Post Season Pondering: Shoot a cat in wildlife preserve?

[ArmedBear]

Something happened on one of the last days of the season that I've been thinking about.

This was near the perimeter, but inside a Wildlife Management Area owned and managed by the Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game for the purpose of maintaining breeding habitat for waterfowl, upland birds, deer, etc. A domestic cat was running around. My hunting dog treed it, and I had my duck gun pointed at it from a few yards away.

The cat had no collar, but it didn't look ragged. I never pulled the trigger, since I work with a former farm girl who had barn cats as pets when she was growing up. I couldn't help thinking that the cat was some kid's pet, and I didn't want to kill some kid's pet.

Still, I don't want to see introduced predators in official bird breeding habitat preserves. Bird hunters and bird watchers may not always get along, but we agree on one thing: feral cats need to go! A big part of me says I should have pulled the trigger.

What say you?

 

[paintballdude902]

we shoot on sight at my sisters farm. she has several barn cats that keep the mice and snakes away from the barn but they rarely leave a 50ft radius of the barn


there are several feral cats that run around, a few have turned up rabid so that one reason we shoot them. another is more of a wildlife preservation view. feral cats dont really have any natural predators some hawks and great horned owls will take one out and some times so will a bobcat but there arent enough of them to rid the problem

 

[chas08]

I voted "yes if it clearly appeard feral" Cats can live well in the wild, so how they look is not a good indication. I'd go by how far they are from human support. We have cats we regularly feed but they still bring dead squirrels and rats to the back door. I doubt they carried them far. But if there was a hint of doubt in your conscience, then you did the right thing by letting it go. I wouldn't have a problem if it were far from human influence and in my favorite quail habitat.

 

[MCgunner]

I know the answer probably should be yes, but I like my kitty cats. I probably couldn't do it, either. I have in the past, though, but I'm a bit more soft hearted in my old age. I don't know, though, if it was a quail breeding area or maybe up around Eagle Lake where that Attwater's Prairie Chicken WMA is, I might justify it to myself, though.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

No collar => maybe; depends on the specific circumstances.

Collar => it lives

 

[rondog]

Boom.

 

[Nick5182]

I'd have to agree with MCgunner...I've always been a cat person, and I have no problem taking out all types of wild game, but I don't think I have the heart to shoot a cat. A mountain lion is a different story, lol.

 

[Ditch-Tiger]

I am NOT a cat person but have no problems with them IF they are inside/house cats.

That being said, once they step outside and off their owners property, they are fair game. Most cats kill anything they can catch, even when well fed, and i personaly don't think it's fair that native animals have to compete with them!

When on public property they are/should be shoot on sight critters.

 

[MCgunner]

Of course they kill things, that's the practical reason to have 'em around. They keep the barn/shop cleaned out. I used to have a lot of rats out there. I've got 3 cats now and they love to kill rats and bring 'em to me all proud, head held high. LOL

Nick, I see bobcats occasionally on my place, have a lot of 'em out there. Friend's boy shot one couple of years ago out there and they had it mounted. That was fine, but I don't want a mount, don't eat bobcat, wouldn't, so I've let 'em go. I even had a couple of bobcat kittens playing around my stand last year, watched 'em for about 10 minutes. A mountain lion, I'd let him walk, too, if I saw one, likely, but it would make a nice wall rug.

Funny, though, it's totally illogical because I will pop a coyote in a heartbeat. It's my hangup, I guess. I've always liked cats and dogs, but cats take less care if you leave for a few days. You can leave a good bit of food out and they won't eat it all in 5 minutes. They can stay in the house, use the cat box, don't need walking and letting out. The dogs I've owned mostly were labs, retrievers. Cat's don't make good retrievers in the duck marsh.

 

[Art Eatman]

I'm not gonna bother a neighbor's cat in a rural area. Cats somewhere near somebody's house might well be a pet, whether or not I like the free-ranging cat.

But out in the boonies? If it's there, I take it for granted that it's feral--or might as well be.

I'll pass on an average buck to kill a feral cat. Have, and will.

I'll once again bring up the info from the wildlife folks in Wisconsin, resulting from a lengthy study. A feral cat will kill as many as 100 songbirds per year. A serious effort at a census of feral cats in Wisconsin concluded that there were as many as a million feral cats in the state. Even if off by a factor of ten, that's a helluva lot of dead songbirds.

Songbirds tend to be bug-eaters. "Skeeters and sich."

Near Fran's house outside of Thomasville, GA, the local humane society folks set live traps for feral cats. Adjacent to her next-door neighbor's place. In about three months, they trapped 72 feral cats from a roughly less than one-mile radius.

After a couple of months, we began seeing songbirds and squirrels where there had been none before the trapping.

 

[The Bushmaster]

Too late. Killing one farel cat in the wilderness isn't going to protect the birds...This country and all others are infested with farel cats. And you are right. I have two "barn cats". One is 14 years old and pretty much thinks she's retired and stays close to home. The other one is young and roams out quite a distance from home...

I'd hate to find out that someone shot him for no good reason other then to "protect" the birds...

 

[Art Eatman]

At the old family place outside Austin, I was a halfway-serious cat hunter. I'd walk or jeep around the fence rows in the evening, just looking while checking fences. Fairly successful in holding the numbers down. Successful enough to have a fair quail population on the place.

 

[kanook]

When I purchased my house we told the old owner to remove the cats. They left them, all 13 of them. The county asked me to quit bringing them to them, (at the time it was 5 or 6)

After a few months of them being gone the wildlife started coming back. It's really cool looking in the yard and seeing Quail.

When the wildlife starts to disappear, a cat is usually the problem.

 

[2ndAmFan]

I live out in the boonies and we've had a few feral cats come around the house from time to time. They don't generally come around too often because we ummm...make them feel unwelcome. Feral cats can carry diseases that are a health risk to pets, wildlife, livestock, and people so we don't let them hang around. We have a couple of indoor/outdoor pet house cats who do a reasonably good job of controlling rats and mice, snakes, scorpions and other small varmints in and near the house. Any other cat that visits will probably get sent off with a bang, unless the dog gets it before I do.
Our pet cats don't wear collars since we had a couple of incidents where one of our cats got hung up by the collar in a tree so you can't go by a collar to judge whether a cat is feral. You can often tell by their behavior, sometimes by appearance.

 

[CoRoMo]

In my book, no collar means that it is either feral, or someone just doesn't really care much for their pet; they probably half expect it not to return at some point. Either case, it can die and nobody should be particularly upset by it. Being on ecologically sensitive turf, it probably should be killed right away. Even if it had a collar, I wouldn't cry if a wildlife management warden dispatched on behalf of the habitat.

 

[61chalk]

Have killed dozens, not neighborhood cats...but out in the woods, yes. If you have to
keep your dog on your property, then why not cats. They take away mice for hawks an owls, kill birds...One land owner asked me to kill every cat an groundhog I saw. Cats also
kill food thats meant for fox an other animals as well.

 

[MCgunner]

In my book, no collar means that it is either feral, or someone just doesn't really care much for their pet; they probably half expect it not to return at some point. Either case, it can die and nobody should be particularly upset by it. Being on ecologically sensitive turf, it probably should be killed right away. Even if it had a collar, I wouldn't cry if a wildlife management warden dispatched on behalf of the habitat.

You do realize if this thread were about dogs, it would have erupted in shouting and been closed by now. Why is it dogs are fine running around pillaging the world, but cats aren't? I never quite understood that double standard. I suspect it's rooted in witches and Halloween and religious superstition.

 

[CoRoMo]

Huh? This thread isn't about dogs?

 

[MCgunner]

No it's not. If it were, it'd been closed by now cause the whole place would have irrupted. Now, I haven't said anything about killin' of cats, wanton shooting of anything collar or no, if it's in or out of someone else's property. Nope, i haven't said a thing, but mention doing this to dogs and I can tell you what the reaction will be. That's my point. I like cats AND dogs. I just don't get the hypocrisy from the cat hater/dog lovers.

 

[dakotasin]

i like dogs, hate cats.

i'd have killed either one in a protected area.

but, most definitely, cats, coyotes and skunks: never let 'em walk.

people from town think they're doing their pets a great service by dumping 'em out near the farm. feral cats and dogs just don't survive long.

 

[Sav .250]

Touchy subject if you are a cat fan. Cats are noted killers when left to their own devices, so if they are running around in the wild........... Your call.

 

[MCgunner]

Wild dogs will and have attacked, maimed or killed PEOPLE. Cats can't do that. Wild dog packs ravage livestock, cats, well, if you're a quail farmer you have 'em in cages. I don't know if one could take a chicken or not. Might peck his eyes out. I had a laying hen killed once in her pen. I suspect maybe a cat. You can legally kill animals after livestock in Texas. Far more and bigger livestock is killed by dog packs. I know a guy that lost some very expensive exotic sheep a few years back.

This "hatred of cats" is pure superstition over the millennia IMHO. Black cats = bad luck, the whole witches and cauldrons thing, ghosts and goblins. It's totally illogical. Yeah, they kill birds and rats. If they're a threat to game birds in the wild, culling 'em makes sense. Culling any un-natural predator in the wild is good practice. But, I don't "hate" cats for the sake of it. I had pet cats as a kid as well as dogs. I didn't torture either for the fun of it. Cats see far more of that sort of thing because of the bias superstition.

My only question is about people that will go OUT OF THEIR WAY to defend all dogs, even feral ones, to the point of getting a thread like this shut down, yet they see nothing wrong with killing a cat on sight just because it's not in someone's house and even if it's sporting a collar. I don't quite get that.

 

[Art Eatman]

Hey, I like cats and I like dogs. If I didn't travel so much, I'd have some sort of poo-tat lying around the house. Indoor critter, though. I like having quail and antelope squirrels meddling around on my front porch. In this last hour, as a matter of fact. My "welfare people".

Same for some sort of medium-sized dog. Setter-pointers are good. Set all day, pointing at the kitchen.

But feral? Out in the boonies? Whole different deal.

Overall, though, not much problem here. Coyotes eat house cats. And a good name for a dog is "Lion Bait". We had a pack of feral dogs for a while, but they seem to have all been killed off, one way or another...

 

[MCgunner]

I've never seen a feral cat on MY place. Lots of coyotes, bobcat, and the hogs might eat 'em, don't know. I've had problems with feral dogs, though, but not recently since the hogs have gone berserko nuts and I'm wondering if maybe that's a reason for THAT, too? Could hogs have a beneficial effect no one gives 'em credit for? Hmmmm..... I'd rather have hogs, I prefer eating them.

Pronghorn in the front yard? WOW, how cool is THAT?!

 

[waterhouse]

A lot of people don't have collars on their cats for fear of strangulation if they get stuck in a tree. At least that's what my wife, the cat person, says. I have no idea if it is true. Our cat is collarless but stays indoors.

I've shot several feral cats out at the family quail place, and several more at the family crawfish/duck ponds (our grandfather used to pay us per cat when we were little). Both are pretty far from "civilization." I'd hesitate if I thought one belonged to someone, but other than that I have no trouble shooting them. My wife and I have agreed to not discuss the issue.

Our current house is in a new subdivision that took over a field. I never see stray cats around here . . .the neighbors say coyotes ate their cat when they moved in, so at least for now nature seems to be balancing itself out.