I hope to God they do become extinct....through spaying and neutering via responsible people.
and as a matter of fact, I do have my burqa....here I am in my black one:
Posted on 04/13/2007 8:33:45 AM PDT by BradtotheBone
GALVESTON — After devoting much of his life to protecting wild creatures, a prominent naturalist here now faces trial on a felony charge of cruelty to animals.
Jim Stevenson, 53, a well-known bird-watcher and founder of the Galveston Ornithological Society, was indicted this week by a Galveston County grand jury on charges that he killed a feral cat Nov. 8 with a .22-caliber rifle.
"What really bothers me, this cat was down there killing endangered species of birds and others protected by law," Stevenson said in an interview Thursday. "Feral cats are not protected by law, and I stopped a cat from doing that and I get arrested."
Assistant District Attorney Bill Reed declined to discuss Stevenson's view of the law.
"All of those issues, I'm sure, will be flushed out in court," Reed said.
Stevenson, who has lived on Galveston Island since 1996, has traveled the world studying birds and published four books, including the Wildlife of Galveston. and publishes the Galveston Ornithological Society's quarterly newspaper, Gulls N Herons.
Despite his deep involvement with nature, or perhaps because of it, he has been accused of an aversion to feral cats because they prey on the birds he has studied.
Stevenson said the cat he is accused of killing had previously been captured and would have been euthanized had it not been spayed and and released.
Stevenson believes that there is no law protecting feral cats.
An official with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has said the law is unclear.
Although he admitted in a 1999 Internet posting to killing two dozen feral cats near his island home, Stevenson told the Houston Chronicle in November that he is fond of cats.
His arrest last year surprised and saddened many environmentalists.
"Jim Stevenson is not a bad man," Dori Nelson, chair of the Seabrook Eco-Tourism Committee, told the Chronicle soon after his arrest.
The arrest came after a toll-booth worker at the San Luis Pass Bridge told police that he heard two shots fired, then saw a white van speed away with Stevenson at the wheel.
One of the toll-booth employees, who had been feeding several feral cats and considered them pets, found the dead cat and pursued Stevenson. The employee said the cat already had a limp from an earlier bullet wound.
Stevenson is free on $10,000 bail. If convicted, he faces from six months to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Red Bellied is right, I have a breeding pair that never goes far from here.
I hope to God they do become extinct....through spaying and neutering via responsible people.
and as a matter of fact, I do have my burqa....here I am in my black one:
Probably another cat!
No. A feral cat is one that is born in wild and grew to adulthood without human contact. A feral cat is untamable.
Not a true feral cat. You must be talking about a runaway. That is not the same thing as a feral cat.
I just love all the tough guys on this thread who claim that “cats in their neighborhood” will “go missing” if they wander into the yard, blah, blah, blah.
What a crock of sh!t! These sissies want to trap, shoot, or poison a 5 pound animal with no fear of humans? What Badasses! Let me step aside for these guardians of the ecosystem! How busy they must be helping mother nature do her job. Now why did God give us cats again? Oh, so guys will small penises could threaten them in print, I guess.
Do you seriously think the cat has never killed without you knowing about it?
Sure, I see your point. But when those cats start reproducing, then you gotta start thinning the herd. Otherwise, you are iresponsible.
btw, a pig is better than a cat for eating snakes. And a snake is better than a cat for eating mice and rats.
I strongly disagree. Killing feral cats should not be a crime, and anyone should be able to say it, anywhere.
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I strongly disagree with your use of the word “should”.
Killing cats IS not a crime...so long as no one owns them. This toll booth idiot might be able to make the argument that those cats were owned. IF this is successfully proven in court, then the cat dispatcher would be liable for paying the replacement cost of each cat....about a hundred bucks should cover it.
Yes! Actually, when I was a pre-teen, and had a paper route, I carried a bb gun with me and did just that. Killed every one I could. My dog ate them.
Amazing how times have changed. What would people do nowdays if they saw a paper boy in the city carrying a bbgun and shooting birds out of peoples front yards?
There’s nothing in the law (that I know of) that keeps anyone from putting out poison bait in their own yard.
Fine. But would you get angry if someone decided they had too may rabbits around and shot some of them?
Then why get angry if someone does the same to a few stupid wild cats?
You had a male fixed, and then released him?!?
HAHAHAHA
That’t the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of! You do realize that males don’t have babies don’t you? You do realize that one intact male in about a 5 mile radius is all that necessary to knock up every *&%ing puss-cat in the whole area, don’t you?!?!?
You wasted your time and money just so you could get that warm fuzzy feeling and make beleive you did something to make a difference!
Austrailia may need some feral cats to thin the rabbit pop.
Is the first bird a young Cardinal? What is the blue bird with the yellow wing patch?
Your pictures are beautiful BTW.
Thanks, first bird is a Cardinal, then some Yellow Rumped Warblers, and a Tufted Titmouse. The frogs are Florida Bronze Frogs, Rana Clamitans clamitans, or “banjo frogs”.
The blue cast on the warblers is a trick of light, they are really more grey.
I don’t claim to be a “tough guy”, you brought that up.
Tell me, what else has Jane Fonda taught you?
There is more variety back at the far end of my land, but it is hard for me to get there, the old legs won’t handle the rough stuff anymore. The Eastern 500 feet of the property is about like it was 500 years ago. Bunch of Loblolly Bay, wild blueberries, and humongous Loblolly Pines. You can push a pole 10 feet into the peat before hitting sand. Almost a mile to the next hammock and road.
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