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.
This guy claimed he was only shooting feral cats, but I believe he was also caught shooting people’s pet cats, according to an earlier thread.
House cats are not native to the Americas, so killing them is restoring nature’s balance. I think it’s your thinking that’s a little fuzzy.
I love cats but feral house cats are not pets and generally want nothing to do with people. They spread disease, make a racket (and a stench if they take up living under your porch or someplace like that) and kill wild birds. Although, I’ve read that it’s actually well-fed pet cats that are the most dangerous to wild birds, while feral cats tend to concentrate more on easier to catch rodents.
Next time I see a pony, I'll be sure to shoot it.
Quite right.
Now this is interesting.
I feed about a 100lbs of maize a week behind the house. I’ve got hundreds of Mourning, Whitewing, Urasian and the smaller ground dove, feeding there every day. Add in the fact that I’ve got 12 outside cats and you’d think it would be a dove massacre. That’s not the case, the cats are constantly hanging around the barn and feed shed or out in the pasture hunting the rats and mice.
Then you have good (and non-feral) cats.
Maybe they just don’t like dove meat. LOL!
Well, I can tell you that I had two cats, one of which had been a stray (not feral - it clearly had an owner at one time) for a while. While well fed, that cat was also killing at least one bird (that we knew of) every day or two. It even managed to catch and kill a red squirrel, and those little suckers are quick.
Ding - Ding - Ding
I think we have a winner.....
feral
fe·ral or fe·rine
adjective
Definition:
1. gone wild: describes animals or plants that live or grow in the wild after having been domestically reared or cultivated
feral cats
2. savage: similar to or typical of a wild animal, or living wild
He’s a realistic guy. I had a friend once complain about Ducks Unlimited going out and killing ducks. The thing she didn’t understand is that groups like them preserve areas so animals have habitat. Sure they kill some, but they don’t want them to disappear. Feral cats can do a lot of damage. He did nothing wrong. If animal control picked up the cats they would have killed them too.
Naw there just to lazy. I’m no expert on cats but i do have close to 50 years observation time around them and their wilder cousin the Bob-Cat. From my observation, I’ve seen very few birds taken by either. What i have observed is allot of rodents and small lizards and bugs taken by cats. I would love to see the study proving the damage cats do to the bird population. I lose more of my Quail and Dove to Raptors than i do cats or other varmints.
Nice tag...lol
Which are they, feral, or pets? They can’t be both. Either they’re feral and you’re just feeding them, or they’re pets and belong to you.
I don’t know about how much damage they actually do. The fact of the matter is, they don’t belong on someone else’s property.
My family owns a farm and stray or feral cats are a problem. (FWIW: we use Havahart traps and call animal control...usually)
My dad and I are quail hunters, BTW. He used to raise them but is now more into hunting wild turkey.
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