Misinformation: Cats

[American Patriot]

Alright... this is OLD news. I saw it several months ago, and yet, BBC is carrying it again as "new information".

Now, the biggest LIE in here are the "cats" are little cats, house cats that kill a bird on occasion. Mostly here in the US they kill "English Sparrows", small brown birds that are an INVASIVE species to the US, and are PESTS.

They also kill pigeons, another pest.

Finally, the MAJORITY OF CATS that are out there running lose are not "house pets", they are feral cats.

By my COUNT ALONE there are nearly 75 of them in my neighborhood. I'm not allowed to catch them, and kill them, and the city won't do anything.

On the BRIGHT side, I LIKE they keep mice out of my house, and yard and therefore I WOULD NOT SHOOT THEM ANYWAY.

29 January 2013 Last updated at 11:25 ET Cats killing billions of animals in the US

By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC World Service Feline friend or feline fiend?


Cats are one of the top threats to US wildlife, killing billions of animals each year, a study suggests.


The authors estimate they are responsible for the deaths of between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds and 6.9-20.7 billion mammals annually.


Writing in Nature Communications, the scientists said stray and feral cats were the worst offenders.


However, they added that pet cats also played a role and that owners should do more to reduce their impact.


The authors concluded that more animals are dying at the claws of cats in the United States than in road accidents, collisions with buildings or poisonings.


The domestic cat's killer instinct has been well documented on many islands around the world.


Felines accompanying their human companions have gone on to decimate local wildlife, and they have been blamed for the global extinction of 33 species.


But their impact on mainland areas has been harder to chart.


To find out more, researchers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service carried out a review of studies that had previously looked at the predatory prowess of cats.


Their analysis revealed that the cat killings were much higher than previous studies had suggested: they found that they had killed more than four times as many birds as has been previously estimated.


Birds native to the US, such as the American Robin, were most at risk, and mice, shrews, voles, squirrels and rabbits were the mammals most likely to be killed.


Dr Pete Marra from the SCBI said: "Our study suggests that they are the top threat to US wildlife."


The team said that "un-owned" cats, which they classified as strays, feral cats and farm cats, were killing about three times as many animals as pet cats, but that their owners could do more to limit the impact.


Dr Marra said: "We hope that the large amount of wildlife mortality indicated by our research convinces some cat owners to keep their cats indoors and that it alerts policymakers, wildlife managers and scientists to the large magnitude of wildlife mortality caused by cat predation."


A spokeswoman for the UK's animal welfare charity the RSPCA said that a properly fitted collar and bell could reduce a cat's success when hunting by at least a third.

[Ryan Ruck]

There's a couple that hang around my place. Fuckers definitely aren't doing their job dealing with the mice. I have to engage in scorched earth warfare with the mice around here to keep the destructive little fuckers out of everything.

And the mice aren't doing their job either. Tons of wolf spiders all over. During our first freeze of the winter when all the spiders started seeking the warmth inside my house, I felt like I was living Starship Troopers there were so many invading.

I've got something new planned for the spiders this spring though...

[American Patriot]

hahahahahaha

Starship Troopers.

LMAO!

Well, if you have "a few" then that's the problem. They simply aren't breeding quickly enough. Feed and water them more.

/grin

(I have a LOT of cats. There are at least a whole family of them in my yard, living around the deck and I didn't put them there).

Because of the sheer number of them I haven't seen mice in 3 years now.

[American Patriot]

damn, I think I found the source of the feral cats that keep appearing......

Cat rescuers take more than 150 cats from Springs' home

January 29, 2013 9:05 PM
ShareThis| Print Story | E-Mail Story


DANIEL CHACÓN
daniel.chacon@gazette.com


Call it cat chaos.


Rescuers say they took 161 cats Tuesday from a home in southwestern Colorado Springs Tuesday after an intervention with the homeowner.


“They were not neglected. Just the sheer amount of them was neglect on her part,” said Carolyn Spillner of Lakewood-based Life Is Better Rescue, which led the rescue.


The rescue started about 2 p.m. and ended about four hours later when the Life Is Better Rescue van, about the size of a small U-Haul, showed up in the parking lot of King Soopers on Cheyenne Meadows Road with all the cats in stacked crates and kennels built into the van. The intervention included an agreement by Life Is Better Rescue not to reveal the location of the hoarder’s home.


See a gallery of photos from the rescue here.



The cats, of varying sizes and colors, were taken in by about a dozen rescue groups, including Every Creature Counts of Fort Lupton, Wild Blue Animal Rescue & Sanctuary of Black Forest and Pueblo-based Pet Project. The cats, which meowed and groaned as they were transferred from the van to awaiting vehicles, will be available for adoption.


“They’re good to go,” Spillner said.


The cats were not mistreated and lived in “big kennels” where they could run freely, Spillner said. They’re in fairly good health, though some have eye problems, which is not uncommon for cats, she said.


“We’ve already started treating some of them with antibiotics,” Spillner said.


Some of the cats are pregnant, and all will probably have to be spayed or neutered, she said.


“That’s our first goal, to get them all spayed and neutered,” she said.


Georgia Cameron, executive director of Life is Better Rescue, said all the cats were found in the garage.


“It was clean for 150 cats,” she said. “She had them separated into male and female pens, or what she thought were male and female pens.”


Tuesday’s rescue mission started with a cat bite.


Laura Lampley, a 30-year-old Denver woman who fosters cats, said one of her cats bit her last week when she was putting it in a crate. Lampley spent two nights in the hospital and was “really bored” in her hospital bed.


“I have a really bad habit of looking at Craigslist ads for animals that need help,” she said. “I came across a Craigslist ad for Pueblo that said, ‘Cats in need of homes.’”


Lampley said she called the number and got a call from a Montana woman who said her friend needed to move and find a home for her cats.


“I didn’t know how many cats it was at that time,” she said. “I was thinking it would be maybe 20 to 30 cats, but then Sunday night, she called me after she had gotten to the house and said it was about 150 cats.”


Lampley said she almost dropped her phone.


“I started calling everyone I knew in rescue and emailing. I just emailed every single rescue in Colorado Springs asking to see if they could take any cats if we were able to go to the house and get the cats out.”


Lampley said the Montana woman “negotiated” with the owner to let rescue organizations take the cats and avoid trouble with animal control.


Lampley said last week’s cat bite was a blessing in disguise.


“My boyfriend thinks that I’m crazy anyways for looking on Craigslist for cats that need help,” she said, laughing.


“But I’m passionate about animal rescue, and I spend my nights trapping cats in dark alleys in Denver at all hours, fixing feral cats, cats that no one wants, and picking up strays. I think I was supposed to find this Craigslist ad. If anyone was going to find it, it was going to be me because I do scour Craigslist to see if there are animals that need help.”


Lauri Cross, executive director of Wild Blue Animal Rescue & Sanctuary, said cat hoarding is not as uncommon as some people might think.


“I’ve been working with a group up in Wyoming where they have a hoarder of, I think, it’s 205 cats,” she said. “They were looking for help outside the state even to take care of that problem.”



Read more: http://www.gazette.com/articles/cats...#ixzz2JUJWYI4V

[Malsua]

Man, the fun that could have been had with a tube fed semi-auto 22

[American Patriot]

I was thinking "Cat-a-Pult". lol

[Ryan Ruck]

Mugshot of the culprit...