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Topic: Let All Kill Some Cats (Read 3270 times)
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SnotBag
Terracotta Army
Posts: 59
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http://www.local6.com/family/4370939/detail.html?ontheside=storyThousands Attend Cat Hunt Meetings Opponents Say Hunting Cats Won't Help Song Birds
Hundreds showed up at Wisconsin Conservation Congress meetings around Wisconsin on Monday, many to voice their opinion on a proposal to allow hunting of free-roaming cats. Advisory Vote Taken On Feral Cat Hunting Debate
Outdoor enthusiasts gathered for spring hearings in every county to vote on hunting and fishing. The results get forwarded to the state Natural Resources Board. The proposal was one of several dozen part on the agenda of the annual meeting. About 2,000 showed up in Dane County at the Alliant Center. Cat hunt opponents said that hunting cats is not going to fix any problems with declining song bird populations.
"Although feral cats may contribute (to) the problem, the destruction and loss of habitat is far and away the primary reason for the loss of song birds, gamebirds and other birds," one opponent said.
Supporters of a cat hunt said that current programs to control cat populations are not working. "Maybe we can figure out something with the Humane Society, but neuter them and send them back into the wild -- I don't think that'll do it," a cat hunt supporter said.
Mark Smith, a La Crosse firefighter, proposed the hunting idea at the La Crosse County congress last year, noting that feral cats killed small mammals and birds. Under Smith's change, which would require a law passed by the Wisconsin Legislature, free-roaming cats would become an unprotected species and it would no longer be a crime to kill them.
At least two upper Midwestern states, South Dakota and Minnesota, have allowed wild cats to be shot for decades, just like skunks or gophers. Critics of Smith's idea organized Wisconsin Cat-Action Team and developed a Web site -- DontShootTheCat.com. They said they would mobilize cat lovers to attend the congress meetings.
Some estimates indicate 2 million wild cats roam Wisconsin. The state says studies show feral cats kill 47 million to 139 million song birds a year.
Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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TheWalrus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4321
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Why not dogs? Or dog owners for that matter? Won't have their dog shit in their yard, but takin it to the local playground for a sculpture session is ok. Bastards.
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vanilla folders - MediumHigh
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blackotter
Terracotta Army
Posts: 23
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Why not humans? Believe me, if it was legal to kill free roaming humans, it would solve a lot of problems we have today 
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Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075
Error 404: Title not found.
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Songbirds apparently outrank cats I guess. Why are people always trying to screw with nature? I mean if the food supply declines in population, a bunch of those cats are going to die anyway. It's funny how nature will keep itself in check without you firing bullets at it.
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CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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SnotBag
Terracotta Army
Posts: 59
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Songbirds apparently outrank cats I guess. Why are people always trying to screw with nature? I mean if the food supply declines in population, a bunch of those cats are going to die anyway. It's funny how nature will keep itself in check without you firing bullets at it.
I suppose you'd kill the cats for sport. It would be like killing coyotes in Arizona, you can't kill them all, you can't eat the meat, they annoy people, and it's fun to kill stuff.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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Sigh. Snotbag got the avatar I wanted to use next. Mehhhhhhhhh. Nice pick, Snotbag.
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Strazos
Greetings from the Slave Coast
Posts: 15542
The World's Worst Game: Curry or Covid
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Can't you choose just one?
Or is that ADHD acting up again?
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Fear the Backstab! "Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion "Hell is other people." -Sartre
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kaid
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3113
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What they were advocating was pretty much to treat feral cats just like coyotes which you can hunt without a permit any time of the year and take as many as you want. So far all the areas that have voted on this have been strongly against it mainly because in many areas you could not tell the differeance between a feral cat, a farm cat or a house cat that got outside.
Honestly most of the cats that are doing the damage that the activists were decrying are not even feral. Most of them are farm cats that while not house pets are still clearly domesticated and do the job that they were purchased to do which is killing vermin.
I would be hard pressed to kill an animal for doing exactally what it was brought to a place to do. Most farm cats that I have seen in my years with the DNR also tend to stay fairly close to their home barns. Sure they will go out into the fields to hunt but most do not range that far from their dens and the safety/supplemental food farmers give them.
kaid
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voodoolily
Contributor
Posts: 5348
Finnuh, munnuh, muhfuh, I enjoy creating new written vernacular, s'all.
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Songbirds apparently outrank cats I guess. Why are people always trying to screw with nature? I mean if the food supply declines in population, a bunch of those cats are going to die anyway. It's funny how nature will keep itself in check without you firing bullets at it.
The main flaw with this argument is that songbirds comprise a tiny fraction of prey for feral (and not feral) cats. Furthermore, compounded with habitat loss and competition from nonindigenous birds like house sparrows, house finches, starlings, cuckoos and cowbirds, native songbirds are kinda fucked. Nest parasitism and habitat loss are the real problems here. Nature can't always keep itself in check when build minimalls on the last vestiges of native prairie and import alien flora and fauna that will dominate an ecosystem. I think instead of shooting the cats, they should just trap and euthanize. It would save a lot of money (as opposed to spay and release), and eliminate the "is it Fifi?" argument. Also, Kaid: for the record, you can't shoot coyotes and other furbearers in every state without a license. Coyotes and other wildlife are still public property, the "taking" of which must usually be compensated monetarily.
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kaid
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3113
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Actually I was not making a gneralization about coyote hunting. I live in Wisconsin the state that the cat slaying laws are being proposed in. The proposal would make feral cats fall into the same designation as coyotes. Basically any land holder would be free to shoot any of these "pests" on their property any time they wish and kill as many as they wish. I believe it would also permit the hunting of them on public land and national forrest land.
You could not however go onto somebody elses property to kill cats unless you were invited by the land owner to do so.
Kaid
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SnotBag
Terracotta Army
Posts: 59
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I think instead of shooting the cats, they should just trap and euthanize. It would save a lot of money (as opposed to spay and release), and eliminate the "is it Fifi?" argument.
Also, Kaid: for the record, you can't shoot coyotes and other furbearers in every state without a license. Coyotes and other wildlife are still public property, the "taking" of which must usually be compensated monetarily.
Trapping and euthanization wouldn't be cheaper than just selling a license to a game hunter! Here in Arizona, coyotes are covered under small game, and there is no limit. I've heard coyote meat tastes like shit, so most coyote killers leave the carcas to rot. Killing coyotes makes small pets and children safer. Legal cat hunting just sounds fun. [I never liked cats though]
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Furiously
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7199
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I think instead of shooting the cats, they should just trap and euthanize. It would save a lot of money (as opposed to spay and release), and eliminate the "is it Fifi?" argument.
Also, Kaid: for the record, you can't shoot coyotes and other furbearers in every state without a license. Coyotes and other wildlife are still public property, the "taking" of which must usually be compensated monetarily.
Trapping and euthanization wouldn't be cheaper than just selling a license to a game hunter! Here in Arizona, coyotes are covered under small game, and there is no limit. I've heard coyote meat tastes like shit, so most coyote killers leave the carcas to rot. Killing coyotes makes small pets and children safer. Legal cat hunting just sounds fun. [I never liked cats though] See that nice mounted Calico there? Nearly lost an eye shooting that one in Wisconsin in 06. And check out that Siamese on the table. Got that blighter last season. It was a cold spring morning, I woke up early due to his mating cries, I knew he was a mean Tom, he'd had half the pride in the neighborhood. I put on my safety gear (Including the leather with steel reinforcements neck protector in case I had to go mano-el-cato) and grabbed my trusty .375 H&H Double Barrel African Rifle and headed into the bush. I had a bit of trouble tracking him, but I'd set some Friskies(tm) in a tree he liked to frequent. I grabbed my trusty binoculars and took a look. Sure enough he was unable to resist the tasty morsel. When I got to the blind 100 yards from the tree, he had disappeared from the tree, testing the wind direction with a lit cigarette I saw I was downwind from the cat, so he shouldn't have heard me. I waited several hours, lighting one cigarette off another so the sound of the match wouldn't alert him. I decided to go check one of the other blinds finally to see if I could get some better luck, little did I know I was 30 paces from death. He had circled back around me and was about to pounce when I heard a rustle in the weeds - I quickly turned around and got the drop on him. I pulled the trigger, and heard a click as the cartridge didn't fire. The ferocious cat was closer and closer in the air to me. Time seemed to slow and I could feel the sweat erupting from each pore on my forehead. I kept pulling on the trigger and finally the 2nd firing pin in the other chamber made contact I smelled catass and gunpowder mixed together. As he landed on me - I saw the bullet had went straight through his chest - and continued out his backside. Struggling to lift his body off me, I knew I would never hunt cat again. I had just had the ultimate hunt. *edited - apologies to Peter Capstick. I hope you didn't roll over in your grave on that one.
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« Last Edit: April 14, 2005, 03:03:18 PM by Furiously »
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TheWalrus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4321
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It would take years of torture for me to finally kill the guy that shoots my cat. And they'd never find his body.
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vanilla folders - MediumHigh
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kaid
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3113
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The really funny thing with the cat hunting proposal is most truly feral cats tend to be quite nocturnal and would rarely be seen. I worked in the woods in northern wisconsin for a couple years spending almost all my time outside and the only cats I ever saw was barn cats near barns and one time a bobcat.
kaid
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Polysorbate80
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2044
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Also, Kaid: for the record, you can't shoot coyotes and other furbearers in every state without a license. Coyotes and other wildlife are still public property, the "taking" of which must usually be compensated monetarily.
Hell, some states used to pay ya to shoot coyotes. Alas, Idaho no longer offers a bounty, but you can still kill them any time through any legal means. Around here, most people would just shoot the cats and figure "who needs a damn law about it?"
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“Why the fuck would you ... ?” is like 80% of the conversation with Poly — Chimpy
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