Birder Admits Killing Cat,

[Jim Alfredson]

I understand that people can grow close to their pets. I've owned pets my entire life, but let's be realistic here. Are you really telling me that animals and human beings are on equal footing?

no, not equal footing, but i do believe that non-human animals have more rights than those that human animals bestow upon them.

But isn't the concept of "rights" a human one to begin with? There are no rights in nature.

[Noj]

Is the life of this cat worth putting a man in jail for two years and fining him ten grand? I agree that a community service sentence, if any, should be the extent of the punishment.

[clifford_thornton]

Here's something to consider: if the cat was killing an endangered species of bird, why didn't he get the Feds involved? Why take the law into his own hands? I'm sure the feds would have taken action to protect these birds, instead of him shooting the bird at long range and as Chris points out, taken the risk of hitting an unintended target.

I tend to agree with Dan's point as well. The dude should have called the authorities - taking a Charles Bronson vigilante stance is stupid, and shooting a cat in a public place like that is dangerous. What if a homeless person also happened to be sleeping under the bridge when he tried to shoot the cat?

Besides, how does he know that THAT particular cat was the guilty one? Was he witnessing it eat one of his beloved shore birds when he shot it? Or was it simply the first wild cat that he found in the area?

I think this guy was an asshole with at least one screw loose, and his behaviour disgusts me. He deserves at least a good ass-kicking.

[Quincy]

Cats eat birds, that is natural, all part of that food chain business.

if cats would have to live on birds, there would not be so many cats

Again this is true, but it is still a natural instinct of a cat to kill a bird.

But there is nothing natural about the density of domestic (or feral) cats and the toll they take on bird populations. Bobcats & cougars and never had such numbers, and North America never had such a small and efficient killer of birds until domestic kitties started running loose. And what's especially deadly is that if the cat punctures a bird with its teeth and the bird gets away, the bird will likely die anyway because of the bacteria in the cat's saliva. For the record I did wildlife rehab for 5 years, and cat related injuries were the number 1 cause of injury to birds.

Small migratory birds like warblers have a hard enough time with pollution, pesticides, loss of habitat in summer & winter grounds, and as more people build houses in the forests, or when wetland restoration happens within a mile a huge subdivision (and more cats) and counts as habitat replacement, it gets that much tougher.

You think the feds have time for this? Good luck. Anytime you have a situation like this you have to figure out which agency is involved. State, federal, local, which branch of the federal, so on & so forth. Ideally you set a trap for the cat, but then what happens?

I'm a cat owner and love my cat dearly, but I keep her indoors, and a good part of the reason is so she doesn't kill birds. Too bad the feral cats can't be trained to take out invasive starlings.

[Quincy]

Anyway, I find birders to engage in a really weird activity so I have even less sympathy for a vigilante birder.

Oh yeah, observing birds in nature, admiring the beauty, learning about their behavior...Yeah, that's really weird.

[Rob C]

Like the grandmother post, this is comparing the value of a human life to that of an animal.

I understand that people can grow close to their pets. I've owned pets my entire life, but let's be realistic here. Are you really telling me that animals and human beings are on equal footing? If your daughter and your cat were both drowning, would you really have a hard time choosing which one to save first?

I was being deliberately over-the-top in comparing a cat to one's grandmother. I didn't actually mean to say that I think an animal's life has the same value as that of a human. What I did mean to point out was the absurdity of saying that because there are "millions" of cats, what's one more or less? The implication that an animal is any more fungible than a human--at least to someone who cares about that particular animal--is what I object to.

[Quincy]

Back to Dan's observation, yes, there are weird birders. But I think like any hobby you'll have obsessive types who engage in odd behavior. Not unlike the baseball fan who cares about VORP, or a jazz collector who cares whether it was Workman or Watkins on bass and whether the session was August 5th or the 7th (uh, I made that part up, so no one go looking.)

As Dan used to go to school in the St. Louis area you'll get a kick out of genuinely obsessive behavior of watchers who maintain lists. There's a bird called the Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) which is practically identical to the common House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) Like the House Sparrow it was introduced, after the Civil War in the Eurasean's case. The House Sparrow is about a centimeter longer and the Eurasian Tree Sparrow has a black spot near the eye & a brown crown. In flight it'd be hard to catch the difference. In the US the Eurasian Tree Sparrow is found in part of St. Louis and into a bit of southern Illinois, but it's not a wide range.

So the extreme obsessive birder will try to see one in-between flights when passing through St. Louis. Thanks to the internet, it's much easier.

Weird you say? Psaw!

[Jim Alfredson]

The implication that an animal is any more fungible than a human--at least to someone who cares about that particular animal--is what I object to.

I'm not really sure the word "fungible" applies here. As I understand the term, the above phrase can be interpreted as "an animal's life is not worth more than a human's", with which I absolutely agree.

But I have a feeling you're trying to say the opposite. Which is silliness.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

think that guy drives one of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dzi_8Rscfs?

[Jazzmoose]

Call me cynical, but I have to wonder how much impact his bed & breakfast business had on his decision to kill the cat.

[robviti]

Call me cynical, but I have to wonder how much impact his bed & breakfast business had on his decision to kill the cat.

not just that cat - "He also admits killing many other cats on his own property."

[7/4]

Call me cynical, but I have to wonder how much impact his bed & breakfast business had on his decision to kill the cat.

not just that cat - "He also admits killing many other cats on his own property."

A serial cat killer?

[Quincy]

Here in Oregon we have a few sections along the coast where dogs must be kept on a leash, kites can't be flown (because they look like flying predators), and no ATVs can be driven nearby to protect nesting grounds of an endangered bird known as the snowy plover. The B&B cat shooter was protecting a similar species, the endangered piping plover. Ground nesting birds are especially vulnerable to predation. In such areas in Oregon feral cats are trapped & killed. Natural predators such as skunks and foxes are also killed in these (limited) areas by means of poison because they are more common than the plovers. (Use of poison is disturbing, but obviously gun shots during nesting season would scare off the plovers.) Plover parents tend to flee the nest at signs of danger, which is why if you want to protect them you have to use harsh measures. I don't know whether this guy's property is a nesting area or just "hanging around" habitat, though I know November isn't nesting season.

It's hard to defend his leaving his property to seek out the cat that he had observed stalking birds earlier, which by the way had been trapped earlier and released after being spayed & neutered by some feline organization. Cat non-profits that sterilize cats & let them lose don't take into account the damage they do wildlife. Catching & then releasing a cat near endangered wildlife especially vulnerable to predators is ridiculous. If the organization that had trapped the cat had tried to put it up for adoption this wouldn't have happened.

This guy has endangered ground nesting birds on his own property on an island, where a cat would especially be menace. Normally I wouldn't approve of cat killing, but as he says "This is about wild species disappearing from your planet. I did what I had to do." Ideally he would warn neighbors to keep their cats out of his yard, but you'd have to hit up every residence & apartment/condo complex within at least 1/2 a mile in every direction. Given the cutbacks that have happened under the Bush administration good luck trying to get a working answering machine at Fish & Wildlife, let alone a body that will come out to private property to check out the situation. Who knows how few are scattered about to patrol such a large state. It's not like some fish & wildlife official was going to show up with a tranquilizer gun and sit around all day trying to dope a cat.

[robviti]

...Ideally he would warn neighbors to keep their cats out of his yard, but you'd have to hit up every residence & apartment/condo complex within at least 1/2 a mile in every direction...

so, do you think it's possible that he's already killed other people's pets that were unfortunate enough to wander onto his property?

[BERIGAN]

Dudes... it was a frickin' cat! There are literally MILLIONS of them. Go get another.

And if this fucker shot one of my cats(they are indoor cats, but they could always get out) He'd still eating from a tube....

[AllenLowe]

heck has frozen over - I agree with Berigan - (I'm saying 'heck' instead of 'hell' so Berigan doesn't accuse me of being a liberalcommunistatheist) -

[catesta]

...Ideally he would warn neighbors to keep their cats out of his yard, but you'd have to hit up every residence & apartment/condo complex within at least 1/2 a mile in every direction...

so, do you think it's possible that he's already killed other people's pets that were unfortunate enough to wander onto his property?

I would say yes.

[AllenLowe]

I hear he has a side business re-stringing tennis rackets -

[Aggie87]

If the organization that had trapped the cat had tried to put it up for adoption this wouldn't have happened.

I'd be surprised if anyone would adopt a feral cat (assuming it's disease free and healthy). They don't make the best pets, as they don't trust humans.

And it seems to me the cats have just as much right to exist in the wild as the birds, regardless of their endangered status. Heck down here, I'd prefer the cats go after some of these dang seagulls and grackles.

[BERIGAN]

heck has frozen over - I agree with Berigan - (I'm saying 'heck' instead of 'hell' so Berigan doesn't accuse me of being a liberalcommunistatheist) -

Yeah, to call you a liberalcommunistatheist would be like accusing you of liking jazz...

[Jim Alfredson]

Dudes... it was a frickin' cat! There are literally MILLIONS of them. Go get another.

And if this fucker shot one of my cats(they are indoor cats, but they could always get out) He'd still eating from a tube....

I wouldn't expect any less of a totally logical response to the situation from you.

[/sarcasm]

To explain further, attacking someone with the intent to put them on a feeding tube is a proper response to that person killing your cat? So then you can go to jail for assault and battery or possibly even attempted murder?

That sounds logical to me.

[robviti]

I hear he has a side business re-stringing tennis rackets -

[robviti]

of course, that's nothing compared to...

[Jazzmoose]

Dudes... it was a frickin' cat! There are literally MILLIONS of them. Go get another.

And if this fucker shot one of my cats(they are indoor cats, but they could always get out) He'd still eating from a tube....

I wouldn't expect any less of a totally logical response to the situation from you.

[/sarcasm]

To explain further, attacking someone with the intent to put them on a feeding tube is a proper response to that person killing your cat? So then you can go to jail for assault and battery or possibly even attempted murder?

That sounds logical to me.

It may not be logical, but I would probably react in the same way.

[Jazzmoose]

If the organization that had trapped the cat had tried to put it up for adoption this wouldn't have happened.

I'd be surprised if anyone would adopt a feral cat (assuming it's disease free and healthy). They don't make the best pets, as they don't trust humans.

We have a feral we've had since it was a kitten. We gained its trust over the years, and it now behaves like a normal cat. Unless someone else comes around...

Many shelters have volunteers who do nothing but "socialize" feral cats. That loving, normal cat you see up for adoption could have very well been a feral kitten not too many months ago.