in closing.

The budget request was just $14K, but it’s difficult to imagine any proposal being approved and funded in a week—never mind one with a three-day holiday weekend. For this particular proposal, though, there was more than the usual bureaucracy to contend with.

Two weeks earlier, on May 11, Dauphiné had been arrested, charged with attempted animal cruelty for trying to poison neighborhood cats outside her Park Square apartment building. Read more

More Kitty Cams and PR Scams

9 Sep 2012

“There’s hostility to lying, and there should be.” —Bob Woodward

With just six minutes and 34 seconds to play, I don’t imagine readers got very far with their bingo cards during Friday night’s episode of 20/20 (“The Camera Never Lies: Kitty Cam Killers”). (My apologies for not including Killing Spree—I should have seen that one coming.) It was clear, though, from the footage of George Fenwick’s interview, that things could have played out very differently—the president of the American Bird Conservancy had his talking points down. Read more

Kitty Cams and PR Scams

6 Aug 2012

In a joint media release, the American Bird Conservancy and The Wildlife Society team up to misrepresent the results of a recent predation study, decrying the “ongoing slaughter of wildlife by outdoor cats.” Meanwhile the University of Georgia researcher contradicts her previous position that “cats aren’t as bad as biologists thought.”

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.” —Edward R. Murrow

“‘KittyCam’ Reveals High Levels of Wildlife Being Killed by Outdoor Cats,” declares a media release issued today—a joint effort of the American Bird Conservancy and The Wildlife Society, and, to my knowledge, the first of its kind.

It’s difficult not to see this as an act of desperation—the PR-equivalent of an all-caps e-mail. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner, though, given all that ABC and TWS have in common. Their shared disdain for TNR, obviously, but also their utter disregard for science, scientific literacy, and the truth about the impacts of free-roaming cats. Two peas in a pod, as it were. (Irony: peas are, alas, not native to North America.)

And so, their joint media release is exactly what one would expect: heavy on errors, misrepresentations, and glaring omissions, and light on defensible claims. Read more

The Annotated Apocalypse Meow

16 Apr 2012

In the current issue of The Washingtonian, senior writer Luke Mullins provides the most comprehensive profile yet of former Smithsonian researcher Nico Dauphiné, convicted last October of attempted animal cruelty. Most telling are his conversations with her unwavering supporters, who—in spite of the evidence, her well-documented history, and her miserable performance on the stand—continue to make excuses for her.

In the five months since she was convicted of attempted animal cruelty, former Smithsonian researcher Nico Dauphiné has enjoyed a respite from the largely unflattering media spotlight. All that changed in the past few weeks, though—first with Conservation magazine’s “Cat Fight,” and now with a 6,100-word feature in the April issue of The Washingtonian.

In “Apocalypse Now,” senior writer Luke Mullins digs into Dauphiné’s DC court case, as well as her previous “community service” in Athens, GA. The Nico Dauphiné that emerges is a far cry from the sympathetic character portrayed in “Cat Fight”—where, for example, writer John Carey laments: “Unfortunately, the strange case of the accused cat poisoner didn’t end well.” [1]

Although Mullins was unable to speak with Dauphiné for the piece, his conversations with people close to Dauphiné—as well as many who observed her mistreatment of cats—are illuminating. Read more

Fight or Flight?

26 Mar 2012

“Cat Fight,” which appears in the latest issue of Conservation magazine, does little to cut through the rhetoric or clear up the numerous misrepresentations that plague the debate over free-roaming cats.


There is, it’s often said, no such thing as bad PR. Even so, I’m not thrilled with the way I’m portrayed in an article appearing in the current issue of Conservation. It’s only a couple of quotes, but still, I worry that I come off as more of a bomb-thrower than anything else.

“Wolf writes a blog, Vox Felina,” explains writer John Carey, in “Cat Fight,” “which regularly excoriates wildlife biologists for what Wolf calls their ‘sloppy pseudo-science.’ He charges that ‘the science in Dauphine’s paper about cats was so horrific that she should have never made it out of graduate school’ and that ‘Peter Marra is taking six bird deaths and predicting the Apocalypse.’”

As I told Carey via e-mail, just after the piece was published online, I don’t believe the quotes are accurate. Carey, on the other hand, assures me (in a cordial, professional manner typical of our exchanges) that “the quotes are exactly what [I] said.” (Neither of us recorded our conversation.)

“I know I realized immediately when you said those things that they were precisely the type of colorful statements that illustrate the nature of the debate, so I did appreciate you using such colorful language.”

Fair enough. Perhaps it’s not all the important if the content isn’t precisely correct—the tone is certainly accurate.

If I am a bomb-thrower, though, I am at least a well-informed bomb-thrower. And the “targets”—to extend the metaphor—have, simply put, got it coming to them. Carey acknowledges that I “do an excellent job scrutinizing the scientific evidence, and have clearly thought deeply about both sides of the issue.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t come across to Conservation readers.

That said, I want to make it clear: I’m grateful to have been included in the piece, and grateful, too, for my conversations with Carey. And whatever quibbles I have about my portrayal pale in comparison to various other aspects of “Cat Fight.”

Stuffing the Ballot Box
Referring to Peter Marra’s well-publicized catbird study, Carey writes: “Predators nabbed nearly half the birds, and cats were the number one predator.” [1]

Number one predator?

Certainly, this was the message Marra emphasized to the press—but I thought I’d straightened this out with Carey on the phone, and with a follow-up e-mail.

Here’s what Marra and his colleagues report in their paper:

A total of 69 fledglings were monitored, of which 42 (61 percent) died over the course of the study. Of those mortalities, 33 (79 percent) were due to predation of some kind. Eight of the 33 predatory events were observed directly: six involved domestic cats, one a black rat snake, and one a red-shouldered hawk.

That leaves 25 predation events (76 percent) for which direct attributions could not be made—which, in and of itself, raises serious questions about Carey’s “number one predator” claim.

About those other 25: Marra and his co-authors concede that “not all mortalities could be clearly assigned.” Seven were attributed to rats or chipmunks because they were “found cached underground,” while another one was attributed to birds because the remains were found in a tree.

In addition, 14 mortalities “could not be assigned to a specific predator.” Which leaves three: “fledglings found with body damage or missing heads were considered symptomatic of cat kills.” [2]

In fact, it’s rather well known that such predatory behavior is symptomatic not of cats, but of owls, grackles, jays, magpies, and even raccoons [3–5]—something I addressed in an October 2010 post (and discussed with Carey).

All of which is difficult to reconcile with Marra’s claim, in “Cat Fight,” that he and his colleagues “were very conservative assigning mortality to cats,” [1] and with his apparent confidence (shared by Carey) in putting cats at the top of the list.

Curious, too, that, although Carey opens his article with Nico Dauphine’s December 2011 sentencing hearing, he never mentions the fact that Marra was Dauphine’s advisor at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. (I suppose the connection isn’t something Marra brags about these days.)

The Cats Came Back
Carey argues that “moving cat colonies away from areas that harbor threatened species is a no-brainer” but points out that “it doesn’t always work.”

“In Fortescue, New Jersey, a colony of feral cats was moved away from the shore of Delaware Bay in 2011 to help protect red knots, which stop there in huge numbers to gorge on horseshoe-crab eggs to fuel their long migration from the tip of South America to the Arctic. But after only a few months, cats were back.” [1]

Here, I’ll defer to Animal Protection League of New Jersey attorney Michelle Lerner, whose comment was the first posted after “Cat Fight” was available online:

“The details about the Fortescue cats, with which I was involved, are incorrect. The colony was not ‘moved,’ it was removed completely. 40 cats were moved to a fence enclosure on a farm several counties away, 7 went to a sanctuary in another state, others went to barns or were friendly enough to be adopted. Removal was used, which is what the anti-TNR people always want. The only difference is the cats were not killed—something that was possible because of limited numbers. It is true that, due to the vacuum effect, different cats then showed up. The nonprofit doing the removal keeps trapping there in coordination with animal control to try to get them all. A few per month show up. But this is why TNR advocates warn removal never really works without intensive management and repeat trapping, and why statistical studies have shown it takes 10 times the effort to control a colony through removal as through TNR. Because there is a reason the cats were there in the first place and more will just move in—more who are unneutered—if the cats are removed.”

It’s worth pointing out, too, that, unlike the current relocation effort, taxpayers would be footing the bill for an ongoing lethal roundup.

And I wish Carey had included a bit of additional context here. The greatest threat to those red knots, from what I can tell (admittedly, doing nothing more than a quick Google search), has little to do with cats being fed nearby. According to The Wetlands Institute:

“…overharvesting of female horseshoe crabs by commercial fishermen, coupled with loss of spawning habitat resulting from beach erosion associated with sea level rise, has resulted in a precipitous decline in the Delaware Bay horseshoe crab population, and therefore the number of eggs available to feed migratory birds. This, in turn, has led to a dramatic decrease in the size of annual red knot migrating populations, to the point that red knots have been proposed for federally endangered status.”

Indeed, the Delaware Nature Society reports: “In 2008, New Jersey placed a moratorium on horseshoe crab harvests until the red knot numbers rebound.”

The Scientific Community v. The People of the District of Columbia
If Marra hasn’t come to Dauphine’s defense, Chris Lepczyk has—with the kind of confidence he (and Marra) usually reserve for vilifying free-roaming cats.

“‘I am 100 percent confident she was not poisoning cats,’ says University of Hawaii wildlife ecologist Christopher Lepczyk, who fears that she was convicted in part because of her articles about the cat-predation problem. ‘I don’t think anyone in the scientific community agrees that she is guilty.’” [1]

That’s quite an endorsement—especially in light of… you know, the facts.

On December 14th, the day Dauphine was sentenced, CNN reported that Superior Court Judge A. Truman Morrison III “said he had received a number of letters from people who know Dauphine.”

“He said such letters usually try to make a case that the verdict was in error, but in this case, the judge said, no one quarreled with the guilty verdict… Morrison said it was clear from letters written by Dauphine’s colleagues that ‘her career, if not over, it’s in grave jeopardy.’ The judge said that was already partial punishment for her actions.”

But Lepczyk’s right when he says the verdict was, in part, the result of Dauphine’s writings—just not in the way he suggests. Indeed, the day Dauphine was found guilty, The Washington Post reported: “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.”

All of which—not to put too fine a point on it—was included in my numerous posts following the case. Perhaps Lepczyk ought to subscribe to Vox Felina.

I’ve been saying for nearly two years now that Dauphine’s professional work on the subject of free-roaming cats—cited and promoted with great enthusiasm before all this nasty press attention—is as indefensible as the actions that landed her in DC Superior Court. It’s a shame Carey didn’t pin down Lepczyk (and others) on that point.

Numb and Numb-er
If Carey included me in “Cat Fight” because of my colorful language, I have to imagine Stephen Vantassel, project coordinator of distance education for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s School of Natural Resources, was included for his unintended irony.

Referring to the toll cats take on wildlife, Vantassel told Carey, “The numbers are mind-numbing.” [1]

Actually, “mind-numbing” is a fitting description for the content of, and motivation behind, Feral Cats and Their Management, the well-publicized paper Vantassel co-authored in late 2010. Not only do the authors fail to get a handle on the predation numbers, they reveal a significant lack of understanding of the key issues surrounding cats and predation in general. Indeed, they misread, misinterpret, and/or misrepresent nearly every bit of research they reference. And, some of what the authors include isn’t valid research to begin with.

Two years later, it seems he’s still got nothing to contribute to the discussion.

OK, maybe that’s being too harsh. Consider what Vantassel has to say, in the sidebar that accompanies “Cat Fight,” about the uncertainty surrounding the legal status of free-roaming cats: it “has essentially turned outdoor cats into protected predators.” [6]

Protected predators?

Now, here’s a subject Vantassel knows well. After all, his PhD (theology) dissertation was dedicated to: “…fur trappers who, every winter, brave the harsh weather in continuance of America’s oldest industry. Regrettably, they must also endure the ravages of urban sprawl and the derision of an ungrateful and ignorant public.” [7]

Wisconsin: Landmarks and Mirages
My greatest disappointment with “Cat Fight”—one shared by others I’ve spoken with—is Carey’s inclusion of the infamous “Wisconsin Study.”

“In a landmark study in Wisconsin, Stanley Temple, now professor emeritus of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin, and his colleagues radio-collared free-ranging rural cats, watched the animals’ hunting behavior, and examined their stomach contents. (An inflammatory and inaccurate press report that implied that the researchers had killed the cats for the stomach contents—in fact, they used an emetic—led to death threats against Temple.) The study showed that each cat killed an average of 5.6 birds a year. With an estimated 1.4 million free-ranging rural cats just in Wisconsin, that’s nearly 8 million birds.” [1]

When I spoke with Carey, he’d already talked to Temple. And when he referred to a predation study Temple had done, I stopped him in his tracks: If Temple conducted any such work, it was never published.

What has been published involved combining cat density numbers Temple and graduate student John Coleman had gathered by surveying “farmers and other rural residents in Wisconsin for information about their free-ranging (not house-bound) cats” [8] with predation numbers from studies conducted in the 1930s and 1950s. All of which is explained in a 1992 article the two wrote for Wildlife Control Technology:

“…our four year study of cat predation in Wisconsin, completed in1992, coupled with data from other studies, allows us to make a reasonable estimate of birds killed annually in this state… At the high end, are estimates from diet studies of rural cats that indicate at least one kill per cat per day, resulting in over 365 kills per cat per year [9–11]. Other studies report 28 kills per cat per year for urban cats, and 91 kills per cat per year for rural cats [12].” [13]

“Using low values,” then, Temple and Coleman multiplied their estimated 1.4 million rural free-roaming cats in the state by 28 (“twice urban kill rate”), and then multiply that by 20 percent (the “low dietary percent,” as they call it, though it’s actually a gross misinterpretation of Mike Fitzgerald’s work, as Ellen Perry Berkeley points out in her 2004 book TNR Past Present and Future: A history of the trap-neuter-return movement [14]). The resulting “estimate” is “7.8 million birds killed annually.”

Twenty years later, though, the story seems to have changed dramatically.

Now, we’re to believe that Temple and Coleman’s study (funded, by the way, with “about $100,000 … from the [University of Wisconsin], U.S. Agriculture Department and the state Department of Natural Resources” [15]) revealed an average predation rate of 5.6 birds/year/cat. And that the 7.8 million figure comes not from “coupling” Temple and Coleman’s density work with others’ predation studies, but from their work alone.

Or perhaps the two methods resulted in exactly the same estimate.

Which, as I told Carey after reading the article, would be one hell of a coincidence. In fact, the very sources he cites call into question—if not discredit entirely—Temple’s claim.

Simply put: Carey failed to dig into this deeply enough. Instead of further perpetuating the myth of the Wisconsin Study, he might have exposed it for what it is: little more than a few misguided (and overpriced) back-of-the-envelope calculations—which Temple himself backed away from during a 1994 interview with The Sonoma County Independent: “They aren’t actual data; that was just our projection to show how bad it might be.” [16]

Or, failing that, then at least ignore the thing entirely.

Landmark study? Only insofar as it was instrumental in launching what’s become a witch-hunt against free-roaming cats in this country.

•     •     •

According to the magazine’s website, “Conservation stories capture the imagination and jump-start discussion.” Unfortunately, I don’t see “Cat Fight” adding much to the discussion—a missed opportunity in a debate where such opportunities are few and far between.

I agree with Carey that, as he notes in the article’s closing paragraph, “these great societal debates … are contested on a battleground of conflicting emotions, moral values, and ideologies. Facts alone rarely break up the fight.”

On the other hand, I don’t see how we’re going to break it up if we don’t first get the facts straight.

Literature Cited
1. Carey, J., “Cat Fight.” Conservation. 2012. March. http://www.conservationmagazine.org/2012/03/cat-fight/

2. Balogh, A., Ryder, T., and Marra, P., “Population demography of Gray Catbirds in the suburban matrix: sources, sinks and domestic cats.” Journal of Ornithology. 2011: p. 1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10336-011-0648-7

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/scbi/migratorybirds/science_article/pdfs/55.pdf

3. Thompson, B., The Backyard Bird Watcher’s Answer Guide. 2008: Bird Watcher’s Digest.

4. Bird, D.M., “Crouching Raptor, Hidden Danger.” The Backyard Birds Newsletter. 2010. No 5 (Fall/October).

5. Anderson, T.E., Identifying, evaluating and controlling wildlife damage, in Wildlife Management Techniques. 1969, Wildlife Society: Washington. p. 497–520.

6. Carey, J., “The Uncertain Legal Status of Cats.” Conservation. 2012. March. http://www.conservationmagazine.org/2012/03/legal-status-of-cats/

7. Vantassel, S.M., Dominion over Wildlife?: An Environmental Theology of Human-Wildlife Relations. 2009: Resource Publications.

8. Coleman, J.S. and Temple, S.A., “Rural Residents’ Free-Ranging Domestic Cats: A Survey.” Wildlife Society Bulletin. 1993. 21(4): p. 381–390. http://www.jstor.org/pss/3783408

9. Errington, P.L., “Notes on Food Habits of Southwestern Wisconsin House Cats.” Journal of Mammalogy. 1936. 17(1): p. 64–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1374554

10. Parmalee, P.W., “Food Habits of the Feral House Cat in East-Central Texas.” The Journal of Wildlife Management. 1953. 17(3): p. 375-376. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3797127

11. Eberhard, T., “Food Habits of Pennsylvania House Cats.” The Journal of Wildlife Management. 1954. 18(2): p. 284–286. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3797736

12. Mitchell, J.C. and Beck, R.A., “Free-Ranging Domestic Cat Predation on Native Vertebrates in Rural and Urban Virginia.” Virginia Journal of Science. 1992. 43(1B): p. 197–207. www.vacadsci.org/vjsArchives/v43/43-1B/43-197.pdf

13. Coleman, J.S. and Temple, S.A., “How Many Birds Do Cats Kill?” Wildlife Control Technology. 1995. July–August. p. 44. http://www.wctech.com/WCT/index99.htm

14. Berkeley, E.P., TNR Past present and future: A history of the trap-neuter-return movement. 2004, Bethesda, MD: Alley Cat Allies.

15. Imrie, R. (1997). Professor Says Predatory Cats Are Taking Toll on Ecosystem. St. Paul Pioneer Press, p. 1B,

16. Elliott, J. (1994, March 3–16). The Accused. The Sonoma County Independent, pp. 1, 10,

Game On!

30 Jan 2012

Be prepared for the next news story, media release, position statement, local ordinance, House or Senate bill, or government report that (intentionally or not) misrepresents free-roaming cats’ impact on wildlife and the environment, public health threat, etc. with Feral Cat Witch-hunt Bingo!

Downloadable PDF includes four bingo cards and 120 chips.

2011 Trap Liner Award

30 Dec 2011

Referring to a particularly poor piece of journalism, a friend of mine suggested—recalling the irreverent moniker her late husband had given their own local paper—the newspaper in which it had appeared was perhaps best used for lining birdcages.

Twenty months into this blog, I’ve encountered my share of yellow journalism infecting both small-town weeklies and, with surprisingly regularity, major dailies. Indeed, in one of my first posts, I referred to an L.A. Times piece in which Steve Holmer, senior policy advisor for the American Bird Conservancy, told the paper (one assumes, with a straight face) that there are 160 million feral cats in the U.S. (based, he claimed, on “the latest estimates,” which, as it turned out, originated with former Smithsonian researcher Nico Dauphine).

A year later, Toronto Star reporters Mary Ormsby and Jim Wilkes filed a truly pathetic story portraying—clearly, without the burden of fact-checking—“bird advocates… up against a multi-million-dollar cat-care industry.” And over the summer, The Columbus Dispatch joined the chorus of publications pedaling the infamous University of Nebraska-Lincoln paper (not fit even for birdcage duty, that one) as if it were valid research.

And then there was Peter Marra’s (pr)op(aganda)-ed in The Washington Post.

The list goes on and on. All of which got me thinking… Inspired by my friend’s “birdcage liner” story, and by Nathan Winograd’s Phyllis Wright Awards (“given to those who epitomize everything that is wrong with our broken animal ‘shelter’ system”), I bring you the Trap Liner Award.

Just as some papers are best for lining birdcages, others are well-suited for lining the humane traps used for TNR work. Some, of course, are better (meaning worse) than others. The Trap Liner Award recognizes the writer or publication that, over the course of a given year, best demonstrates a tragic failure of journalistic integrity while fueling—intentionally or not—the witch-hunt against feral cats.

Competition in 2011—the first year of the Trap Liner Award—was fierce.

“Live and Let Kill,” Matt Smith’s feature for SF Weekly, looked to be a shoo-in, due largely to Smith’s poor choice of sources—among them, ABC and Travis Longcore—and “evidence” pulled from Jonathan Franzen’s most recent novel and Peter Marra’s catbird research (the reports of which themselves border on fiction). This from a publication that claims to be “San Francisco’s smartest.”

Three months later, however, another San Francisco publication—Mother Jones—raised (meaning, lowered) the bar with Kiera Butler’s “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” As I mentioned in my July 1 post, the misinformation, misrepresentations, and missteps that make up the bulk of “Faster, Pussycat!” betray either willful ignorance or glaring bias. Or both.

(Of these, only Butler’s population estimate was later corrected in the online version of the story—where, at last check, there were 1,646 comments—and where, interestingly, the title was softened considerably to “Are Cats Bad for the Environment?”)

In the end, it was the combination of Butler’s sloppy journalism—combined with the magazine’s impressive circulation of 250,000 and the irony of all their chest-thumping about bullshit-busting and “smart, fearless journalism”—that clinched it for MoJo.

And so, the 2011 Trap Liner Award goes to Kiera Butler and Mother Jones.

•     •     •

In just a couple days, I’ll start compiling entries for 2012. Happy new year.

Nico Dauphine: A Different Kind of Community Service

14 Dec 2011

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

More than seven months after she was charged with attempted animal cruelty—and six weeks after her eventual conviction—former Smithsonian researcher Nico Dauphine was sentenced today to a $100 fine and 120 hours of community service. (The maximum penalty for attempted animal cruelty, a misdemeanor in Washington, DC, is a $1,000 fine and 180 days in jail.)

The case began when one of Dauphine’s neighbors found rat poison in the cat food she puts out for the neighborhood cats. The Washington Humane Society was then called in to investigate. Surveillance video, combined with what Senior Judge Truman A. Morrison III described as Dauphine’s “inability and unwillingness to own up to her own professional writings” on the stand, proved sufficient for a guilty verdict—prompting Dauphine’s immediate resignation.

Court records indicate that Dauphine will be subject to 12 months of supervised probation (unsupervised if her community service is completed early).

Unlike Dauphine’s previous “community service”—her term for the roundup of cats in and around her Athens, GA, home—she is, while on probation, prohibited from “employment or community service with intentional or purposeful contact with cats.”

CNN reports that Superior Court Judge A. Truman Morrison III “said he had received a number of letters from people who know Dauphine.”

“He said such letters usually try to make a case that the verdict was in error, but in this case, the judge said, no one quarreled with the guilty verdict… Morrison said it was clear from letters written by Dauphine’s colleagues that ‘her career, if not over, it’s in grave jeopardy.’ The judge said that was already partial punishment for her actions.”

Dauphine, apparently, had little to say. According to the CNN story, “she said she was ‘very ashamed’ to have disappointed her supporters and knew that she faced an ‘enormous task ahead’ to regain their esteem. She declined to answer questions from reporters after her court hearing.”

Lisa LaFontaine, president and CEO of the Washington Humane Society, who attended today’s hearing, told reporters, “We are delighted that justice was served today.”

While I commend WHS for their tenacity throughout this investigation, I don’t see that justice was served in this case at all. Worse, Dauphine’s slap on the wrist sends a clear message to others who would take matters into their own hands, and to the general public: “that,” as Becky Robinson, co-founder and president of Alley Cat Allies, put it in a May 26 news release, “the lives of cats have no value.”

In Search of Common Ground

24 Nov 2011

It’s always good to see the Humane Society of the United States supporting and promoting TNR. After all, it wasn’t all that long ago when HSUS was on the other side of the issue. In 1997, when the American Bird Conservancy launched its Cats Indoors! campaign, the organization was “singled out as its ‘principal partner in this endeavor.’” [1]

On Monday, President and CEO Wayne Pacelle, waded into the feral cat/wildlife debate on his blog (brought to my attention by a helpful reader), noting that HSUS “work[s] for the protection of both feral cats and wildlife.”

HSUS is, says Pacelle, “working to find innovative, effective, and lasting solutions to this conflict.” In Hawaii, for example (“an ideal environment for free-roaming cats and a global hotspot for threatened and endangered wildlife”) HSUS is “meeting with local humane societies, state and federal wildlife officials, non-governmental organizations, and university staff to find solutions to humanely manage outdoor cat populations and ensure the protection of Hawaii’s unique wildlife.” (HSUS may want to add Hawaii’s various Invasive Species Committees to that list. If recent efforts are any indication, they’re contributing to the environment impact.)

I can certainly understand HSUS’s current focus on Hawaii, and I look forward to seeing the results of their efforts. It’s not difficult to imagine such results being adopted more broadly. (Tackle the really tough job first, and the others will be easy by comparison, right?)

Still, it’s important to remember that TNR opponents aren’t limiting their attention to such hotspots.

Beyond Hawaii
The Wildlife Society, for example, in its position statement (issued in August) on Feral and Free-Ranging Domestic Cats (PDF), calls for “the humane elimination of feral cat populations,” as well as “the passage and enforcement of local and state ordinances prohibiting the feeding of feral cats.”

Earlier this month, TWS hosted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s workshop, Influencing Local Scale Feral Cat Trap-Neuter-Release Decisions, at its annual conference.

And in October, ABC sent a letter to mayors of the 50 largest cities in the country “urg[ing them] to oppose Trap-Neuter-Re-abandon (TNR) programs and the outdoor feeding of cats as a feral cat management option.” (This, ABC claims, will “stop spread of feral cats.” I e-mailed Darin Schroeder, ABC’s Vice President for Conservation Advocacy, asking that he explain the biology and/or logic behind this miracle cure, but he never replied.)

Common Ground(?)
But we’re all after the same thing, right—no more “homeless” cats? The key difference being how we approach the problem?

I used to think so. Now, I’m not so sure.

TWS, ABC, and other TNR opponents are calling for the extermination—on the order of tens of millions—of this country’s most popular pet. Without, it must be recognized, a plan of any kind, or, given our decades of experience with lethal control methods, any hope of success. Nevertheless, they persist—grossly misrepresenting the impacts of cats on wildlife and public health in order to drum up support.

Common ground has proven remarkably elusive, and collaboration risky.

In the Spring issue of The Wildlife Professional (published by TWS) Nico Dauphine portrayed the New Jersey Audubon Society as sellouts for participating in the New Jersey Feral Cat & Wildlife Coalition (which included several supporters of TNR, including HSUS), a collaborative effort funded by the Regina R. Frankenberg and Geraldine R. Dodge foundations. [2, 3] The group’s commendable work, culminating in a pilot program based on their “ordinance and protocols for the management of feral cat colonies in wildlife-sensitive areas in Burlington County, New Jersey,” [4] (available here) has, from what I can tell, received little attention.

All of which suggests that we’re actually talking not only about very different means, but also very different ends.

•     •     •

How does one find common ground in the midst of a witch-hunt?

Earlier this month, Alley Cat Allies co-founder and president Becky Robinson proposed a crucial first step: “stop pitting species against species.”

“Today, I call on the leaders of the American Bird Conservancy, The Wildlife Society, and the leadership of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who persist in using flawed science and vicious rhetoric like Dauphine’s to blame cats for species decline, to stop.”

After which, there’s plenty of “real work” (some of which may, ironically, prove rather straightforward and uncontroversial) to be done, of course. Still, perhaps the situation in Hawaii is urgent enough, and the stakes high enough, to focus the mind—to get us that far.

Literature Cited
1. Berkeley, E.P., TNR Past present and future: A history of the trap-neuter-return movement. 2004, Bethesda, MD: Alley Cat Allies.

2. Dauphine, N., “Follow the Money: The Economics of TNR Advocacy.” The Wildlife Professional. 2011. 5(1): p. 54.

3. Stiles, E., NJAS Works with Coalition to Reduce Bird Mortality from Outdoor Cats. 2008, New Jersey Audubon Society. http://www.njaudubon.org/Portals/10/Conservation/PDF/ConsReportSpring08.pdf

4. n.a., Pilot Program: Ordinance & Protocols for the Management of Feral Cat Colonies in Wildlife-Sensitive Areas in Burlington County, New Jersey. 2007, New Jersey Feral Cat & Wildlife Coalition. p. 17. http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/uploads/File/Resources/Ordinances/NJ%20FeralCat&Wildlife%20Ordinance&Protocols_Pilot_7_07.doc

Run-on Sentence

21 Nov 2011

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

Having been found guilty of attempted animal cruelty on October 31st, Nico Dauphine was scheduled to be in court today for sentencing. According to court records, however, the hearing has been postponed until December 14th. Dauphine could be facing a $1,000 fine and 180 days in jail.

More interesting than the rescheduled sentencing hearing, though, are the changes to Dauphine’s legal team—Kerry Verdi and Billy Martin, both from Dorsey & Whitney LLP, are listed as “dismissed/withdrawn,” replaced by Molly Cannon, from O’Toole, Rothwell, Nassau & Steinbach—and her request for a new trial.

It’s difficult to see how a second trial could lead to a different outcome, especially if Dauphine once again takes the stand. It was, after all, as Senior Judge Truman A. Morrison III put it, “her inability and unwillingness to own up to her own professional writings as her own [that] undermined her credibility” the first time around.

Animal Wise Radio: Guilty Verdict in Nico Dauphine Trial

7 Nov 2011

On yesterday’s Animal Wise Radio show, hosts Mike Fry and Beth Nelson and I discussed the guilty verdict handed down last week in Nico Dauphine’s attempted animal cruelty case, as well as the implications for future cat-related research at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and elsewhere.

If you missed it, you can check the complete show in podcast format. An MP3 file (6.4 MB) of our conversation (approximately 13 minutes) is available here.

Nico Dauphine Resigns

2 Nov 2011

According to the National Zoo’s Twitter feed and a comment posted on its Facebook page, “[Monday] the Smithsonian accepted Dr. Dauphine’s resignation; it was effective immediately.” I haven’t seen a statement anything more official looking from the National Zoo or the Migratory Bird Center.

Indeed, official statements seem to be remarkably scarce following Monday’s verdict. Where are all of Dauphine’s supporters? You know, the individuals and organizations that were so quick to cite her sloppy work when it suited their purpose (i.e., the witch-hunt against free-roaming cats), but that have remained—at least publicly—silent over the past few months.

Speaking of which… The Wildlife Society put out a peculiar statement today via its Making Tracks blog in which they seem to imply that the cats Dauphine attempted to poison had it coming to them because they “congregated near her building.” According to the statement, TWS “does not condone animal cruelty or illegal behavior of any kind”—but that’s hardly the same thing as condemning what was done in this case.

But that’s not all that’s missing. One expects more than “TWS cannot comment on this case” from a blog post called The Wildlife Society Responds to Dr. Dauphine Case on Attempted Animal Cruelty.

Of course, TWS was more than willing to offer Dauphine a platform earlier this year, when it published “Pick One: Outdoor Cats or Conservation” and “Follow the Money: The Economics of TNR Advocacy”—both of which demonstrated her willingness to put the witch-hunt ahead of the science (or even the basic information contained in an organization’s financial statements)—in a special section of The Wildlife Professional called “The Impact of Free Ranging Cats.”

So what’s changed?

On the other hand, what is there to say, really? The message is coming through loud and clear: Dauphine’s professional work on the subject of free-roaming cats—cited and promoted with great enthusiasm before all this nasty press attention—is as indefensible as the actions that landed her in DC Superior Court.

Nico Dauphine Found Guilty of Attempted Animal Cruelty

31 Oct 2011

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)

27 Oct 2011

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)

26 Oct 2011

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)

25 Oct 2011

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.

National Feral Cat Day 2011

12 Oct 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.