We live about 30 miles west of Cody, Wyoming. We run bison and some sheep. I keep up to 1,000 chickens depending on the market. We depend on our income and this is not a hobby for us.
Our closest neighbor is two miles away. The cats don’t just casually end up here, they have to make a serious effort to get to this ranch across open rangeland.
We already have our own barn cats who get regular, annual trips to the vet. We neither need nor want the cats that idiots from elsewhere drop off “in the country” with the false assumption that we want their problems.
If we didn’t deal with the feral cats they’d either cause us problems or end up being feed for the predators - and I can post pictures of coyotes that have nailed some of these cats.
We also used to shoot the occasional dog that got on the ranch and chased the cattle. These days we just pick up the occasional corpse of those dogs stupid enough to mistake bison for cattle.
The real solution here is for people to keep their pets on their property and not to abandon them in the country.
This city vet was not facing down a feral cat in her yard, it appears to be Tiger the pet.
This veterinarian really stepped in it.
I was raised on the family ranch in SW Texas-bigger place, more cattle and goats than here-these places are usually small-less than 20-25 acres-but the livestock and veggie gardens is at least partial livelihood, not a hobby-as they say, this ain’t no fancy place-people aren’t here for the golf course or pool...
A lot of us are people who are going galt, or just back to our roots because we are okay with being off-grid if it all goes to hell and remote is far better than a city.
I even keep my dog inside when I’m at work, or anytime unless I’m with her, and my 3 cats never go out-the same thing happens here-they end up as predator take-out food -the river and woods are a favorite place of mine to walk, but they are also coyote, feral hog and mountain lion territory, and certainly not safe for a domestic pet.
Most of the chipped, ear clipped neutered feral cats that were here have found homes in barns doing rodent work-at least the smart ones have.