71–80 of 244 posts
Given that the article is also kind of a PSA for New Yorkers, I'm surprised that it didn't mention ear clipping. If a feral cat has already been spayed or neutered, its left ear is clipped so that people know to leave it alone and not trap it again.
This definitely isn't new. I had an apartment in Bushwick through the 2000s, and due to construction in the surrounding area, the rats on our block and occasionally in our building were huge and relentless. Then my neighbor moved in. She was a pet photographer by trade, but also cared for all the neighborhood cats as well as all the area bodega cats - making sure they all had their shots and were spayed / neutered. S…
and...? I was hoping to see the rats show up on your comment but you never mentioned them again
Pet ownership needs more regulation. And it needs to be enforced. Our neighborhood social media pages are full of stray animals roaming the streets, piles of newborn kittens in crawlspaces and dumpsters, emaciated dogs found everywhere... And then at the same time you have people trying to give away or even sell puppy after puppy and kitten after kitten. If you own an animal, it needs to be spayed or neutered.
Unless you are willing to throw poor people in prison over kittens, you can't really effectively enforce pet ownership laws, because the judgement-proof will keep pets. I suppose you could have roving cat detector vans that would spay and neuter any cat they could get their hands on unless it had approved breeding chips embedded inside. I've heard a documentary on such a thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOonOty…
The article is making it seem like trap-neuter-release is a completely new strategy, but groups in NYC and elsewhere have been employing it for a long time. What's new is that Flatbush Cats is building a new vet clinic to provide more spaying / neutering capacity.
NYT seems to be running an anti-cat agenda. This article calls trap-neuter-release (TNR) a "controversial" practice, whereas it's well established and proven to be effective (something even this article says). A few years back, they ran a full-blown frontal assault[1] on Google's volunteer-ran TNR program, gCat, blaming the TNR program (and only the TNR program) for the decline of the local burrowing owl population.…
[2], p. 30: "Predation by nonnative and/or nuisance species. Predators, such as nonnative cats, dogs and foxes, as well as native crows and ravens, that are thriving in human-altered environments. The City policy of removing cats and foxes has been effective and beneficial for the burrowing owls."
[3]: "There are many factors that could explain the low numbers. The owls are ground-nesting, living in holes hollowed out by squirrels. That can leave them vulnerable to a long list of predators, including foxes, skunks and raccoons. Feral cats are considered the worst of the lot, preying on owls as well as the small birds and rodents that make up the owls' main food supply. In fact, a released cat last year ended up mauling one prolific male owl, Kleinhaus said."
[5] appears to concern burrowing owls in Black Hills National Forest, which is substantially different from Mountain View.
[9] does not call out cats specifically, but does recommend "[r]educing adult mortality rates by preventing the use of harmful rodenticides near occupied habitat and reducing the threat from non-native predators" on p. 22.
And a vax of course.
This definitely isn't new. I had an apartment in Bushwick through the 2000s, and due to construction in the surrounding area, the rats on our block and occasionally in our building were huge and relentless. Then my neighbor moved in. She was a pet photographer by trade, but also cared for all the neighborhood cats as well as all the area bodega cats - making sure they all had their shots and were spayed / neutered. S…
Kill the feral cats and you end up with rats becoming the overlords.
Given that the article is also kind of a PSA for New Yorkers, I'm surprised that it didn't mention ear clipping. If a feral cat has already been spayed or neutered, its left ear is clipped so that people know to leave it alone and not trap it again.
this is not always the case this is only done by public service organizations. if you have you pet taken into the vet to get fixed, the ear clip is optional and many choose not to get it clipped