INHUMANE SOCIETY REVISITED:
OUTDOOR CATS, WILDLIFE & HUMAN HEALTH
By Dr.
Michael W. Fox & Deanna L. Krantz
Many advocates of trapping, neutering,
vaccinating and releasing cats (TNR) claim that this saves these cats’ lives
because they are too wild to be adopted and would otherwise be euthanized. They
go on to argue that these cats adapt and find their place in the
environments/ecologies where they are released. They also contend that cats
play a vital role in controlling rodents that can carry diseases harmful to
people, such as the plague or Black Death that in the mid -1300s wiped out one-third
of Europe’s population.
This deep scar on the human psyche, passed
on
from generation to generation is one of the justifications used to rationalize
releasing cats into our communities for our health’s sake to control “vermin”.
Another justification, according to one (pro-life?) advocate of the “No Kill”
animal shelter movement is that “We really need outdoor cats because in most
places there are no natural predators to control wildlife.” Yet we have owls,
hawks, red foxes and coyotes in our neighborhood, now competing with TNR cats
released by our local humane society to fend for themselves through Minnesota’s
harsh winters. Many may become food for coyotes.
This same No Kill advocate also asserted that
“These cats killing birds like sparrows and starlings that were introduced here
from Europe will help native birds recover.” Does this mean cats know the
difference in their catch-as-catch can survival mode between native and
non-native species?




Outdoor cats compete
with wild predators such as foxes and hawks for the same prey while feeding
outdoor cats attracts raccoons & other wildlife. Photos all in same
location by the authors.
Cats were once
blamed for causing the plague and were exterminated in several European
communities, yet this did not stop the plague’s spread just as their presence
made no significant difference in stemming the pandemic and pandemonium. TNR
cats are not likely to help prevent a potential pandemic disease like the Black
Death because many cats are not efficient rat killers and prefer to kill and
consume smaller rodents and song and ground-nesting birds, reptiles and
insects. And, more significantly, the Black Death, the plague caused by Yersinia pestis,
most probably came not
from infective rat fleas but from human fleas and lice transmitting the disease
from person to person, rats and cats having little if any involvement.
Cats
can get the plague and potentially carry infective fleas from
rats (and rabbits), to humans, especially if they are indoor-outdoor cats.
Would a colony of TNR cats really play any significant beneficial public health
service in any community this regard, or actually pose public health concerns
from other diseases transmissible to humans such as rabies, visceral larva
migrans and toxoplasmosis? Indoor-outdoor and feral cats can also harbor ticks
which can cause Lyme disease, babesiosis and other potentially fatal human
diseases. Cats can certainly help control rodents around grain and feed storage
areas but there are none in most places where TNR cats are being released,
including the suburban residential community of Golden Valley, MN where the
authors live and where wildlife are at risk from outdoor cats
Advocates of TNR and organizations like The
Animal Humane Society (AHS) in Minneapolis which calls its TNR program a
Community Cat program of “RTF” (Return to Field) also insist that releasing
vaccinated and neutered cats helps reduce the cat population by keeping other
cats in the surrounding area away from where the TNR cats are being released. There
is no scientific evidence to support
this hypothesis beyond relatively isolated sites like a college campus.
With massive cat-catching drives coordinated municipality by municipality,
suburban community by community, city-block-by-city-block and industrial “park”
office and warehouse complex-by-complex and releasing large numbers of neutered
cats close around the same time (otherwise resident cats will simply relocate
and become a multiplying problem elsewhere) this would obviously mean fewer
cats being born in a given area. Also problematic is that these RTF cats are
not tested and treated for parasites which could be a public health risk and
are not tested for feline leukemia and immunodeficiency virus infections which
could put other cats at risk.
There are no large-scale inter-municipal
efforts in most parts of the U.S. today and failure is inevitable without
cat-owner education and strict enforcement of laws prohibiting owned and
non-neutered cats being allowed to roam free and breed. Regardless, many cat
owners are firm in their belief that their cats do best as indoor-outdoor
animals, a belief as self-serving and harmful as the unconditional advocacy of
TNR which causes much suffering, probably worse than death, for those poor
“unadoptable” cats caught up in their own plague and an inhumane society game
of outdoor cat exploitation and cruelty. (For earlier examples see Inhumane Society:
The American Way of
Exploiting Animals by Dr. Michael W. Fox. St. Martin’s Press NY 1990). All
TNR programs, releasing cats to roam
outside of an enclosed area (wherein they should receive proper care) violate
the animal health and welfare, environmental and wildlife protection and public
health mandates of bioethics and One Health policy and praxis*.
The Animal Humane Society also informed us
that “people in your neighborhood feed our Community Cats who help reduce the
cat population where you live” but declined to tell us who does the regular
feeding and inspection. These cats are regarded as “wild animals” by the humane
society and local police dept. yet the MN Dept. of Natural Resources
discourages people from feeding wildlife and some municipalities have
ordinances prohibiting the feeding and encouragement of wildlife. Certainly,
putting food out for free-roaming, feral and TNR “Community Cats” will attract
raccoons, opossums and other indigenous wildlife and provide a food-source of
cats for increasingly omni-present coyotes.

Outdoor
cats
are prey for coyotes now expanding into urban, suburban & rural communities
across the U.S
As
a
veterinarian and former Scientific Advisor and Vice President of the Humane
Society of the United States (HSUS) in Washington DC co-author Fox always
opposed TNR on humane grounds for those cats evaluated as “unadoptable” where
the alternatives of group-housing in enclosed colonies is preferable, as per
those of Pro Animale in Europe, and if not available, then euthanasia for
humane, public health and wildlife protection reasons. As we have learned from
personal experience, many such cats are amenable to human socialization and
testing cats just caught and taken into a shelter will understandably show
defensive-aggressive behavior out of fear. This should not lead to their
immediate rejection as “unadoptable” and being released back where they were
found. Their recovery/socialization for adoptability takes time and patience, and
when in group-housing situations they will often lose their fear and come to
trust people especially when they see other cats in the enclosed colony
enjoying human contact and displaying affection.


