Stray cats harm wildlife. Should we kill them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By\u00a0Benji Jones<\/a>@BenjiSJones<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n On a warm day last spring, dozens of protesters gathered outside a shopping center on the west side of Hawaii\u2019s Big Island. They weren\u2019t there to boycott a store or a pipeline or to deride a politician. They came to revolt against a new ban on feeding cats in the parking lot. \u201cStop starving the cats,\u201d the protesters chanted, according to a local newspaper<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lot outside Queens Marketplace, the shopping center, is home to one of the island\u2019s many colonies of stray, or free-ranging, cats. While there are no formal estimates, experts guess that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of these colonies across Hawaii, each comprising anywhere from a few to more than a hundred felines. Hawaii is, to put it simply, teeming with cats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n hese furry strays are descended from, or are themselves, abandoned pet cats, though they\u2019re not really abandoned. Most of them have at least one \u201ccolony manager,\u201d a term you\u2019ll hear in Hawaii and elsewhere for locals who provide groups of free-ranging cats with food, water, and even medical care. Sometimes colony managers (or their friends) will also build feeding stations, like the one pictured below. These are self-described do-gooders, common across the Hawaiian islands, who feed cats that don\u2019t live with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Caring for stray cats sounds pretty harmless \u2014 sweet, even. What makes it so contentious in Hawaii and in many other parts of the world is that outdoor cats, which are not native to Hawaii, kill local birds and can sicken humans and other animals. And kibble sustains them. Researchers\u00a0estimate<\/a>\u00a0that free-ranging cats kill between 1.3 and 4 billion birds each year in the continental US. This number doesn\u2019t even include Hawaii, where there are, according to\u00a0various<\/a>\u00a0estimates<\/a>, at least tens of thousands of cats \u2014 and\u00a0more endangered species than any other state<\/a>. In Hawaii, many bird species are on the edge of extinction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s why Hawaii\u2019s wildlife agency\u00a0decided to ban cat feeding<\/a>\u00a0outside the shopping center last year (the state still allows feeding stray cats in most other areas on the islands,\u00a0except at boat harbors<\/a>). During the protest,\u00a0two women were cited<\/a>\u00a0by state officers for putting bowls of cat food on the ground. The food was not only drawing in cats but attracting a federally threatened goose, known as the n\u0113n\u0113. The geese \u2014 which are the state bird of Hawaii and protected by federal law \u2014 were eating\u00a0<\/strong>the cat food, exposing them to disease, predation by cats, and potential car collisions, the state said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are lovers of all animals but have a responsibility to protect our native species first and foremost,\u201d Raymond McGuire, a state wildlife biologist, said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The protest at Queens Marketplace inflamed a longstanding tension in Hawaii between cat advocates and ecologists. The advocates want to keep feeding the islands\u2019 colonies, and they blame ecologists for putting the lives of one animal over another. Ecologists, meanwhile, say that is exactly what cat lovers are doing by propagating colonies: When you protect cats, more native species die by their hands (or rather, fangs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, cats are not the problem. It\u2019s the humans who dump them on the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hawaii, like many islands, is a paradise for non-native species. The weather is warm and, at least historically, the state had a large number of native animals that evolved without predators, leaving them largely defenseless and easy to eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When cats arrived in the\u00a01700s<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 on European ships, where they were likely used to kill mice and rats \u2014 they had plenty to eat. Their numbers ballooned. When Mark Twain visited Honolulu in 1866, stray cats were already abundant. As he wrote in the Sacramento Union\u00a0<\/em>at the time, he saw \u201ctame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual cats, groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats, regiments of cats, armies of cats, multitudes of cats, millions of cats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not long after<\/a>, it became clear that cats are good at killing things. Although they often seem lazy at home, luxuriating on the couch and only occasionally springing for a shoelace or Ping-Pong ball, house cats are highly skilled predators outdoors. One cat can kill a hundred or more<\/a> animals in a single year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n State officials in Hawaii\u00a0warn<\/a>\u00a0that these animals are \u201cdevastating\u201d to native wildlife, preying on everything from small native forest birds to waterfowl. Cats have almost certainly also\u00a0contributed<\/a>\u00a0to the extinction of birds in the state, helping turn Hawaii into the \u201cextinction capital of the world<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andr\u00e9 Raine, a seabird expert, has seen the damage that free-ranging cats can do. Much of his work is in remote seabird colonies in Kauai, which are home to the federally endangered ua\u2019u (Hawaiian petrel) and federally threatened a\u2019o (Newell\u2019s shearwater). The birds nest in the ground, making them highly vulnerable to prowling strays. And while a number of other invasive species like rats will eat bird eggs and chicks, cats kill the adults, too, Raine said. That\u2019s much more damaging to the colonies since only a portion of seabirds survive to adulthood even without feline predation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[Cats] are an apex predator,\u201d said Raine, who lives on Kauai, where he\u2019s the science director at the ecological consulting firm Archipelago Research and Conservation. \u201cIn areas where you\u2019ve got lots of birds, it\u2019s like ringing a dinner bell. They\u2019re cuing in on scent and sound. The cats are like, \u2018Oh, here is a hole in the ground with a meal inside.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jordan Lerma, a conservation researcher and native Hawaiian, has also come across n\u0113n\u0113 with \u201cobvious signs\u201d that they\u2019ve been attacked by a cat, he told Vox. Strays likely kill n\u0113n\u0113 chicks more than adults, he said, though these kills are hard to document because cats typically don\u2019t leave a carcass behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond directly killing things,\u00a0many<\/a>\u00a0stray cats in Hawaii (and elsewhere) carry a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, which can cause the disease toxoplasmosis. The parasite only reproduces in cats, but it can infect warm-blooded animals, sometimes proving fatal in wildlife. Toxo has killed\u00a0at least a dozen<\/a>\u00a0federally endangered Hawaiian monk seals, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The parasite has also been linked to the death of several bird species and even spinner dolphins,\u00a0according to<\/a>\u00a0the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there\u2019s this whole question of how toxoplasmosis affects human behavior \u2014 an area of research that, at times, sounds like science fiction. Some scientists suspect, based on their read of animal and some human studies, that the parasite may alter human minds to make us less fearful of cats.\u00a0One study<\/a>\u00a0found that chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, lost their aversion to the urine of leopards, the apes\u2019 main non-human predator, if they were infected by the parasite. Other research has linked toxoplasmosis to\u00a0cognitive decline<\/a>,\u00a0schizophrenia<\/a>, and other behavioral disorders in humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leaning on this evidence, some ecologists in Hawaii suggest that people who manage cat colonies \u2014 who refuse to stop feeding cats \u2014 are infected by toxo, which makes them irrationally invested in caring for these animals. This claim remains untested. Colony managers say they just love cats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Free-ranging cats can do serious damage to native wildlife. That\u2019s not controversial. The debate heats up when you start asking what to do about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many animal welfare<\/a> advocates want to keep feeding them. They claim that, by giving these cats kibble, they\u2019ll have full bellies and be less likely to wander around, hunting down native species, entering buildings, and digging through trash. \u201cThey\u2019re less likely to be a problem if you feed them,\u201d said Debbie Cravatta, who runs the KARES pet adoption agency on the Big Island. \u201cStarvation is not the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an effort to rein in cat populations \u2014 which people like Cravatta very much want to do; she doesn\u2019t want a world full of outdoor cats \u2014 these groups also tend to support a management approach called trap, neuter, return, or TNR. This practice essentially involves fixing stray cats and then putting them back outside, where they\u2019ll no longer be able to breed. <\/strong>Feeding stations make it much easier to trap cats. And with enough TNR, the outdoor cat populations should eventually dwindle, these groups say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only reason this hasn\u2019t worked yet, they say, is that there aren\u2019t enough affordable spay and neuter services. \u201cWe could be fixing more cats if we had more resources,\u201d said Malia Wisch, a designer in Oahu who works with P\u014dpoki Place, a nonprofit cat advocacy organization. \u201cSupply [of spay and neuter services] does not meet current demand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conservation scientists say that many of these claims are bogus. Fed cats still hunt<\/a>, said Raine, who has a pet cat himself. While some research<\/a> suggests that feeding cats food that is higher in meat may reduce the number of wild animals they kill, these animals are instinctive hunters. What\u2019s more is that even if the cat colonies are in urban or suburban areas, they can still do damage to threatened species. That\u2019s the thing about Hawaii: Endangered species are everywhere, not only in reserves but in parking lots and golf courses. What feeding does, ecologists told me, is help sustain these colonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TNR, meanwhile, is largely ineffective, according to Christopher Lepczyk, an ecologist at Auburn University who\u2019s one of the world\u2019s top experts on free-ranging cats. Unless the cat population is fenced in, restricting migration, TNR typically fails to shrink colonies over the long term,\u00a0research by him and others shows<\/a>. Plus, outdoor cats tend to have a poor quality of life and live far shorter lives than indoor felines, according to\u00a0additional studies<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n For these and other reasons, some animal welfare groups, including PETA, don\u2019t support TNR. \u201cHaving witnessed firsthand the gruesome things that can happen to feral cats, we cannot in good conscience advocate trapping and releasing as a humane way to deal with overpopulation,\u201d PETA states<\/a>. \u201cThen there\u2019s the inconvenient truth that TNR doesn\u2019t even work. On the contrary, it actually encourages more<\/em> people to abandon their cats because they think the animals will be cared for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lepczyk and other scientists say that effective control requires a mix of approaches: more adoption, enclosed sanctuaries, and, yes, euthanasia. \u201cIf you remove euthanasia from your toolbox, you\u2019re not really going to solve anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s frustrating, Lepczyk said, is that this reality often doesn\u2019t reach colony managers. Understandably, they don\u2019t want to kill cats. Understandably, it\u2019s harder to choose to kill animals \u2014 especially pet-like animals \u2014 than to let them live, even if they\u2019re unwell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No one actually wants to kill cats, Raine said. Yet, he added, choosing not to kill cats is akin to choosing to kill native species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the weeks after the feeding ban at Queens Marketplace, cat advocates still found ways to feed the animals, Cravatta said. They\u2019d go shopping, she said, and quietly dump kibble from their cars as they pulled out of the parking lot. Many of the resident cats have since been trapped, fixed, and relocated, according to<\/a> the Tribune-Herald, but a number of them remain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The state\u2019s cat crisis is a tough problem with equally tough solutions. It mirrors similar tensions between animal welfare advocates and conservationists the world over. In the West, for example, these two camps have been sparring for decades over what to do with free-ranging horses, which are technically nonnative. It seems impossible to make both groups happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Hawaii, cat advocates are still pissed at ecologists, accusing them of vilifying cats and fueling\u00a0violence<\/a>\u00a0toward them. Ecologists are annoyed with colony managers for carelessly pushing native species closer to extinction. Meanwhile, both cats and wildlife continue to suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is, however, a solution that everyone seems to agree on: Get people to stop dumping their pet <\/strong>cats on the street. It\u2019s these actions that created the problem in the first place, and they continue to undermine control efforts today, be they TNR or euthanasia. Even if vets spay or euthanize free-ranging cats, more will still get dropped off outdoors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In some cases, people can\u2019t afford to spay or neuter their pets. Free services are hard to come by in Hawaii. And if you pay out of pocket, you could be charged as much as $300 per cat, Cravatta said, due in part to a vet shortage.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow deadly is a cat?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The great cat divide<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The human problem behind the cat problem<\/h3>\n\n\n\n