Please Help

ACTION ALERT!

Alley Cat Allies is urging its members, supporters, and all those who care about the welfare of cats and all wildlife to demand that the National Geographic Society immediately halt the sales and distribution of its documentary, "The Secret Life of Cats."

The National Geographic Explorer series aired the program on Sunday, October 18, 1998 on the TBS network. The information presented in this documentary is inaccurate, incomplete, and dangerous because of the false conclusions presented therein. It depicts cats as being responsible for the extinction of many forms of wildlife. This will not only cause injury to cats but will prevent humane and nonlethal solutions from being implemented to control their overpopulation.

ACA strongly believes that the reporting is not only one-sided and sensationalistic, but focuses on eradication of feral cats through such lethal methods as electric fences and shooting. It is counterproductive to the establishment of the humane, nonlethal population control methods that have proven successful and are promoted by Alley Cat Allies and many other organizations.

In the documentary, cats were referred to as murderers, "wicked things," possessed of "Jekyll and Hyde" personalities, and creatures who "do it [kill] because they love it." Other negative adjectives such as "culprit," "guilty," and "gruesome" also were used extensively in reference to feline behavior. It is our opinion that in the realm of scientific research, such subjective labels as "good" and "bad" in regard to the natural behavior of a species have no place.

Alley Cat Allies was contacted by the producers of the documentary prior to its filming, and provided them with extensive information dispelling the myths about cats and predation, as well as with information about successful nonlethal methods to control the population of feral and stray cats. This information was ignored.

ACA urges its members and all those who care about the welfare and humane treatment of cats, as well as other wildlife species, to write to National Geographic to protest the airing of "The Secret Life of Cats," and to request that a new documentary be produced, presenting information from studies by respected wildlife biologists proving that habitat destruction, not cats, is the major cause of the extinction of many forms of native wildlife. Information about trap, neuter, return, the only truly effective method for controlling the population of feral cats, should also be included.

According to the World Watch Institute’s paper Losing the Strands in the Web of Life: Vertebrate Declines and the Conservation of Biological Diversity, "The leading culprits in the decline of birds are a familiar set of interrelated problems all linked to human activity: habitat alteration, overhunting and overcollecting, exotic species invasions, and chemical pollution of the environment. Habitat loss is by far the leading factor … ."