HAHF-Truths, HAHF-Measures, Full Prices (Part 1)

24 Aug 2012

Complaining of the impacts of free-roaming cats on wildlife and the environment, along with a range of public health threats, dozens of veterinarians in Hillsborough County, Florida, have banded together to fight TNR. Evidence suggests, however, that their real concern has nothing to do with the community, native wildlife, or, indeed, with cats. What the Hillsborough Animal Health Foundation is most interested in protecting, it seems, is the business interests of its members.

This was Take Your Cat to the Vet Week, a time “to raise awareness of the fact that cats need an annual veterinarian examination just as much as dogs,” according to Feline Pine, the litter manufacturer responsible for the occasion’s creation. In Hillsborough County, Florida, however, it was a time for many in the veterinary community to reiterate their opposition to TNR.

“We love cats!” Don Thompson assured me earlier this week via e-mail. “Any person who argues that vets don’t love animals is being foolish.” But, just like David Aycock, chief animal control officer for Pompano Beach, Thompson’s love has its limits—feral cats need not apply.

Thompson’s not a vet himself, but an attorney. He, along with his veterinarian wife, Katie, operate the Veterinary Center at Fishhawk, and he’s also head of the Hillsborough Animal Health Foundation, whose members are, according to the HAHF website, “gravely concerned about Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR).” Read more

Facts Felina

15 Aug 2012

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, No Kill Conference attendees were clearly hungry for more TNR resources—programs and program funding, but also legislation and policies that would more effectively protect unowned cats. It was, therefore, an excellent time to release the first three Vox Felina TNR Fact Sheets. Read more

2012 No Kill Conference Wrap-Up

14 Aug 2012

Three brief take-aways from the 2012 No Kill Conference, held this past weekend George Washington University’s Law School.

Momentum
The No Kill movement has, in a few short years, achieved a great deal. Today, 50 community shelters across the country (representing, if I’m not mistaken, more than 200 cities and towns) have achieved no-kill status, each saving the lives of at least 90 percent of animals brought in.

What’s more, there’s an enormous amount of momentum in the movement, as was demonstrated by the number of success stories shared by speakers and attendees alike—as well as the unmistakable energy in the air. The times, they are a changin’.

Tools for Success
One sign of a successful conference is when attendees are frustrated that they’re missing one great workshop by attending another. That was certainly the case this weekend. Clearly, there are certainly worse problems to have. And I didn’t hear a single complaint that any of the workshops was a disappointment.

Participants are now headed back to their communities equipped with the tools necessary to bring about change—from becoming more media savvy and more politically effective to creating a bottle baby program for saving unweaned kittens. (See previous Dylan quote.)

Push for TNR
My presentation, Witch-Hunt: How TNR opponents have co-opted science to target free-roaming cats, was very well received. Approximately 50 people attended Saturday’s session, and another 80 or so (standing-room only!) were there on Sunday. No small feat, considered I was “competing” with John Sibley (the man behind the In Dog We Trust blog), whose workshop focused on advocacy blogging. (See previous comment about there being too much great stuff going on all at once.)

The number of questions, and subsequent conversations, about TNR over the course of the weekend demonstrate a strong desire for additional resources (e.g., programs, education, etc.) and protections (e.g., policy, legislation, etc.) designed to put an end to the killing of stray, abandoned, and feral cats. Fed up with the cruel, costly, and ineffective trap-and-kill approach—practiced for generations now—people are demanding more of their local shelters and politicians.

Cue Dylan.

• • •

The No Kill Advocacy Center, No Kill Nation, the GW Law School’s Joan Schaffner and her team, and many others are to be commended for a job well done! Looking forward to 2013…

Follow Vox Felina on Twitter!

10 Aug 2012

Just in time for the 2012 No Kill Conference in Washington, DC this weekend, you can now follow Vox Felina on Twitter!

(It may take me a while to get the hang of Twitter’s 140-character limit—a radical departure for somebody accustomed to blog posts that can run 2,500 words or more. Please be patient.)

Collisions vs. Impacts

9 Aug 2012

In the first of a two-part series (the first part of which aired Wednesday) on NPR’s Morning Edition, American Bird Conservancy ornithologist Christine Sheppard described her research into how birds respond to different types of glass. And the motivation behind it: the numbers of birds killed each year in building collisions.

“Our best estimate is 100 million to a billion,” Sheppard said.

“It’s an incredible number,” observed NPR Science Desk Correspondent Christopher Joyce, “and she acknowledges it’s an estimate. But it’s based on reasonable assumptions.”

Reasonable assumptions? Like those used by ABC to “estimate” the number of birds killed each year by cats? 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

Failures at Companion Animal Alliance of Baton Rouge

6 Aug 2012

Because “feral” cats lack the social skills that would make them suitable adoption candidates, explains Nathan Winograd, director of the No Kill Advocacy Center, “there is no other animal entering a shelter whose prospects are so grim and outcome so certain.” [1] Sadly, even the best adoption candidates often don’t make it out alive, as Shirley Thistlethwaite reminded us recently on her blog YesBiscuit!.

In a three-part series beginning with last Tuesday’s post, Thistlethwaite describes (using documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests) a number of disturbing cases involving cats at Companion Animal Alliance of Baton Rouge. Among the “highlights” are instances of cats killed despite people stepping forward to adopt them , sick cats not receiving prompt medical care, friendly cats killed for being “feral,”* and any number of discrepancies in shelter records. Read more

Westchester County, NY, Rabies Case

4 Aug 2012

“A rabies alert was posted Tuesday by the Westchester County Department of Health,” reported the Tarrytown Daily Voice earlier this week, “after a police officer shot a stray cat who attacked him after trying to attack a man and woman in Elmsford.”

“When Elmsford Police Department responded, the cat chased the officer into a neighbor’s yard and attacked him. The cat bit the officer’s leg as he tried to fend off the animal, police said. The officer shook the cat from his leg, but the animal pounced at the officer again, puncturing his skin with its teeth and claws.

‘An officer got a few nasty bites and is being treated for rabies,’ [Elmsford Mayor Robert] Williams said Sunday night, before testing confirmed the cat had rabies. ‘You have to start the treatment right away while they are awaiting the results from the cat. He was released from the hospital later that day [Friday] and went home to rest. He returned to work the next day.’” [1]

No doubt TNR opponents will have a field day with this one. But how about a little perspective? Read more

Abductions, the Feral Cat Underground, and Eugenics

1 Aug 2012

“Our cat vanished without a trace a couple of days ago. Then as mysteriously as he had disappeared he reappeared nearly forty-eight hours later at the kitchen door with a plaintive meow. He was dehydrated, malnourished and abused. His face was scratched, his belly shaved as if for surgery, and his left ear mutilated. He acted as if he were drugged or coming off anesthetic.”

Thus begins Mark Derr’s most recent post, published Friday, on Psychology Today’s Dog’s Best Friend blog. Malnourished? Hungry is probably a more accurate description. And mutilated? Well, ear-tipped.

Having ruled out both Santeria and Voodoo, Derr concluded that his cat, McDude, “had fallen prey to cat fanatics who reportedly were trapping and neutering cats in our Miami Beach neighborhood, then returning them to their little piece of paradise.” Read more

TNR In Prime Time

28 Jul 2012

“We need to explode the concept of what a cat guy looks like, what a cat girl looks like,” argues Jackson Galaxy in his book, Cat Daddy: What the World’s Most Incorrigible Cat Taught Me About Life, Love, and Coming Clean. “We need a country literally full of cat guys and cat girls, bikers, politicians, clergy, and everyone in between, in order to keep millions from dying without homes.”

In Jackson’s case, the look includes a shaved head, sculpted facial hair, enormous earrings, and loads of tattoos. On last week’s episode of his wildly successful show, My Cat From Hell (which you can watch online), he revealed a new accessory: a humane trap. Read more

Prince George’s County, Maryland

26 Jul 2012

“Bird lovers have just derailed a plan to save some alley cats from death at the hands of animal control,” writes Bruce Leshan in a WUSA-9 TV story that aired Tuesday. “When Prince George’s County Council woman Mary Lehman proposed to order animal control to release” TNR cats, “she ran into a storm of criticism at a council public hearing.” [1]

As Lehman pointed out, “This is not trail-blazing legislation. Fairfax County, Baltimore City, and Washington, DC, all have programs.”

So what’s the hold-up in Prince George’s County? Mostly the American Bird Conservancy, it seems.

“The American Bird Conservancy, which opposes ‘trap, neuter, and return,’ says what you are really doing is releasing predatory, ownerless cats back into the wild to kill again.” [1]

Presumably, ABC will be leading the charge when Lehman brings her bill up again in the fall, which she’s promised to do. Perhaps they can then explain to the Prince George’s County Council—and everybody else—the rationale for their position. Where’s the science to support the numerous claims they make to the media? Read more

Animal Wise Radio (July 22)

23 Jul 2012

Did you catch this week’s Animal Wise Radio show? Hosts Mike Fry and Beth Nelson invited me on to discuss the story of 76-year-old Joy Mattice, who’s currently facing misdemeanor charges for feeding cats in Minneapolis, as well as the Brevard County (FL) Commission’s decision to place a moratorium on new TNR colonies.

If you missed it, you can check the complete show in podcast format. An MP3 file (11.5 MB) of our conversation (approximately 23 minutes) is available here.

This Sunday—Tune in Once Again to Animal Wise Radio!

21 Jul 2012

Tune in tomorrow to Animal Wise Radio, when I’ll be on with hosts Mike Fry and Beth Nelson. Though it’s only been a couple of weeks, there’s a lot to talk about! The recent move by the Brevard County (FL) Commission to place a moratorium on new TNR colonies, for example. And the story of 76-year-old Joy Mattice, who’s currently facing misdemeanor charges for feeding stray cats in Minneapolis.

As always, you can listen online—the show is live 12:00–2:00 CDT. And while you’re at it, please show your support by “Liking” their Facebook page. (And, while you’re doing that, head on over to the Animal Ark Facebook page as well…)

Rabies: Some Much-Needed Perspective

20 Jul 2012

Seven minutes and 35 seconds. That’s how long Robert Siegel, co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered, spoke with Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy about their new book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus.

Cats weren’t mentioned even once.

Was this a massive oversight? A coup perpetrated by the Powerful Cat Lobby, perhaps?

Hardly. “Veterinarians spend a lot of time thinking about rabies, even though in this country, we hardly ever see it,” explained Murphy, a veterinarian. (Wasik, her husband, is a journalist.)

The scaremongerers over at the American Bird Conservancy and The Wildlife Society must be downright distraught at the thought of the American public being better informed on the subject. Indeed, an excerpt from Rabid describes some of the underlying myths and cultural baggage these folks routinely attempt to leverage in their witch-hunt against free-roaming cats.

“As the lone visible instance of animal-to-human infection, rabies has always shaded into something more supernatural: into bestial metamorphoses, into monstrous hybridities. Even during the twentieth century, after Pasteur’s invention of a rabies vaccine provided a near-foolproof means of preventing its fatality in humans, our dark fascination with rabies seemed only to swell. The vaccine itself became as mythologized as the bug, such that even today many Americans believe that treatment requires some twenty (or is it thirty?) shots, delivered with a foot-long syringe into the stomach. (In fact, today’s vaccine entails four shots, and not particularly deep in the arm.)

It’s almost as if the very anachronism of rabies, to the Western mind, has rendered it even more intriguing to us. Like the vampire, rabies carries with it the musty whiff of a centuries-old terror—even as it still terrifies us in the present day.”

Not exactly your typical summertime reading, maybe, but this one’s going on my list. I wonder if I can get signed copies for ABC’s Darin Schroeder and TWS’s Michael Hutchins…

Brevard County, Florida, Threatens Further Restrictions for TNR

18 Jul 2012

For 50 years now, people have flocked to Brevard County, Florida—home of the Kennedy Space Center—to witness some of the most wildly ambitious endeavors ever imagined. It was a similar pioneering spirit that led the community to adopt TNR in 1999, well ahead of so many others.

Today, a year after the final Space Shuttle flight, the future of manned spaceflight remains very much an open question. Sadly, the future of TNR in Brevard County is also in doubt.

On June 9th, Florida Today reported that “the Brevard County Commission slapped a moratorium on new colonies in residential areas” during its May board meeting. Now, “officials are researching changes to existing rules.” [1] Read more

You Make a Statement, RCTees Will Make a Donation

16 Jul 2012

Three reasons to sign up for Jackson Galaxy’s e-mail list:

You’ll be supporting Jackson, a tireless advocate for all cats—including those living on the streets. (In May, he took time out of his crazy schedule to help raise money for Spay/Neuter Hotline’s TNR program here in Arizona.)
You’ll learn how to better understand your cats’ behaviors—and how to change them—from the star of Animal Planet’s My Cat From Hell. Happier cats, happier guardians—you get the idea.
You’ll learn about deals like this one. For all of July, the folks at RCTees are donating $2.00 from every purchase of their Real Men Love Cats design to Much Love Animal Rescue. The shirt—a favorite of Jackson’s—is available in men’s and women’s sizes, short- and long-sleeve, and a variety of colors.

You’re welcome.

Arkansas Game and Fish Declines Offers of Assistance with Feral Cats

13 Jul 2012

When I wrote recently about the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s decision to begin trapping cats at the Barnett Access on the Little Red River, I suggested that AGFC fisheries biologist Tom Bly had “been drinking TNR opponents’ Kool-Aid.”

Bingo!

That same day, I sent an e-mail to the AGFC director/deputy directors and commissioners asking for an explanation for the roundup. AGFC Director Loren Hitchcock responded promptly, forwarding my e-mail to Bly, who in turn wrote:

“My information came from the Spring 2011 issue of The Wildlife Professional. This is the magazine of the “The Wildlife Society” and includes peer reviewed and published articles on wildlife management and dealing with feral cat issues. The link to the publication is http://issuu.com/the-wildlife-professional/docs/feralcats.

As you will notice nearly one third of the publication is concerned with wildlife depredation by feral cats and public health related issues.”

Kool-Aid? Check. Read more

Endangered In the Florida Keys: Journalism

11 Jul 2012

The witch-hunt against free-roaming cats—promoted by USFWS and others—is doing nothing to protect the threatened and endangered species in the Keys (and elsewhere). Neither is the sloppy reporting that allows the agency to mislead policymakers and the general public.

Monday’s Tampa Bay Times reported that a captive breeding program aimed at saving the endangered Key Largo woodrat from extinction has been shut down.

“At first the breeding program seemed to be a big success. At Lowry Park and, later, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the endangered rats bred like, well, rats. But then the project ran into big problems, demonstrating why captive breeding is a tricky strategy that’s used only as a last resort, said Larry Williams, South Florida field supervisor for the Fish and Wildlife Service.” [1]

In fact, reporter Craig Pittman provides no evidence that the Key Largo woodrats were ever “breeding like rats.” Not even in the wild. Indeed, as he points out, “they… tend to be solitary. The males and females only get together when the female is ready to breed.” [1]

In any case, the population in the Keys—now limited to Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge and Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammocks Botanical State Park—continued, by all accounts, to decline. “Wildlife biologists,” writes Pittman, “didn’t have to look far for the reason.”

“Next to the parks is the Ocean Reef Club, a gated community that boasts some of South Florida’s wealthiest residents—as well as the state’s largest feral cat population. Ocean Reef’s homeowners spend thousands of dollars a year on a program that feeds and cares for the stray cats that wander the back alleys—and, according to biologists—occasionally gobble up endangered rats.” [1]

It’s true that biologists didn’t have to look far. “The primary threat to the Key Largo woodrat,” explains a 1999 USFWS report (which, admittedly, includes feral cats among the “other threats associated with human encroachment”), “is habitat loss and fragmentation caused by increasing urbanization.” [2]

But Pittman’s so busy trying to pin the Key Largo woodrat’s fate on the one-percenters that he fails (conveniently!) to mention that the Ocean Reef cats are also sterilized. Read more

Feral Cat Nerd

9 Jul 2012

As co-host Beth Nelson was introducing the second hour of yesterday’s Animal Wise Radio show, she referred to me as a “feral cat nerd.” Beth tells me she meant it as a compliment, and that’s exactly how I’m taking it. Besides, as I told her and Mike Fry off the air, I’ve been called far worse by some folks familiar with my work.

If you missed it, you can check the complete show in podcast format). An MP3 file (11.3 MB) of our conversation (approximately 23 minutes) is available here.

Tune In to Animal Wise Radio Sunday!

7 Jul 2012

Tune in tomorrow to Animal Wise Radio, when I’ll be catching up with hosts Mike Fry and Beth Nelson. (It’s been more than seven months!) Among the topics up for discussion: toxoplasmosis, rabies, and typhus (oh, my!).

Listen online—and while you’re at it, why not show your support by “Liking” their Facebook page.