COMMENT OF THE DAY: FERAL CATS, THE SCOURGE OF HYDE PARK “Okay, I have been dealing with ferals for about 3 years, ever since moving to Hyde Park. They drive me nuts, but you can get the population reduced by spaying all the females. If you neuter or remove a male, another will come in. I still have problems with neighbors who don’t completely understand the gravity of the situation — ie, they mean well, but they don’t help. I have worked extensively with a neighborhood friend to help reduce the numbers and have been very successful. And for those who don’t think ferals are a problem: 1) They crap EVERYWHERE and are a potential source of disease. 2) Toms are aggressive towards our dog and us. 3) They kill songbirds, A LOT of them. 4) They get run over on a regular basis — perhaps Darwinism at work, but a potential serious accident waiting to happen for those trying to avoid hitting them, and a nasty mess in the street when they die. 5) They come into your yard and are aggressive to your cats who have every reasonable right to be in your yard. 6) They are a nuisance. Sure, kittens are cute, but they can have a litter of 4 in about a year. Guess how many cats can be produced in just 7 years from one pregnant female and her offspring? 370,000. Staggering. Of course, you aren’t realistically going to see those numbers, but you get the idea. If you can trap them — trap them humanely. Take them to the SPCA, or to BARC. If you can afford to get them spayed or neutered, do so and get them back in the same neighborhood. I know this sounds silly, but even if you got rid of 99% of a colony in your neighborhood, you will wind up with them being replaced. If you spay or neuter, it seems to stabilize. And trust me, doing that is easier than convincing some neighbors to help stop the cycle.” [Bruce, commenting on Cats Still Hanging Around West U Apartments, Unaware of Redevelopment Plans]
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This sounds like a direct quote from Walter in Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom”
I parked a soft-top convertible on the street near Hyde Park years ago and the cats ripped it to shreds, it was hundreds of dollars of damage. Even my Montrose neighbors have cats running around with their tags, which is a violation of the leash ordinance.
Funny, this doesn’t seem to be a problem in the Heights.
@montrose-Maybe there’s a cat-knapping anarchist there, much like the resident arsonist.
maybe the cars in the Heights have radiator leaks…
That’s lots of problems. I have a solution for only one. The City will pick up any (small) dead animal for free (it’s a health issue).
http://www.houstontx.gov/solidwaste/deadanimal.html
311@houstontx.gov
The reason the Montrose has feral cats is the same reason it has so many successful bars:
http://www.houstonpress.com/2011-05-19/news/the-mayor-of-montrose/
now what kind of a crazy person would intentionally avoid hitting a cat on the road, talk about taking all the fun out of driving.
Stray Cats were an awesome band. That Brian Setzer can jam on that guitar.
@DeDrew – funny, I have never read Freedom, although I think my wife did. Honestly, I love cats, that’s why I want to see this problem resolved. @DeadAnimalRemoval – I appreciate that the city SAYS they will pick up dead animals, them actually following though on it in a timely manner before the animal has been ground into the pavement is another thing though. @dan, very funny, and quite true – the Stray Cats WERE an awesome band. Too bad these cats aren’t as smooth.
I got cat class and i got cat style!
The City will only pick up dead animals on public property.
I discovered this one day while inspecting an abandoned apartment property near the Ship Channel. Initially, I walked past something that looked like a poofy pipe cleaner, but then was suddenly overwhelmed by the overwhelming odor of death. I then turned a corner and stumbled over a hugely bloated dog corpse…baking in the summer sun. The ‘pipe cleaner’ was its severed tail. (Although disgusted, I had half-expected to find a human corpse in that wretched place. So…it wasn’t all that bad.)
Although the down-wind odor and the flight path of insects were absolutely a menace to the public health (both on- and off-site), the City’s 311 dispatcher said that they had no authority to remove the dead animal.
TNR-Advocates “Vacuum Effect” is an absolute 100% LIE.
There’s an interesting study done by the Texas A&M University on TNR practices. They started out with about 12 sterilized cats. At the end of 9 months they had over 30. An increase of more than 200%, all moved in of their own volition. This isn’t due to any mythical “vacuum effect” that cat-advocates spread and lie about so often. You would have had to remove cats to create a vacuum for others to replace them. The exact opposite happened in this study.
Simple reason being: CATS ATTRACT CATS
Cat scents attract cats. This is why they spray everything; to attract mates, rivals, and mark territory. Cat sounds attract cats. Mewing kittens will even attract stray toms who kill the kittens if they are not their own (basic feline behavior of any cat species).
Another interesting finding, sterilized cats very poorly defend their territory. Any new cats see this as easy-pickings and move in to take over. If that cat-colony is being fed then non-sterilized cats will actually overtake the sterilized colony’s food-source because the non-sterilized cats are not as docile and complacent. If there IS any kind of “vacuum effect” at all, it is that sterilizing cats cause unsterilized cats to fill their reproductive void.
If you want more cats, keep some around. More will find you. Get rid of them all and there’s no reason for other cats to come to that area. I proved this myself by getting rid of every last cat on my own land, HUNDREDS of them. ZERO cats moved in to replace them for OVER TWO YEARS now. Should even ONE ever show up again? Shoot-on-sight A.S.A.P. Because if you don’t? You’ll be up to your a** in cats again, with them annihilating the whole native food-chain again in just a short matter of time.
FACT: Trap & Kill failed because cats cannot be trapped faster than they exponentially breed out of control.
FACT: Trap & Sterilize (TNR) is an even bigger abject failure because they cannot be trapped faster than they exponentially breed out of control, and they also continue the cruelly annihilate all native wildlife (from the smallest of prey up to the top predators that are starved to death), and the cats continue to spread many deadly diseases that they carry today — FOR WHICH THERE ARE NO VACCINES AGAINST THEM. Many of which are even listed as bioterrorism agents. (Such as Tularemia and The Plague — Yes, people have already died from cat-transmitted plague in the USA. No fleas nor rats even required. The cats themselves carry and transmit the plague all on their own.)
FACT: Hunted To Extinction (or in this case, extirpation of all outdoor cats) is the ONLY method that is faster than a species like cats can exponentially out-breed and out-adapt to. Especially a man-made invasive-species like these cats that can breed 2-3X’s faster than any naturally occurring cat-species.
FACT: Alley Cat ALL-LIES have only managed to trap 0.024% to 0.08% of all feral cats in their own city, thereby allowing more than 99.92% to 99.976% to continually and exponentially breed out of control. Alley Cat ALL-LIES can’t even reduce the number of feral cats in their own city, yet they promote it as a worldwide solution, then even bigger fools fall for it and promote it.
FACT: When researching all the most “successful” TNR programs around the globe, JUST ONE OF THEM has managed to trap more than 0.4% of cats in their area. Oregon’s amazing 50,000 TNR’ed cats (the highest rate I found) is only 4.9% of all feral-cats in their state. Yet, by applying advanced population growth calculus on the unsterilized 95.1% of cats they will have trapped only 0.35% of all feral-cats in their state sometime this year.
Owls.
FACT: These are not facts.
You haven’t heard? there’s night club owner over there after all this clubs close at 2am he feeds all the cats! but calls the cops on all the stray people!
@ Robert: I’ve heard about that guy. His girlfriend starts feeding cats at Wilson Elem. around dusk.
My deceased neighbor fed strays, so we always had stray cats around, then kittens.
I have trapped 8 or 9 cats over the course of a year, and essentially eliminated our little neighborhood’s feral cat population. I think the “cat vacuum” thing is BS. We have had only one new feral cat in a year’s time. He may be one that I never managed to catch.
I started off by taking them to the city facility: 3200 Carr Street, Houston, TX 77026. They are usually pretty busy, so be prepared to wait in line. The trouble is, they “sterilize and return” healthy cats back TO THE SAME NEIGHBORHOOD! I asked that the cats be euthanized instead, they said “no dice”. I think if they are diseased they euthanize them straight off.
These days, I go to the Houston Humane society. 14700 Almeda Road Houston, TX 77053. Costs $20, but they don’t “sterilized and return” so it’s worth it. Plus you don’t spend an hour waiting in line.
If you have a serious cat problem, I feel for you.
Good info, Woodsman.
Cat murderer…
The word “murder” is reserved for the case of human death ONLY. A cat can never be murdered. It can only be killed or destroyed. Try to not buy into the anthropomorphic psychoses that has deranged the minds of so many psychotic cat-lover-hoarders. Or is it already too late for you?
Even if you do believe that killing a cat is “murder” (as psychotic as that might be), then a cat killing all wildlife makes the cat a serial-killer “murderer”. I merely carried out their death-penalty for them having “murdered” so many innocent lives. Even under the terms of “murder” they deserved to be shot to death. ESPECIALLY under the terms of the definition of murder — if it is going to be used to describe deaths of animals; outdoor cats most certainly deserve a death-sentence for just being the witnessed, confirmed, and unstoppable serial-killers that they are.
If you then claim that, “No, it’s natural for a cat to kill other animals”, then I counter that that cat is a MAN-MADE INVASIVE SPECIES and has ZERO right to be out in nature destroying native animals. No different than some insect that was genetically engineered in some lab through selective-breeding that, if released out into nature, would destroy all of nature — JUST AS CATS DO.
And if you even then still believe that it is natural that a cat should be allowed to kill other animals then it is also true that man is and always has been a hunter. (Even those that do not hunt today — for I too am not a sport-hunter, I’ve never used a rifle for anything but cats.) It is perfectly natural for me, as a naturally occurring hunter/gatherer human, to kill cats. In fact, if it weren’t for all the hunters in your past, you wouldn’t even be here today. You owe your very existence and all of civilization around you to every hunter, all the way back to those with flint-knapped spear in hand, that came before you
In the case of cats and having to destroy them in the ONLY manner that is faster than they can breed or adapt to, to protect every food-chain in every ecosystem on earth — you may end-up owing even your future existence on earth to hunters as well, quite soon.