To the editor:
I read your March 8 front page story about feral cats and trap-neuter-release (TNR) programs in Willow Springs and Mtn. Grove. I’m a wildlife biologist with much more concern for wildlife than with non-native feral cats.
Below I quote freely from Joan Meiners from her July 3, 2018, article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, “Booming Feral Cat Populations Are a Disaster, Science Says”:
Feral, free-roaming cats have been documented by dozens of studies to be indiscriminate killers of wildlife and the cause of at least 63 species extinctions, according to a 2016 analysis of invasive species impacts. A 2013 study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute found that free-ranging, domestic cats (mostly unowned) are the single largest human-caused threat to wildlife.
Cats are what scientists call "surplus killers," meaning they kill more prey than they eat. Scientists at the University of Georgia and The National Geographic Society put cameras on 55 outdoor cats and recorded their activities for seven to 10 days. They found that a third of these cats averaged about two kills per week, and the cats left nearly half of their prey uneaten. The scientists estimated — based on a conservative tally of 84 million outdoor cats in the country — that nearly 1.5 billion animals are killed and abandoned by outdoor cats every year. Domestic cats have tremendous impacts on native wildlife and are responsible for the extinction of numerous mammals, reptiles, and at least 33 bird species globally.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention name cats as the single greatest source of rabies risk to humans in the United States, with dogs as the largest source of rabies infections worldwide. A 2012 review paper published in the journal Zoonosis and Public Health tracked a trend since the turn of the century of cats spreading rabies at twice the rate as dogs, probably due to differences in how we manage (or don’t) feral cats versus stray dogs.
In theory, by limiting cat reproduction by trap-neuter-release, these programs reduce the growth of feral populations without having to euthanize any cats. But some scientific studies raise questions about the effectiveness of these programs to reduce populations.
Studies in Florida, Australia and Rome that have achieved sterilization rates of up to 70% have seen declines in feral populations. However, a 2018 analysis by researchers at the University of Maryland and the University of Guelph, estimated that typical sterilization rates in feral cat populations subjected to TNR range between 0.7% and 3.5%, with most achieving less than 1% sterilization of the population.
It is the policy of The Wildlife Society regarding feral and free-ranging domestic cats to support and encourage the humane elimination of feral cat populations, including feral cat colonies, through adoption into indoor-only homes of eligible cats and humane euthanasia of unadoptable cats.
Indoor house cats (pets) are not the problem. Free-ranging feral outdoor cats are devastating our native bird populations. Neuter or euthanize, but please don’t release cats into our neighborhoods.
