Only In America- Cat Hunting

I love my country more and more. Every time I read an article like this I just have to laugh. The British finally banned fox hunting this year, yet here we are debating another form of violence against small animals. However, instead of it being a case of the upper classes riding around in fancy cloths this will probably involve the lowly peons of the middle class wearing ripped jeans and smoking Camel Lights.

As a former student of ecology and population dynamics I do find this to be an interesting case. As a student of human nature and morality I find this a doubly interesting case. In America, most of our non-urban areas have all kinds of wildlife pests who's extermination is regulated by law. Many of these animals are cute, but none are domesticated animals like housecats and dogs. We have no problems telling people that they can kill foxes, coyotes, or gophers that destroy their livestock and their land. (Think about our Western states both in the past and at present.) But when the pest becomes something that we associate with our civilized life we hesitate.

It is hard for us to think of hunting for sport an animal that we look to for personal comfort. Unless you hate cats-then you don't have a problem. Wild animals aren't anthropomorphized like our domesticated ones. We have never used cats strictly as food. We keep them as pets, we name them, and honor them (even in death-hello Pet Semetary). For all these reasons we have trouble seeing them as something to be shot (and probably skinned and tanned). For most people there is something unsettling about this town's resolution.

However, as I said, I used to be a student of population dynamics and I appreciate the position of those who favor the resolution. Non-native species are often debilitating to natural populations. Cats and song birds are a perfect example, even the small mammals are not unimportant in an ecosystem. Each animal fills a niche, each niche plays a role in your ecosystem, when you start emptying those niches one by one, you can come very quickly by a problem.

So what do we do in this case? Some people say that the loss of habitat is the biggest contributor to the loss of songbirds. However, the study cited says that feral cats kill from 47 million to 139 million song birds every year. (We'll ignore the gross disparity again, but I promise we'll get to it someday.) What's to be done? If they pass the resolution how will pet cats be differentiated from feral cats? Someone's kid is going to be upset if Fluffy takes a round to the head because she doesn't like her collar. I hate to admit it, but this will be a very interesting case to follow.