What is the ideal caliber for Feral Cats?

[cratz2]

243 was my first thought but I suspect that anything from a 223 through a 25-06 would do just fine for turning the little buggers into a wet red spot in the grass.

And I'm sure the 22 Magnum or the faster 22LRs would kill 'em just as dead.

 

[Snowdog]

Never shot a cat for sport, but once in defense....

It was a nasty hot day, and I was helping a buddy (who's arm was in a cast) with hay baling. Drove to the barn and found a large tomcat sitting on a bale and refusing to back down, making wicked noises. Called the friend and he asked me to kill it if I could, it wasn't his and was the prime suspect of inflicting injuries to his daughter's cats (that keep the rodent population in check).

CCW K9 & 115gr Triton Quik-Shoks... not misty, but jelly (and plenty of it). Tried to get an angle that would send the bullet into the ground after finishing with the cat.
In retrospect, I should have hunted a shovel, the mess ruined a good part of a bale, and only the cows would eat the rest...the horses wouldn't touch it.
Felt bad for the friend, but he was nothing but grateful that what his daughters dubbed "demon cat" had bought the farm.

If I had to eliminate a nasty "demon cat" again, I believe I'd declare my Rem. 597 .22WMR as the most ideal device at my disposal, unless it's sitting on a hay bale.

 

[Bruce in West Oz]

Any damn thing I have in my hand!!!

Most usually, .22 rimfire.

 

[Jedi_7.62]

I'd like to try the 50 sounds like a great idea. Nothing left to pick up.

usually .22 but when I get the chance I find my SAR 1 performs nicely.

As I said in another cat post I enjoy any chance to use my AK.

Anything else the bullets are to expensive to waste on a cat.

 

[MeekandMild]

Bruce, what sort of critters do 'Stralian cats kill?

 

[redneck]

From what I've read, cats aren't a native species in Australia so the stray problem is even bigger down there. There isn't anything besides people that will thin them out. So until Bruce can give you a more specific answer, I'd say cats kill everything smaller than they are short of the really nasty critters like some of their snakes.

 

[Bruce in West Oz]

Feral cats here eat anything they can get their paws on. They are particularly damaging to small native mammals such as the quoll, many of which are now classified as endangered. Similarly, they have a penchant for munching native birds. (Note that some animal-huggers dispute that cats cause any damage at all -- a claim that's a bit hard to swallow (pun intended) when government estimates are that there some 12 million feral cats here.)

Research shows that both feral and domestic cats kill and eat more than 100 native Australian species of birds, 50 mammal and marsupial species, 50 reptile species, and numerous frogs and invertebrate species. In Australia, cats have no natural predators. They are most active at night, dusk and dawn when much of our native wildlife is also active.

http://www.npws.nsw.gov.au/help/catswild.htm

They're incredibly self-reliant and tough. They are known to live in all parts of Australia -- even the dead heart (the deserts in the centre of Oz) are home to them.

Bruce

 

[Shalako]

Nice graphic Bruce.

For my application, close range would call for a super choked turkey gun shooting magnum 4s. Longer range would demand the .223.

I think I'll develop a new round specifically for coons and cats and othersuch beasties. It will be a sintered aluminum rifled slug in the 12 gage variety. It will have a hollow cavity filled with, lets say, 6M sodium hydroxide. That way, in addition to explosive fragmentation, the strong base solution will sear and blister for extra terminal misting effects. The splatter factor alone should be quite sensational. Off to the drawing board......

ps. I think I will call it, The Gobstopper (TM)

 

[MeekandMild]

Bruce, that's terrible! You have my sympathies. I recall a National Geographic magazine article from the mid 1960's which showed pictures of all the cute fuzzy little near-extinct marsupials.

Do they import the Marlin Model 17 to Australia? It has many of the capabilities of a .22 but zings out its little .17 caliber slug at nearly warpspeed, Haven't seen any misting effect, but the cats seem to fall into a black hole when hit.

http://www.outdoorlife.com/outdoor/gear/reviews/article/0,13285,388722,00.html

 

[ball3006]

The same caliber that I use.....

on feral dogs. Whatever is leaning against the door or on my hip. Dogs are easier to hit because they don't usually run when they see you.....chris3

 

[Bruce in West Oz]

Do they import the Marlin Model 17 to Australia?

Yep, M&M, sure do. The round has received some excellent shooting press here in local gun magazines. Being a rimfire, it's also easier to licence under our onerous laws than a centrefire is.

The Marlin ranges in price from about $550 to $800, depending on the model.

We can also get the excellent Anschutz in .17 HMR too. The difference is in price -- which ranges from $1300 up to $2400, depending on model.

Bruce

 

[HadEmAll]

CB caps after they're in the trap works just fine here in the city limits. I like and admire cats, but when they start doing damage to my vehicle paint jobs, they've got to go.

 

[telewinz]

I find the .50 caliber Browning gives me the needed edge in tight situations. In a dark closed in alley or under the front porch, I can't afford to have an underpowered gun if and when the first shot doesn't take him/her down for the count. Pussy cats have been known to charge without even being wounded! You can't say that about a slow rhino or an even slower african bull elephant. Yes sir, I'm talking about one shot vaborizing, when only the best will do.

 

[Pinned&Recessed]

I think the .577 or .600 Nitro Express are the way to go on feral cats. It puts them down with authority.

Seriously, I think a good hi velocity .22 like CCI Stingers would do fine. An AR loaded with M193-spec ball makes an interesting result.

 

[JackStraw]

Not cool, but what do you expect from the uneducated and barbaric.

I trap them, sterilize them, and then release. They keep the mouse/rat population in check. We have done over 5000 in the last year.

The vets donate their services to the organization that we are affiliated with www.bestfriends.org

I have two feral kittens that I rescued. Best pets and I'm not a cat person.

If I ever saw someone shooting cats I would inconspicuously make note of their Lic#, address, description for future use. Would it be worth it?

 

[stevelyn]

I would liked to have voted, but since there wasn't an alternative feral cat medicine available, I'll have to describe wn entertaining option.
See, here in AK seal bombs are popular for keeping seals and sea lions out of fishing nets, running bears out of dumpsters and you yard before exiting your house.
For those of you that don't know about or have never seen a seal bomb, they are nothing more than a large firecracker about 4" long and about a 1/2" in diameter with waterproof cannon fuse to set it off. They let off a pretty loud bang but not hot enough to set off det cord (trust me I know)
Well anyways, remember the scene in Saving Private Ryan, when Capt. Miller demonstrated the use of sticky bombs to disable the German tanks? A similar thought occurred to me to employ seal bombs in a similar fashion where to the exterior of the seal bombs were coated with an adhesive substance that could stick well enough to cat fur, but would not so much that it would prohibit a person throwing the seal bomb accurately at the cats.
I think this is something that deserves further study and expermentation.

 

[foghornl]

Having lived "out in the boonies" before, and had people that would drop off no-longer-wanted cats and dogs, I suggest anything from the 40MM Bofors cannon down to the .17 Maggy



Once, I had a feral cat roaming around that actually took down a goose. Same cat took a load of #5 from the 12 gauge at about 40 yds...found some fur and a bit of blood from where he ran off.
Finished the job a couple of days later with a 3" Mag #4 buck at about 25 Yds. Said cat was huge...almost thought it was a bobcat, except it had the mixed black & white coloring of a standard "housecat".


.17 Maggy for the cat, 40MM Bofors for use against the car of those that drop-n-drive-away unwanted pets

 

[MeekandMild]

Not cool, but what do you expect from the uneducated and barbaric.

I have ten years of formal education after my honors degree in biology. My ornithology teacher was a nationally recognized expert.

I trap them, sterilize them, and then release. They keep the mouse/rat population in check. We have done over 5000 in the last year.

Mice and rats are needed to keep up a healthy population of hawks, owls, snakes, skunks, coons, bobcats and assorted other natural predators. Cats make no distinction between European rodents and the threatened species of deer footed mice, dunes mice te cetera.

Cats also eat a wide variety of insects, birds, lizards and assorted critters. So you're deliberately killing off the indigenous wildlife. Multiply 5000 by 100 in the north or 200 to 500 for the warmer climates to get an idea of the annual number of songbirds you have killed. 1/2 million by the most conservative estimate!!!

If I ever saw someone shooting cats I would inconspicuously make note of their Lic#, address, description for future use. Would it be worth it?

Yes it would be worth it. At your slander hearing I would be happy to produce color slides, graphs and charts which might help your victim obtain a large jury settlement.

On a more sarcastic note, one of my wife's friends is a "cat rescuer". One day she caught a mouse in a glue trap and she was overwhelmed by the little critter's suffering. So what did she do? She considered all her options and her feeble mind could come up with only one option. She BURIED it alive! Admittedly that may have been more humane than being eaten alive by a cat.

So! What is your favorite caliber to use to humanely remove feral cats from the food chain? I prefer the .17 due to its excellent stoppng power and its tendancy to risk less collateral damge to objects which are significantly behind the cat.

 

[Art Eatman]

JackStraw said, "They keep the mouse/rat population in check." Now, I'd agree that's a good thing if you're talking about mice and rats in your house or barn.

Problem is, a feral cat could care less if the mouse is (for instance) a kangaroo rat, which is a little desert critter which is listed as "Threatened", if not "Endangered".

A feral cat is uninterested in the "Endangered" listing of the burrowing owls of the campus of the University of South Florida--which feral cats are killing toward extinction.

These are but two examples; there are many more available to an educated person.

I've noticed that some knowledge of ecosystems and environmental inter-relationships is more common among educated people. Absence of a modicum of such knowledge makes one wonder...

, Art

 

[HerbG]

My personal experience is that a 185 grn. target wadcutter at about 800 fps from a match .45 will do the trick every time! In addition, the .22 LRHP is a lousy feline dispatcher.

 

[Combat-wombat]

Heh heh... I marked .50 BMG.

 

[BARRY]

A .350 Rem Mag load with 125 gr HP pistol bullets coutesty of Speer #9 manual. Reloader 7 powder!

 

[Art Eatman]

There's Always More

http://conservation.law.ufl.edu/spotlight.html

, Art

 

[Bruce in West Oz]

Not cool, but what do you expect from the uneducated and barbaric.

You want to be very careful about that kind of talk around here; you're likely to find yourself well and truly outclassed in the education stakes.

I trap them, sterilize them, and then release. They keep the mouse/rat population in check. We have done over 5000 in the last year.

5000 in the year? You're losing the battle.

I have two feral kittens that I rescued. Best pets and I'm not a cat person.

Then they are no longer feral; ergo, no problem. (But I still find this curious -- I've seen photos of a person's hand after encountering a couple of feral "kittens" -- looked like a chainsaw had been at work.)

If I ever saw someone shooting cats I would inconspicuously make note of their Lic#, address, description for future use. Would it be worth it?

Absolutely -- I might need to call you in as a witness when I claimed my bounty for shooting the cats. Oh, and BTW, following someone to get their address is not regarded too highly by the police in this country.

Bruce

 

[JackStraw]

Oh, and BTW, following someone to get their address is not regarded too highly by the police in this country.

Neither are gun owners from what I hear. And don't you mean gestapo. Thats why I'm an American. No wonder their taking your guns away.

Yes it would be worth it. At your slander hearing I would be happy to produce color slides, graphs and charts which might help your victim obtain a large jury settlement.

Slander hearing please! Slander is a tort that involves the spoken word, libel is the terminology your after and none of this meets the legal test. I you want the seminal case I will email it to ya. After you finish law school lemme know...maybe then YOU could give me a run for YOUR money...but you'll have to get in line and everyone in front of you have paid their dues in the paper chase, a club of which I am sure you hold no credentials.

Art, you make some good points. But unless you live in a rural area the discharge of firearms within any city limits that I'm aware of: is illegal. Looks like your going to have to add traps or euthanaisa to the poll

The emperical facts you cite regarding the effect ferals have on indigenous organisims is probably correct. But I still couldn't stomach killing kittens. You are a better man than I.