I worked with a PETA activist once. She was really getting on my and another guy’s case for enjoying hunting. I told her how the animals in slaughterhouses are so scared and mistreated and that in hunting, the animal doesn’t know it’s coming, much more humane. She actually thought about it and understood.
When I worked for this small company a few years back, some yard cat had kittens and there were a couple of them by the bush in the front of our building. We called a gal that advertised as being a rescuer of cats. She came out first tried to persuade us to let them live in our office or shop. Um, no.
Anyway, I chatted with her for a bit and found out she moved from city to city all over Canada, and that was determined by the stray population of a particular city. I couldn’t believe people kept track of this stuff. So she was telling me that people volunteer to catch these wild stray cats in the downtown core, have them spayed, then take them back. Hopefully the cat population will then just dwindle. To horror, I asked the stupid question, if you catch them, why wouldn’t you just put them to sleep. It doesn’t hurt them. She went into some spiel about them having as much right to live as humans.
So, I asked her how they “dwindle” out. Well, they either get killed in traffic, they freeze, they starve, they get sick, or they just die of old age. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. So I said, so you want them to die in a very unpleasant way, after having spent money to have them spayed, and I want them to be gently put to sleep so they don’t have to live uncomfortable and dangerous lives. Seems to me I care more about cats than you do.