I honed my rifle skills on feral cats in the pasture and the fields on our farm. If the odd felonious feline wasn't content with a diet of fresh milk and barn rodents and took up the rouge life of an ex-mouser turned rabbit and quail killer, it would be added to the target of opportunity list.
Besides, after my brother and I wiped out the groundhogs along the ATT highline embankment that spit the farm in half, what else were we to expend our reserve .222 ammo on? Coyotes? They made a big detour to avoid our acreage.
We have a fairly effective feral (and domestic) cat population control device about a stone's throw away. It's called state road 65. Dozens of cats go to the great cat box in the sky courtesy of state road 65 every year just on the mile-long stretch near my home alone.
Most of the time I don't think the drivers are deliberately aiming for cats. But the cats have this extremely dangerous tendency to sprint out into the road just in time to get flattened.
We lost Spooky, our spayed outdoor pet cat of seven years this way last year. Since then, Runt, a neutered gray tom that had belonged to my sister in law, has adopted us as a family. I suspect in time Runt will make the suicide sprint as well.