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The woman was warned and fined multiple times, but played helpless "But I'm just trying to be helpfulllll! Why are people being so meannnnnn!" When she was clueless and creating a nuisance. And not actually helping the cats.
May I remind you her case is being reviewed by a different judge before she is scheduled to serve time in jail?
People abandoning animals are the ones creating a nuisance.
yeah it is like saying 79 yr old goes to jail for running a red light......but leaving out the rest of the circumstances like she was drunk and ran over 2 kids in the crosswalk.
Cats are fully capable of finding their own food. They don't need help.
If this woman really wanted to make a difference, she would have been doing TNR and helping to cut down the feral cat population. Trapping the strays her neighbor left behind and getting them adopted out to new homes.
NO they are not. Yes they do need help. OMG - you know nothing about cats!
The woman described them as strays in the OP article. The follow up article supplied by Fluffy described kittens and that of course is the problem.
As I said in a post that has been deleted we did the same thing. Neighbor was feeding strays and moved, they showed up here starving. We fed them, fixed them, named them and they are now out outside cats. So I have sympathy for this woman but she should have had the cats fixed.
Which means the cats are predating birds, invading other people's property, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fluffythewondercat
We don't think so in the Bay Area, where there are many TNR programs that have been successful. What it takes is volunteers.
The best-known TNR program is at Stanford University. Students sometimes abandon cats when they leave school. It was a real problem that prompted the establishment of the Stanford Cat Network, in cooperation with but not funded by the University. 20 years since its inception, thanks to SCN, there are only a few remaining cats that haven't been rehomed and still have territories on the Stanford campus.
It can work elsewhere too and it does. In our old Silicon Valley neighborhood there are feral feeding stations and volunteers who trap new cats, have them neutered or spayed and release them back into their territories. Ear tipping is used to mark the ferals that have been neutered. There are feral feeding stations in many locations.
Wouldn't it be far better to trap and euthanize the cats, rather than letting them run all over the place, killing birds and squirrels?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sparkypeanut
NO they are not. Yes they do need help. OMG - you know nothing about cats!
I know my kid is very allergic to them, and that people who would scream bloody murder if my dog pooped in their yard have no problem with their cats pooping in my yard without them present to clean it up. I will never understand why people feel compelled to contribute to the cat problem by feeding feral cats.
People abandoning animals are the ones creating a nuisance.
But the old lady perpetuated and increased it (because she was feeding unfixed animals, who went on to breed). She's not blameless.
Fixing the cats fixes the problem. That's what the city should be concentrating on. Catch 'em, fix 'em (and vaccinate them for rabies), and rehome any who are tame enough to be good housepets. Let the old lady feed any which are not tame until they die off (which they will do eventually, not being immortal). Problem solved.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aredhel
But the old lady perpetuated and increased it (because she was feeding unfixed animals, who went on to breed). She's not blameless.
Fixing the cats fixes the problem. That's what the city should be concentrating on. Catch 'em, fix 'em (and vaccinate them for rabies), and rehome any who are tame enough to be good housepets. Let the old lady feed any which are not tame until they die off (which they will do eventually, not being immortal). Problem solved.
Fixing the cats doesn't fix the problem, though.
People who no longer want cats dump them off in feral cat colonies, and they grow and grow. Often, they dump off a female cat who is pregnant.
She's an old lady. She sees poor starving animals. She feels bad for them, so she feeds them. Anyone faulting her for her compassion should be locked in a cage to starve, and hope that someone will feel sorry enough for them to feed them. I think the people harassing the poor lady, fining her and threatening her with jail time, should be stuck in cages and neutered too. Those people suck, we don't need any more of those types around.
Really? Wow, too much energy.
Bottom line is she broke the law. Wasn't this a repeated violation?
She could have gone to the local press and made a public pleas for help.
You're missing the point, which is: Why is it illegal to feed stray cats there?
The law makes sense. If everyone in the town fed stray cats without first neutering them, the town would eventually be overrun with feral cats. The problem is that the judge in this case doesn't seem to have much common sense. The problem should be dealt with, with education, not jail time or even fines.
The law makes sense. If everyone in the town fed stray cats without first neutering them, the town would eventually be overrun with feral cats.
Yes.
Quote:
The problem should be dealt with, with education, not jail time or even fines.
The problem is that compulsive animal feeders (like hoarders, whom they resemble in may ways) are nearly impossible to educate. Still, it's worth a try.
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