Cats generally don’t hunt rats- they’re too large and aggressive.
These cats don’t know the territory and the majority are going to end up being run over by cars, killed by dogs in back yards, killed from rat poison, die from dehydration or starvation because they don’t know where resources are. This is not fair to the cats.
They’re still going to get injured and spread disease amongst themselves, even if they can’t breed.
This sudden influx of a huge number of cats above the already doubtless high free roaming and feral cat population is going to have a devastating impact on the local native bird population.
This is a bad idea for every animal, domestic, feral, and wild native in the area.
Just…out in the streets? Not even in a warehouse-cat way?
Edit: What a shitty article title. They’re not being released. They’re doing TNR. Something thats totally viable (unless you live somewhere like Hawaii that has endangered small wildlife) for looking after feral cats.
The R in TNR stands for release. There’s also lots of articles that show TNR doesn’t work
Everywhere has endangered small animals. There is nowhere on earth that you can go that does not have an endangered small mammal, bird, or reptile that lives there.
Even down to a neighborhood. There will always be an endangered animal that lives in your backyard, because these animals do not live in a bubble and neither do you. They migrate, they travel, they have territories miles wide.
“But I live X where we don’t have endangered species!”
Yes. Yes you do. You also have predators so don’t even start that argument.
Cats are an invasive species that is putting the ecosystem and the health of domestic cats as a whole, at risk by being outside.
Keep Your Fucking Cats Inside
And for the love of all things, Stop supporting TNR programs, and Start supporting Adopt-A-Feral programs. Get these guys homes where they can be loved for the rest of their days and euthanize the ones that are suffering or can’t be appropriately homed.
If we can get every adoptable feral in a home, we would have enough money to build a cat sanctuary to keep the non-rehomable ferals.
You’ll find a lot more joy in the having of a cat if you would just stop expecting it to act like a dog.
And not just any dog, but the ‘perfect dog’ that people always compare cats to.
Cats are not dogs. But also, cats and dogs are not a hivemind with only one personality per species.
“My cat flipped out the first time I put a harness and leash on it, you can’t take them on walks like a dog!” Buddy, pal, friend. You go put a harness and leash on an adult backyard-only dog for the first time and tell me just how well that goes for you.
“They are horrible to bathe!”…. Sure, if you put an adult cat just straight into the water or the loud scary shower that hasn’t ever had a bath in its life. But my foster kittens get bathed often. They don’t care at all. If their adopters kept that up, they’d be fine as adults, too. But it’s not like dogs are naturally any better, either. My girl dog straight up panics in the bath and will try to scale the walls and urinate in her fear. I do not bathe her unless absolutely necessary.
“Dogs are great in the car and cats are not” …. rinse, repeat of the previous arguments. Training. Not all dogs good with cars. Not all cats bad with cars. Stop it.
ifesbob 