Feral Cats, New Environmental Witch-Hunt
This document is a press release from Alley Cat Allies dated October 15, 1997. It is presented here by the Feral Cat Coalition for informational purposes. There may be individual items or procedures that differ slightly between the FCC and ACA. Our goals, however, are the same.
Alley Cat Allies (ACA,) the National Feral Cat Network, is concerned that present efforts to vilify cats could result in animal control departments, as well as private citizens, embarking on misguided efforts to exterminate feral cats. The reduction in some species of songbirds has many concerned people looking for answers about who or what is to blame. A campaign recently launched by The Humane Society of the United States and the American Bird Conservancy erroneously targets all free-roaming cats, including managed feral cat colonies, as the "problem."
Feral cats are domestic cats gone wild, and their offspring, living in cities, suburbs, and rural areas across the United States. Sterilization and long-term management of feral cat colonies has proven to be the most effective method for stabilizing and reducing feral cat populations. By contrast removal and extermination programs are ineffective, costly to taxpayers, and wasteful of scarce animal protection resources.
All across the country, dedicated volunteers and veterinarians are sterilizing tens of thousands of feral and stray cats. Innovative, progressive and aggressive grassroots efforts have been implemented with donated funds and time to solve the overpopulation of these animals. High-volume spay/neuter clinics including mobile veterinary vans and Sunday spay/neuter marathons are widespread.
"Cats are being used as the scapegoat by groups who should have the interests of all animals at heart," says Louise Holton, co-founder of Alley Cat Allies (ACA,) the only national organization dedicated to the non-lethal control of feral cats. "All animals are benefiting from sterilization programs being implemented."
"The facts bear out that cats are not the primary culprit in dwindling bird populations," says ACA co-founder, Becky Robinson. "The World Watch Institute and other environmental research groups verify that the decline of bird and other wildlife populations is directly linked to the loss of natural habitat. Urban sprawl, tropical deforestation, the construction of shopping malls, roads and golf courses and increases in pesticide use and pollution are to blame. We need to put constraints on our own behavior, not the normal processes of nature."
ACA cites a significant number of scientific studies conducted on the diets of feral cats that indicate their impact on bird populations is negligible. These studies conclude that cats are rodent specialists, with birds comprising only a small portion of their diet and that cats can prey on bird populations on large land masses without destroying these populations. Cats are opportunistic feeders, and often live primarily off of scavenged animals, garbage, and handouts from humans.
As noted by B.M. Fitzgerald, a long-time researcher on the subject of feral cats, "Birds in suburban and rural parts of Britain have co-existed with cats for hundreds of generations. Any bird populations on the continents that could not withstand these levels of predation from cats and other predators would have disappeared long ago."
Since its founding in 1990, ACA has practiced and promoted the control of feral cat populations using non-lethal means including the trap-neuter-return method (TNR) successfully employed in countries such as England, South Africa and Denmark for decades.
MEMBERS OF THE PRESS: Copies of "Understanding Cats and Predation" from Alley Cat Action, the newsletter of ACA, are available by calling (301) 229-7890.
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Last updated Sunday, November 09, 1997 12:09:15 PM
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