killing feral cats, your opinion?
Hi all, I have a controversial issue to ask you folks.
I was born and raised up in another country which is far more different than the U.S.A thus before you animal fans throwing negative comments about my action please read my post thoroughly and carefuly.
I was born in a small town in Egypt where almost every family keeping at least 1~2 cats for hunting rats. My grandparents treated them good and as a child I love my two house cats very much.
However, at my town there’s problems, we have feral (wild) cats roaming almost everywhere, these cats are very wild in terms of temperament and will attack human and our chicken. Not only they create huge feces and lice problem, but also these beasts attacked my beloved house cats and caused one of my cats lost its legs, and caused our female house cat pregnant for every mating season.
my town people always view them as vermin, and exterminating effort is strong ever. These feral cats are very resilient and hunting them involved even children such as me. I once killed a ferocious feral cats by burry it.
The problem now lies here, after 20 years spent at my hometown, I settle in Seattle and working at a Hi-tech company, but after I told my colleagues about my childhood stories, almost every1 of them looked at me as if I was some animal abuser… they now somehow kept distance from me (maybe due to my ethnicity?) But heck, I love cats, and still own a 5 year old tabby.
It seems that whenever people heard the word "cat", the only image poped up in their mind is their beloved childhood docile one, not realizing there’s another form of cat—- feral, which is a beast, ferocious and full of aggression.
What’s your opinions of my childhood action? I thought I did a grand job helping clear the feral problem and protect my house cats.
forgot to mention something, as someone advocate trap-Neuter-Return, I know it sounds very humane. However, back in the 80′s I doubt there’s any Vet in Egypt (I even doubt its existence nowadays…), and our house cats are semi free roaming ones, getting pregnant is somewhat inevitable.
One more thing to give away, my grandma simply threw the kitten born to the female cat into dumpsters since we can’t afford more than 2 cats… I don’t think her action was very cruel, coz almost everyone else is doing this. I suppose I might have to keep this part a secret since my colleagues would never accept such practice.
I might have to add more info into this:
My town was rather poor in terms of American’s standard, and even the house cats were not kept as pets. They were working animals targeting rid of rodents which is a MAJOR nuisance at our town.
My grandparents couldn’t even afford additional foods providing for cats, and they have to rely on their own to feed themselves, mostly by eating house rats and sand rats, and that’s why they must be free roaming.
The feral (wild) cats are in very close proximity to human dwelling, living under dumpsters ready to hissing&scratching at anyone getting close to them. feces, fleas and not to mention the constant fighting they have, either amongst themselves, or with other house cats. My house male cat was bitten very deeply by a feral at the leg and led to a very bad infection eventually his whole leg was mummified (No vet), and eventually replaced by another cat.
If you ever lived under that circumstance, you would probably understand why.
Filed under: Cat Behavior
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To be completely honest with you, I don’t blame you one bit for your actions. We as Americans don’t typically have too wide of a view when it comes to plights in other countries, and if ANY type of animal was putting my kids in danger, I wouldn’t hesitate to have it taken care of as well. In the US, however, we have organizations put in place to assist us with this, because its not socially acceptable or morally right by most of our standards to take care of the problem ourselves. If there were organizations like that in Egypt, then you wouldn’t have had to do this yourself. Here, we have trap-neuter-release programs to help us out, and most of the problems aren’t as severe as what you described. But do I blame you for what you did? Not one bit, its a different place and you had to handle it the best way you could.
Edit: As far as I know (and I could be wrong) there are almost no vet or pet restrictions in Egypt, and depending where you live, finding a vet is very difficult. Spaying and neutering is just not as easy to have done there as it is here. If it WERE, this wouldn’t be as big a problem, but it would take a huge undertaking to set something like that into motion.
I can see the reason’s behind killing feral cats when the problem is severe and they are threatening the safety of children, pets and livestock (people kill foxes and the like don’t they?) However, I think there is a much more humane and eventually more effective method to the problem you describe. Spay and neuter your household cats! There is no reason that your female needed to get pregnant all the time. It is bad for their health to be reproducing at every available opportunity and her kittens were undoubtedly contributing the the feral cat population. Consider the 10 litters of 4 kittens she probably had in her life. Where are those 40 cats now and how many of those were girls which are now reproducing the same way? There are lots of organizations in the USA that organize mass trappings and spay/ neuter of ferals. Even though it doesn’t stop the problem, it does stop the reproduction of more problem cats. The cats are only doing what they are programmed to do (kill and attack to survive). Perhaps it would do the Egyptian government some good to enforce mandatory spay and neuter of your cats if the problem is as severe as you are describing. Killing the cats that are bothering you is not a solution to the problem, just a very temporary fix.
you were very cruel when you buried the feral cat alive, your anger n hostile attitude towards the feral cat belong to the forces of darkness. I been reducing the feral population by sterilising them n given time, they befriend me. Feral cats lead a difficult n homeless life, show them compassion not treating them like vermin. you should keep your own cat indoor, allowing it to go out caused pregnancy, the responsibilty you failed to take.
Learn from the Havard orStanford experience, the university sterilise the feral cats n introduced a humane programme. I love all cats esp the feral ones, they are the ones often been abused; you will be punished for burying the feral cat alive. how would you feel if you were born a feral cat n someone bury you till you die? This is the curse of Egypt!
Although i know certain country’s do destroy others use different methods. There are certain farming methods here I disagree with, but I vote with my pocket and avoid certain products, plus encourage those who try promoting More humane methods (including destruction of vermin.)
Your last statement of it’s not cruel to dump a kitten into a dumpster because everyone else is doing it is very small minded, I live in an area with a very high drug problem. Just because everyone else is doing drugs does not mean i have too. The simple fact you won’t tell your colleagues due to what they may think seems to tell me you know deep down it is cruel I fyou really believed it was right you wouldn’t care what your colleagues thought.
You talk about the 80′s yet we’re talking about present day. You talk about tossing kittens in a dumpster to starve or be crushed, we’re talking TNR.
Its a modern world. NOT the past. Your actions today are what’s important. If you cause harm to other animals deliberately or ‘because everyone does it without thinking’, is that good?