Posted on 04/07/2008 6:05:51 AM PDT by Aristotelian
Every spring, as birds flock back to Long Island [N.Y.] in droves, Eileen Schwinn wonders whether this will be the season the cats get the last remaining pair of piping plover at Mount Sinai's Cedar Beach.
Schwinn, president of the Eastern Long Island Audubon Society, is racked with emotion over what she says is a "dramatic decrease" in species such as plover, bobwhites and ovenbirds threatened by the claws of stray cats.
But Cedar Beach's 30 or so feral cats have a powerful ally in a smorgasbord of animal rights groups, some of whom say Long Island's strays - estimated to be in the tens of thousands Islandwide, according to one rescue group - have as much right to the beach as birds.
The controversy in Mount Sinai reflects a battle playing out from Atlantic Beach in western Nassau County to Sammy's Beach on the South Fork - birders and cat lovers at loggerheads over what to do about feral cats believed to be preying on bird species as common as the tern and as rare as the ground-nesting piping plover.
Local government agencies charged with resolving the disputes often find themselves caught between flying fur and feathers.
"It's a very sensitive issue; it's a nationwide problem,"
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Thanks for the posting. =^..^=
You’re welcome.
:-) yep we are.
But now we have a dog. A 10mo Yellow Lab 65# 'puppy'. Our college Sr daughter (Student Teaching now) surprised us one Saturday morning with it. After an hour with the cute little thing, that was it, 'we' now had a dog. But we still like cats.
Birds are something else. I've been pooped on by pigeons so many times growing up in Chi ... and now with goose cr*p all over our parks ... well - some birds just need killin'.
(Morning doves (fancy pigeons) are invading our neighborhood now and my pellet rifle is getting itchy again. It sits in its case and shakes when that frickin cooing starts)
Are “homeless people” considered feral humans?
....our family has a beach house at Sunset Beach, NC and there’s a stray cat controversy there also....the cat lovers have set up feeding stations on the island to the dismay of some...they feel the hand outs just make the problem worse....we’ve adopted three cats off the island ourselves but can’t handle any more....they are breeding faster than they can be placed with families....they also get trap wise pretty quick so they’re hard to catch.
Nope, the rising flood waters are from global warming, caused by man, you see.
Completely unnatural, naturally.
:-)
People who like cats need to keep the bloody things inside, since you can’t fence them like dogs. Cat owners need to pay for licenses, just like dog owners. The strays need to be trapped and sent to the pound. If they are adopted, great. If not, so be it.
I’ve got a cat. She stays inside, where she can’t destroy the native bird population. She’s spayed, so she’s not spitting out unwanted kittens. When we first moved here, there were bobwhite quail, and turkeys. Then imbeciles built below us, and dragged in 3 cats that ran loose. Flippin’ things reproduced and eliminated all of the grounddwelling game birds in the area within 5 years. Cats target the baby birds that follow their mothers. It’s been 4 plus years since I’ve seen a turkey and 9 years since I’ve even heard a bobwhite. Years ago, I opened my door and there was a flock of 12 or more turkeys in my front yard.
I like cats, but they have their place. We have laws controlling dogs, and we need similar laws to keep cats from decimating game species, not to mention songbirds.
They will be now....
They will be now....
You’re welcome ~o.o~
True, just shoot the damn cats.
Small correction!
My thought exactly. Feral cats make a mighty fine target for .22 long riffle rounds.
(you'll all be happier!)
- owned by 2 Labs and a Siamese cat with an attitude
One of his semi-famous sayings: "The reason we don't hear more reports of man-eating Siamese cats is, they're just not big enough."
If I didn't think I would be killing some beloved family pet, I'd use a more lethal weapon. But a feral animal? Ready on the right? Ready on the left? Ready on the firing line. Fire at will...or whatever you want to call it.
The cat population is maintained at artificially and unnaturally high levels by humans who feed feral and outside cats, and who get rid of predators that might control the cat population.
The cats are like muggers on welfare living in a city where honest citizens are disarmed.
Nice try but not global warming. This is/was Brazos river flooding. The Brazos River used to flood almost every year but in the last 30-40 years I don’t think there has been one that flooded our property. I guess dams/levees etc. have fixed that problem at least for us.
Extinction is perfectly natural, but lets not abdicate our stewardship of the earth just because of that.
I prefer the wild birds myself. I trap house sparrows to make room for bluebirds and martins and house finches. (native species.)
THankfully we don’t have too many roaming cats.
It is funny to watch liberals with their conflicting agendas!
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