UNL study says feral cats should be killed — will UNL kill its colony?
A University of Nebraska-Lincoln study concluded the best way to deal with feral cat colonies is to kill the cats — as opposed to neutering and spaying and nurturing and coddling.
Cat lovers are not happy about the part that explains How to Kill a Cat.
Which begs the question: Will this change the way UNL itself deals with its very own well-known (and in some circles, loved) feral cat colony, which lives in sewers and on the grounds from the Lied Center and Love Library to the Health Center on city campus? UNL’s cat colony even has a volunteer support group: Husker Cats formed in 2008 to raise money to feed, control and “ensure a high quality of life” for the cats.
Meanwhile, over on the more agrarian East Campus, 22 undergrad students in the Wildlife Damage Management class helped write the recent report, which helpfully explains the best way to kill a feral cat: “Proper euthanasia involves a gunshot to the head, chemical injection or carbon dioxide asphyxiation.” If you choose the gunshot method, they advise you to shoot the cat right between the eyes and “angled down so the bullet travels toward the spinal column after passing through the brain.”
If that’s not possible, they say, “a shot through the heart/lung area is acceptable.” Also, they say to “use shotguns with No. 6 shot or larger, .22-caliber rifles, or air rifles capable of shooting 700 feet per second or faster.” (Read it yourself ec1781.)
I think that pretty well sums up the difference between East Campus and City Campus.
Winterized 
Can the East Campus students please come to my neighborhood and round up the stray cats that drive my dog crazy.
What does it explain about the difference, really? That the ‘agrarian’ Wildlife Damage Management class is dealing with the realities of wildlife damages and how to mitigate them? This happens all across the state, every day, and is only a surprise to those that believe their meat and eggs come prepackage from the sky.
Cedric is right. There are realities involving feral cat populations, the major one being that feral cats can and do occupy the same habitat as skunks and racoons which are known carriers of the rabies virus. The sewers that feral cats dwell in…are the same ones that racoons live in…they come in contact and you can have a rabies outbreak in feral cat populations. Unfortunately, as is evident by the blog, emotionalism clouds the issue. The real concern should be the public health dangers of allowing feral cat populations to grow and be cared for by otherwise well intentioned people who ignore the real dangers of allowing feral cats to live in our communities.
I need to move to Nebraska, seems like the folks out there have a little more common sense. Useful information here that I will pursue further.
You need to get your facts straight about rabies. You have a greater risk of catching rabies from any cat, feral or not, than you do any wild animal. Go look up how many people have been infected by rabies in North America in the last century and from what animals. Most of the cases were people who traveled from other countries back into the USA after having been bitten by a wild animal in another country. Raccoons and skunks are not AUTOMATIC carriers of rabies. Possums can’t even catch rabies let alone transmit it, their body temperatures are far too low. Educate yourself first on the topics about which you voice an opinion.
And don’t anyone fall for the pathetic song and dance about cat-lovers being animal-lovers, they are anything but that. They don’t give one damn about any other animals nor even other humans. The ONLY things they care about are themselves and their damnable cats. Cat-lovers have the same values that cats have — themselves. Nobody else and nothing else matters to them.
Their TNR (trap, neuter, release) programs are a dismal failure too. A smokescreen and time & money waster. Don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. Do a search online for the truth about all TNR failures.
Those cats that are released will still be decimating the native food-chain for all manner of animals larger than themselves, as well as destroying all the smaller animals that feed the larger ones. And if you feed a TNR cat colony they kill even more wildlife. A well-fed cat kills more animals than a starving one. They don’t stop killing other animals just because they’re no longer hungry. The healthier they are the more they kill. It’s what they do, it’s what they are. Lousy little killing machines, nothing more.
The problem is just not the loss of bird populations either. Feral cats and neighboring farmers that let theirs roam free have decimated the natural food-chain in my woods. The resident foxes, owls, and other predatory animals no longer had a food source, the feral cats destroyed all the smaller animals that all the larger ones depended on. The native species all starved to death. That’s what cats do to ALL native animals.
I found out that where I live it is perfectly legal to defend your own property and animals from destruction by others’ animals. I lost count after dispatching over 20 of the lousy piece-of-sh!t vermin with a good .22, outfitted with a laser-sight and good zoom rifle-scope. I didn’t have to waste even one bullet, making this solution highly economical as well. Just think of how many dollars and hours of your lives that you have spent trapping, transporting, calling, complaining, restoring damaged property, et.al. … and still all the problems that these useless cat-lovers have caused remains.
It’s time to give cats and cat-lovers the same consideration and respect that they have for all other humans and all other wildlife–that means NONE. Don’t bother wasting your time arguing with disrespectful, inconsiderate, and ignorant cat-lovers either, as I stupidly tried to do too many times in the past. Just do what needs to be done and there’ll be nothing to argue about.
This year owls and foxes have returned to my woods. Through a large effort of my own, including raising and releasing native mice and voles to help repopulate the species that their piece-of-sh!t cats destroyed. Their lousy cats are finally gone. But I’ll shoot again on first-sight the first chance I get (and anyone who tries to stop me from doing what needs to be done). The rewards for ridding one’s land of ALL cats and restoring the native wildlife population is far too great.
Woah. That guy really hates cats.
@Nikki
No, I don’t “hate” cats. I now do what needs to be done to ensure a sustainable habitat for all native wildlife. This means removing all invasive and destructive species by any means possible. Perhaps you should check your local community for grade-school level courses in ecology and biology, or remain just as ignorant as you are. Your choice.
If you don’t live where a firearm can be used then I offer another humane method to stop all the problems that disrespectful & inconsiderate cat-lovers cause for all, and all wildlife.
Google for: pot mod laser. Obtain blue or green lasers for 5$-$10 from ebay. You can increase them to 100mw or more. Filing a hole in the side of the barrel makes it easier to reach the potentiometer than disassembly and risking ruining it. The blue ones seem more powerful than the green ones when pot-modded.
When you see a cat off of an owner’s property use the laser on it. Blind a cat in one eye they’ll lose their depth perception, unable to hunt as effectively. If you blind them in both eyes they’ll stay home near their food dish. This is instant & painless. It’s even more humane than declawing. It is also anonymous. In daytime nobody will even know it happened or who did it — for those of you who don’t want to confront the ignorant and inconsiderate cat-lovers.
I keep one in my pocket for cats too difficult to shoot cleanly with a .22. I don’t like to see any animal suffer. If I can’t get a clean shot then they get blinded.
The drastic problems that cat-lovers have created by their blatant disrespect & lack of consideration for their environment, all humans, & all animals now requires drastic actions by all those who actually care.
Now that the cat-lovers know this will happen to their cats, maybe they’ll keep them indoors where they damn well belong, to prove they actually care.
A little insight to help you with your war on cat-lovers and their cats. Maybe if you explain this to them you won’t have to use more drastic means.
I have come to the inexorable conclusion that the vast majority of cat-lovers and cat-owners that let their destructively invasive-species roam free, and those that defend the rights for feral cats to overtake public property and wildlife areas, are only (cowardly) using cats as a proxy for their own territorial behavior. Not unlike uneducated inner-city youth that will disrespectfully and inconsiderately use a boom-box to stake-out a territory for themselves with loud music. As long as they can have one of their possessions defecate in another’s yard and the yard-owner not have any recourse to do anything about it, the cat-owner owns that territory. It’s time to put a stop to them using their “cute kitty” excuse for usurping and stealing others’ property. If they want territory they can damn well buy it just like anyone else. Instead of using their underhanded, disrespectful, and manipulative means, putting (and sacrificing) live animals in the path of their envy and greed. Again proving why they don’t care about cats nor anyone else at all. Cat-lovers only really want your lawn, yard, or forest while making all others and all other animals suffer for what they can’t have nor own. Bottom line–they want to control you and your property. That’s all that “cat-lovers” are really after. It’s why they don’t care at all if their cat nor any other animals get harmed by their goals and (lack of) values in life.
Cats pass disease to wildlife, even in remote areas.
Dear members of Vox Felina, members of Alley Cat Allies, and any other feral-cat advocates and feral-cat relocation groups,
Here’s something that you really need to read:
biological warfare n. (Abbr. BW) The use of disease-producing microorganisms, toxic biological products, or organic biocides to cause death or injury to humans, animals, or plants.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/biological-warfare
Given the above information about cats harboring dangerous biological agents (of which you all were already aware) that are harmful to wildlife and humans, as well as the cats themselves being just as harmful if not more-so (this too of which you were all aware), and the above information about your TRUE motives (if you weren’t aware of it before, you most certainly are now); the fact that you want to infest public and private properties with these harmful biological agents means that EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU CAN AND WILL eventually be held responsible for the crimes that you are committing against all of humanity and all of nature.
May you all rot in prisons as soon as possible.
The time for just shooing them off your land is over. Now add a T to the world “shooing” — if you value your life, your family’s life, and that of all wildlife.
Cats pass disease to wildlife, even in remote areas.
http://www.labspaces.net/view_news_comments.php?newsID=110760
Now tell us all what to do about your cats when they crap in our gardens or on our lawns or in our woods (never-mind how much wildlife they have already destroyed just by their behavior) so no humans or other animals die from it. I know what I’ll do, use my rifle again, but I’ll be much more careful of how I dispose of that carcass, to make sure that no other wildlife nor humans can ever come in contact with it again.
Who do we send the bill to to clean up this massive ecological disaster that you have created? Alley Cat Allies? It’d be a good start.
And for you hunters that shoot them for target practice (like all hunters here do), please bury them now. If a wild animal eats an infected cat carcass it will die from it. I know because I fed some cat-meat to some wild animals here once, hoping I could make use of a cat for something, and I never saw those animals again. There’s no other reason they disappeared, they were in my yard every night for 2 years straight and then they never came back after feeding them cat-meat. If I had only known then what I know now.
And as for the rest of you? If you don’t want to die, your children, pets, or have your wildlife die from a cat just defecating in your yard or garden, the time has come to shoot all cats on sight–everywhere. It’s the only way we’ll be able to get this problem under control. Whether anyone else condones it or not. It’s the only viable solution now. Buy a rifle, go take a firearms education course, and start shooting. If your aim is good (get a laser-sight to make this near fool-proof) this is a FAR more humane method than any animal-shelter methods. One instant they are enjoying stalking some prey to destroy and not eat (even more at night, the laser-sight comes in handy then), the next moment they are unconscious and DEAD DEAD DEAD. It doesn’t get more humane than that. And don’t go telling me otherwise. I’ve done it many many dozens of times now.
After you’ve shot all of them that you can find then be sure to wear gloves when disposing of the cat-carcasses. Dispose by incinerating them or burying them deeply enough so their remains won’t infect any more animals nor humans.
Either that, or take the namby-pamby pissant route that got us to where we are now … catch every one that you see (and don’t see) until all your lands and neighborhoods are 100% free of any roaming cats. Then have them taken in to be tested and then disposed of. OR put under MONITORED QUARANTINED living conditions where they’ll never again step foot outside, lest you have to catch them and repeat this process all over again. And we all know what happens when cats are put back in the hands of cat-lovers, don’t we. You know, your pissant solution we’ve used for decades. We’re dealing with that problem right now. YOU ALL FAILED, BIG TIME.
It’s your time and money. Which way do you prefer to solve this massive ecological-disaster that all these sociopathically irresponsible and pathetically idiotic piece-of-s*** cat-lovers caused for the whole world? If you’re not going to be part of the solution, then you are just as big a part of the problem.
The time for this action of shooting all cats on-sight was 20 years ago.
Everyone needs to take this matter into their own hands. Lead or get the f*** out of the way now.
Why TNR and Cat Advocates Even Exist …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Behavioral_changes
It has been found that Toxoplasma gondii parasite is capable of changing the brains of whatever organism it infests. In mice, they lose the fear of cats and are even attracted to cat-urine. Making the asexual portion of the Toxoplasma gondii life-cycle faster to complete in order to replicate more quickly into its sexual reproduction phase in all host cats. This loss of fear and apprehension manifesting itself in humans in a similar manner, even when common-sense tells them they should depend on that sense of fear or doubt for their own survival.
Here are other ways that this parasite have been known to alter the thinking patterns of humans: http://wildlifeprofessional.org/blog/?p=3929
I strongly suspect that it might even be responsible for all cat-lovers’ wholly contradictory behavior of putting cats, all other animals, and even all humans in harm’s-way through their adamant insistence of promoting TNR programs, just to ensure the survival and spread of more Toxoplasma gondii parasites throughout the food-chain and in more humans. They are, in effect, being controlled against all reason and common-sense by the very parasite that is reproducing in their cats.
The stuff that sci-fi used to be made of come to reality. Real-life “pod-people”. They can’t think nor reason beyond the need of ensuring the survival of Toxoplasma gondii. It won’t let them.
Trapping and/or sterilizing as a solution is a failed concept from Day-One.
There are now about 150 million feral-cats just in the USA, and 86 million pet-cats (60 million of which are still allowed to kill all wildlife), this means that the cat-population is already oversaturated for a long time now. There’s only 311 million people in the USA. 2 cats now exist for every 3 people, from infant to senior. All thanks to those who outlawed destroying them in a faster, more efficient, often more-humane, and more cost-effective manner by shooting them. While they also promoted their slow, random-chance, inefficient, and failed trapping programs.
Nobody wants more than 86 million cats for pets. Now take into consideration their exponential yearly growth-rate of x^5.4. An average litter of 5 new cats every 5-6 months. 2 cats can become 42 in only a year’s time. Increasing at the rate of powers of 5.4 EVERY YEAR. No amount of trapping them (if you could even get them all to enter traps), nor valuable resources (transport costs, vet costs, etc.), man-hours, nor money will ever catch up to their growth rate. You now have an ecological, human-health, animal-welfare, and financial disaster on your hands, ALL thanks to cat-lovers and TNR proponents. The faster that cats can be destroyed the better it MIGHT be. Even when using guns and having all stray and feral cats shot on-sight we might still not be able to catch up to their exponential population-growth rate. Not even until every last land animal (including humans) is gone from this earth, due to cats destroying the whole food-chain, with nothing but cannibalistic cats left walking the land. No exaggeration, do the math. Exactly that can happen in your lifetimes. Just ask any TNR group how many cats they’ve trapped this year. They haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the problem that THEY CAUSED and are only exacerbating with their blatant lies.
Your best bet is to make cat-ownership AND care-taking of feral-cats a FELONY with hefty fines or prison sentences for anyone failing to comply until this problem that they created is brought under control by any and all means possible. Shoot-on-sight is, without a doubt, the fastest, most economical (0.3 cent to 3 cents per cat depending on ammo prices), and most effective method available. This is also the only method that doesn’t endanger nor harass any other animals with non-discriminatory random-chance traps. Though avoid poisons if at all possible, that once entered into the food-chain, will go on to destroy more of the very wildlife that you are hoping to save from destruction by cats. Whatever you do though, please bury or incinerate the carcasses so all the deadly diseases that cats now carry won’t go on to further infect the native wildlife, nor any other humans that might come in contact with them.
Here is an interesting post from someone who believed in all the lies she was told about TNR practices, found at http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/05/the-secret-lives-of-feral-cats/
“I have been battling a feral cat population explosion on my farmette for 7 years. TNR does not work, as the trapped and neutered cats do not keep new cats from moving in and adding kittens. I have trapped over 25 kittens, tamed them, and found homes for them, but every spring there are dozens more. I have spent countless dollars neutering females and males, but they just keep coming! I have few wild birds now, fewer snakes, and there are bunny parts all over my property (cats must not particularly like the back feet). I wish there was a birth-control feed available, since many of these feral cats don’t come near the traps even when hungry. I wish every pet owner would neuter their cats so that these colonies weren’t added to.
These are not happy feral cats, they frequently have infected eyes, worms, and are skinny and mangey. I don’t know what the answer is, but even in the country, a feral cat doesn’t live a secure, comfortable life.
Comment by Dawn Hawes — June 21, 2011 @ 9:38 am”
And YOU TOO can have a financially-stressed life ruled by cats and cat-lovers and have all your native wildlife destroyed JUST LIKE THIS if you also believe in TNR *LIES*.
Here’s a few questions that I (and EVERYONE) need to ask all TNR advocates and feral-cat caretakers … though they never answer these questions, for ANYONE.
Don’t be shy, TNR people, any of you are free to answer any of these questions for once in your lives …
Once you have claimed ownership of these cats through your actions, do you carry enough liability-insurance for all the damages YOUR CATS will do (not if) when you release them? Or for all the health-care costs YOUR CATS will cause to all humans with all the diseases YOUR CATS now carry? Like Toxoplasma gondii, which becomes a lifelong illness once YOUR CATS infect a human with it. Or, should one of YOUR CATS contract rabies during its lifetime because you were unable to trap it again to vaccinate it. How many $MILLIONS in liability insurance do you carry if one of YOUR RABID CATS should bite a human? How about anyone who has lost business due to YOUR CATS running off customers because of the diseases they spread everywhere? Like what happened in Miami where YOUR CATS spread hookworm on all the beaches where YOUR CATS defecated. Can you repay everyone for their $MILLIONS, if not $BILLIONS, in losses of health, life, business, and property? Do you even know what the charge is if YOUR CATS are found destroying endangered plant or animal species? Do you have enough money to pay for any daily or weekly land-use fees that people will be charging you for you using THEIR LAND for YOUR CATS? Usually all done without anyone’s permission I might add.
Are you doing all of this completely irresponsibly without regard to the health and welfare of any other animal nor human life? If so, have you considered you could be thrown in prison for a long long time for all of this shamefully irresponsible and extremely criminal behavior of yours?
You might want to start thinking about these things. Your actions DO have consequences, and those are consequences that you may not enjoy … for the rest of your miserable, unthinking, uncaring, inconsiderate, and wholly disrespectful cat-loving lives.
Here’s another Fun-Fact that trap-advocates fail to realize, in their infinite ignorance of how animal-behavior and evolution works.
Those cats that have learned to avoid and evade all trapping methods are the next generation to survive. Ever hear the old adage, “If you invent a better mousetrap nature will just invent a better mouse.”?
So now, thanks to the supreme stupidity and ignorance of trap-advocates, we have a race of freely roaming cats in all countrysides of every continent which are passing on their “how to survive” behavior to all their offspring, both genetically and behaviorally. Now the next phase of millions of feral-cats won’t even be able to be trapped. This is just how amazingly stupid trap-advocates are. You thought 150,000,000 feral cats was bad? In colloquial terms, “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!”
There’s a reason the phrase “hunted to extinction” is so well-known in all cultures across all lands. It is the ONLY method that is faster than a species can breed and adapt to.
Moral of the Story:
I wasted 15 YEARS of my life arguing with demented cat-lovers. During which THEIR CATS DESTROYED ALL WILDLIFE ON MY LAND.
It wasn’t until I STOPPED arguing and did what needed to be done — SHOOT ALL CATS — that my land, all the wildlife on my land, and my life itself started to return to normal. I no longer have to go out twice a day on cat-patrol to shoot more cats nor waste more time and energy burying them to protect wildlife from the diseases they carry.
I hope the rest of you learn from this lesson. You can argue with the Toxoplasmosis parasites in the cat-lovers’ brains until you are blue in the face and your whole planet is destroyed by their cats, but it’ll never get rid of the cats that have destroyed your life and all wildlife.
JUST DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE — DESTROY THEM.
Only later, AFTER your land and life are 100% free of cats, can you have fun educating the ineducable. Use the time you got back from their cats taking over your life to share the best ways to destroy all cats. (Without harming any other wildlife nor humans.) Then if you want, make YOUR life THEIR problem. Just as they made THEIR cats YOUR problem for all these many years. It’s only fair! Because that’s what it’s really all about, it’s not about cats at all. THEY ONLY WANT TO CONTROL YOUR LIFE WITH THEIR CATS. You can put a stop to that immediately BY DESTROYING THEIR CATS. And there’s not ONE THING they can do about it if you do it right. They’ll no longer have any part of your life.
I go to UNL and I see the cats all the time. The cats don’t bother me and I don’t see them bothering anyone else. Let them be.
Woodsman speaks the Truth. Feral cats are a serious problem for our native wildlife. As an invasive species, cats need to be treated as such, eliminated with extreme prejudice, I applaud Woodsmand for his honest vernacular and willingness to do something about this terrible situation.