Over at the Earth in Transition blog, Michael Mountain, one of the founders of the "No Kill" movement, writes about the latest study which shows that free-ranging domestic cats in America kill 1.4–3.7 BILLION birds and 6.9–20.7 BILLION mammals annually:
Why would we be surprised by any of this? Wasn't it their hunting ability that led cats to become our best friends in the first place?
Read the whole thing, but I applaud the fact that Mountain notes that the collateral killing of wildlife by abandoned pets is not limited to cats:
Currently, in Florida, we have another wildlife catastrophe on our hands. Tens of thousands of Burmese pythons (some say up to 180,000) are loose in the Everglades as a result of criminally irresponsible "pet owners" and former breeders dumping their unwanted "pets" out in the wild. Pythons grow very large – up to 17 feet long – and can swallow a deer for dinner. A female python can have up to a hundred eggs. Entire populations of rabbits and foxes have disappeared from the Everglades, and populations of raccoons, opossums and bobcats have dropped as much as 99 percent.
Right.
And what is Florida doing about feral Burmese pythons?
Well, for one thing, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has launched a hunting competition with cash prizes to people who can kill the most pythons. "No license or experience needed -- just a gun or a knife."
Notice that no one has objected to that!
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3 comments:
I'm very concerned that we will ultimately see these feral snakes in TX. Of course they have to get through the southern USA (including LA) before they show up here. But if I do find one on my property, I will not bother to call ACO or 911. I figure several pieces of buckshot shot should take its head clean off. Then my three TX JRTs and I will find out how they taste on the old 55 gal drum bar-b-que grill. I wonder if it'll taste like chicken. I'll offer a piece to whatever stupid neighbor comes looking for it as javalina.
I'm thinking the Good Lord gave us dogs and cats to love, not snakes.
Debi and the 3 TX JRTs.
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/02/auburn-trained_dogs_track_snak.html
I'd love to train my dogs to track invasive species! I have lived next to a TNR colony as well as a few crazy cat ladies. Not much difference in the rising amount of cats, cat poop, cat noise, missing birds at my feeders, cat piss in my Jeep. Yet a dog does what nature commands, such as kill a cat in his yard, and the world goes crazy.
Wendy, it doesn't go crazy here. My big girl has killed three in our back yard. I put them in black plastic bags and into the big trash can. I figure if they don't love the cats enough to keep them in, and they aren't smart enough to stay out, they are so much garbage. I don't like it, but down here a fenced in yard is like a house.
Debi and the TX JRTs
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