Posted on 11/29/2023 3:16:30 AM PST by cll
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hundreds of stray cats that roam a historic seaside tourist area of Puerto Rico’s capital where they are considered both a delight and a nuisance will be removed over the coming year, under a plan unveiled Tuesday by the U.S. National Park Service.
The agency said it will contract an animal welfare organization to remove the 200 cats estimated to live on 75 acres surrounding a fortress at the San Juan National Historic Site that the federal agency operates in Old San Juan. If the organization fails to remove the cats within six months, the park service said it would hire a removal agency.
Cat lovers responded to the plan with dismay, but the agency noted that the felines can transmit illnesses to humans. “All visitors will benefit from the removal of a potential disease vector from the park,” the park service plan stated.
The six-month timetable to remove the cats is unrealistic, said Ana María Salicrup, secretary of the board of directors for the nonprofit group Save a Gato, which currently helps care for the cats and which hopes to be chosen to implement the plan.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Wow…I did not know The Stray Cats were still together. But I looked and they are. Brian Setzer is just 64. I hate to see Puerto Rico run them off though. Sad.
San Juan historic area soon to be overrun with mice and rats.
That’s OK. They’re not known to the Biden Administration to be disease vectors. /s
Typical government response to something/everything. Ignore it until it becomes a problem then spend money on the wrong “solution.”
The feral cats congregated there because of a ready food source. When the number of cats became more than the food source could support. People start feeding the cats and the population continues to grow. At some point government decides the cats are a problem and decides to remove them all.
The proper course of action would be to determine the proper number of feral cats the local food source can support. Then humanely cull the cat population back to fit the food supply and keep people from feeding them.
So simple a high school drop out can figure it out.
Any solution that doesn’t entail some politician and/or his family getting government money is not acceptable.
Therein lies the problem.
Sad but true.
Can’t forget the graft for our elected ”public servants.”
How low we have fallen since the Founders.
Brian Setzer was not available for comment. Although he was seen walking quite confidently in the opposite direction.
No. The rats are in power in Puerto Rico. Why would they do such a thing?
(Oh, you meant the furry critters with tails! Never mind.)
Hmmmm.... wondering what the "other options" might be? And for what percentage of the current population?
Stray cats can be a safety/health problem, but it sounds like there are capture/placement & spay/neuter programs already in place & are probably are a better answer (and more humane) than "removing" the cats entirely. Cats & kittens that are adoptable can be taken out of the population & the true ferals left to do their thing. I agree that there will be a mice/rat problem very quickly if all the cats are gone.
“Feral cats kill many times their number in birds every year, often torturing the birds for amusement before killing the birds.”
That’s BS promoted by the fascist cat-haters at the leftist Audubon Society.
There are US cities with successful spay/neuter programs. City neuters the feral cats, and some neighbors agree to provide some meals. One neighborhood I have observed over 25 years had this program, and I never saw a rat. Major renovations and higher end sales began about 5 or 6 years ago, people who fed the cats moved out, the cats were no longer fed. Now they have disappeared and the rats are running wild and even entering houses.
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