Shotgun-wielding biologist took home $182,951, left dead cats in dumpsters OAKLAND, California––East Bay Regional Park District biologist David “Doctor Quack” Riensche may have been paid more per feral cat he allegedly killed than the $3,000 that “Joe Exotic” paid to Frank Allen Glover in his foiled plot to murder Big Cat Rescue founder Carole […]
Predation is nature’s disease control, including for Tweety & Sylvester
Too few cats around bird feeders means pine siskins die by thousands SACRAMENTO, California––When are free-roaming cats watching a bird feeder the birds’ best friend? When infectious disease is at large among common bird feeder species, spreading rapidly from bird to bird in the absence of predators to kill and consume the sick and […]
Cats, tahrs & feathers on Table Mountain, South Africa
Goats gotten, South African National Park Service scopes in on feral cats CAPE TOWN, South Africa––Have feral cats succeeded feral Himalayan mountain goats, called tahrs, as the purported greatest threat to native South African wildlife at Table Mountain National Park? The few remaining Table Mountain tahrs, a cause celebré from 2001 to 2004, are descended […]
Feral cats poop where someone feeds them––& that’s the big problem
Two studies confirm skepticism of waiting for studies to confirm the obvious LOS ANGELES––The unacknowledged takeaway lesson from two new studies of neuter/return feral cat control, published respectively by the City of Los Angeles and the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science, may be that by the time academia, the courts, and public policymakers […]
Why killing cats on remote islands will not help biodiversity
And why killing dogs, rats, pigs, goats, mice & mongooses too would be mainly make-work for exterminators SANTA CRUZ, California––Appealing for funding to kill cats, dogs, rats, pigs, goats, and mongooses on at least 107 islands belonging to 34 nations, in the name of promoting biodiversity, the previously obscure 25-year-old organization Island Conservation scored […]
$1.5 million DC Cat Count: useful, make-work, or compiling a hit list?
Counting cats in Washington D.C. & how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall WASHINGTON D.C.––For $1.5 million, one could catch, sterilize, and microchip all of the approximately 7,000 free-roaming, not-yet-fixed cats who may be at large in the 68.34 square miles of Washington D.C., at an average cost per cat of […]
Why is Hawaii “moving at a hurried pace” to kill cats at boat harbors?
New policy allows waterfront cats to be killed “by any means deemed necessary” MILILANI, Hawaii––Hawaii Department of Land & Natural Resources chair Suzanne Case “is moving at a hurried pace to kill cats with a lead pellet fired from a high powered pellet rifle to the head or heart,” alleges Carroll Cox––who is not […]
Brush possum killings build momentum for “boycott New Zealand” drive
Coercing children to kill possums oversteps international bounds WELLINGTON, New Zealand––If New Zealand conservation minister Maggie Barry held the portfolios for attracting tourism and economic development instead, she might be less notoriously dismissive of increasing international humane concern about the outcomes of the scheme she announced in 2015 to rid the nation of “invasive” […]
How a birder’s mistakes incited 100 years of cat hatred
The Domestic Cat: Bird Killer, Mouser and Destroyer of Wild Life; Means of Utilizing and Controlling It by Edward Howe Forbush Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1916. [Free 112-page download from <http://books.google.com/books>.] Reviewed by Merritt Clifton The 1916 tract The Domestic Cat: Bird Killer, Mouser & Destroyer of Wild Life; Means of […]