Random Acts
Today around the world bloggers are sharing stories of their random acts to help brighten up the world. I'd like to share my little contribution. A few weeks ago I read a story in the German Village newspaper about the plethora of feral cats living in the area (over 500!). Save the Wild Side is a group of residents in the area who set up a program to humanely trap the cats, neuter them, then release the cats back into the wild. The program is set up to reduce the number of cats born into the "wild". According to Alley Cat Allies
More cats are intentionally killed in the United States than die from any other documented cause.
Who is responsible? The vast majority of these killings are perpetrated not by cruel individuals, but by and with the authority of an antiquated animal control system. These killings are performed by government employees and contractors, and spill over to private shelter employees.
Everyone deplores this killing. Many characterize it as “necessary evil.” Alley Cat Allies knows that there is nothing necessary about this evil.
Today’s animal control system developed over 100 years ago to address certain serious harms that dogs posed to humans. It was, and is still today, based on ownership of animals. Animal control laws attempt to control animals by controlling their owners. They are a collection of owner duties to prevent damage, for example, duties to leash, to muzzle, to fence, and to vaccinate. Animals who do not have owners (the stray population) or whose owners cannot comply must be impounded and adopted or killed.
The problem with this is that the feral cats have no owners and are not socialized to humans so there is no chance of them being adopted so putting them into a shelter would essentially be a death sentence. It isn't about ridding the world of feral cats but controlling their populations so that every cat can have a home. I know C-Fresh feels passionately about this because of Hannah, who he took care of for years, and I care too because of TC (who adopted us when he was a kitten and we took him in before he became feral). That is why I made a donation to Alley Cat Allies in C-Fresh and Hannah's names.
posted by Vinnie G. @ 5:40 PM
4 Comments:
Excellent post. Thank you for shining the light on this issue.
So true about feral animals. Someday I hope to have a huge piece of property large enough for all the homeless people and animals in my town.
Does it count as a random act of kindness that I did not tell the derelict outside Starbucks to "f off" this a.m. when he SHOUTED "Hey pretty lady, you wanna come talk to me about Christmas?!". Instead I said "no thank you" and kept walking. Just faster.
We have a few new kitties in my area of GV and I hope we can catch them in a few weeks! They are young, so I'm hoping that they can be adopted. I am posting about them in my blog!
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