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| Issue 5, vol 5 | The Cat Has Rights - Part 2: A Humane Viewpoint | July 24, 2006 |
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Cat Rights: One Humane View The growing popularity of cats as house pets has gone hand-in-hand with increased efforts to legislate, regulate, and even eradicate these animals from our midst. In light of this growing threat to cats' lives and welfare, we feel obligated to come forward and offer our perspective. The listed below represent the basic principles that have guided our efforts on behalf of cats. While each seems fundamental to us, these rights are far from settled: All except one reflect an intense controversy within the humane movement. We hope everyone will listen to all sides, participate in the debate, and reach their own conclusions – the fate of millions of cats depends on it. The Right to be recognized as a unique and important species.
The Right to have their individual lives cherished and protected.
The Right to be free from cruelty and abuse.
The Right to receive aid and comfort, including food, water, shelter and medical care.
The Right to a fair share of public resources for the care and treatment of companion animals.
The Right to be treated as equal members of the animal kingdom.
The Right to be represented accurately and humanely by those who speak on their behalf.
The Right to be recognized as a unique and important species. The Right to be recognized as a unique and important species. The Debate: Everybody knows cats aren't dogs. But many people want to treat them as though they were. The nation's largest and most influential humane organizations, joined by powerful groups like the Audubon Society and state veterinary
associations, are calling for new laws to regulate and control cats-laws almost entirely modeled on the dog control laws enacted decades ago. Their reasoning? Only when cats are subject to mandatory license and confinement laws will they have the status they deserve. Our View: Cats are unique and wonderful creatures, with unique needs, unique abilities, and unique problems. Subjecting them to dog control laws doesn't honor cats as a species or give them the recognition and respect they deserve.
Even for dogs, these laws weren't meant to confer any beneficial status: They were and are a tool for protecting livestock, enforcing rabies mandates, and ridding the public streets of the perceived threat posed by unowned, free roaming dogs. Once license laws were passed, unlicensed dogs
became instant "outlaws," and literally millions have been impounded and killed as a result. Nor, in our view, are these deaths justified in the name of increasing the number of lost pets returned to their owners-a commonly cited benefit of mandatory licensing proposals. This goal could be
accomplished with less cost in fines and dollars by simply promoting voluntary identification for pets. Punitive licensing and regulation schemes won't give cats-or dogs-the status they need. If we really want to help these animals, we believe we should focus on humane and compassionate ways
to improve their lives. The Right to have their individual lives cherished and protected. The Debate: This principle seems so simple and fundamental, it's hard to believe it's controversial. But when it comes to stray, homeless, and feral cats, many humane organizations advocate not a right to life, but a right to death-albeit a
"humane" death. In Miami Beach, for instance, local residents vehemently protested a city plan to trap and kill homeless cats. These catlovers offered to vaccinate and alter the animals, feed them on a daily basis, and provide veterinary care as needed. When they succeeded in getting a public
hearing on the matter, one of the largest animal rights organizations in the country stepped in-not to support local cat lovers, but to urge Miami's mayor to go forward with the original "round up and kill" program. Life on the street is a hard, miserable life for a domestic cat>, this
organization said. Death, in their view, would be preferable. Our View: We agree that homeless cats can face hardships, sometimes severe, and we wish every cat had a loving, responsible, indoor home. But we don't think less fortunate cats deserve to die. Death isn't the answer to a less-than-perfect life.
And, in our view, there is little justification for the wholesale trapping and killing of healthy cats simply because no one claims to be the "owner," or because these animals lack the comforts of house pets and are exposed to risks that companion animals should not face. If an animal has a painful,
incurable condition, if it has a fatal, contagious disease and cannot be isolated from others-these are cases where euthanasia may be justified. But to use death to ward off potential suffering, or to "solve" the problem of homeless and feral cats is not, in our eyes, a humane way to help cats or
enhance their welfare. Life is too important, and to us the life of every individual is too important, to deal out death in such an easy fashion. The Right to be free from cruelty and abuse. The Debate: None! Everyone agrees cats have the right to be free from cruelty and abuse. And all states have enacted laws against deliberate animal cruelty. These laws may not always go as far as we like, and they may not always be interpreted
as broadly or enforced as rigorously as we would want them to be-but the principle, at least, is well-established. The Right to receive aid and comfort, including food, water, shelter and medical care. The Debate: Millions of abandoned cats are helped by compassionate people every day. Some of these people are organized and dedicated caregivers who provide daily food and water to colonies of feral cats, and who make sure their charges are altered,
vaccinated, and given emergency medical care. Others are simply kindhearted people who lend a helping hand to the stray cat> at the door-a cat with a good chance of becoming the family pet. (Studies indicate that up to 30% of pet cats are adopted by their human families as strays off the street.)
Do homeless cats have a right to receive this aid and assistance? Not according to those who believe feeding feral or abandoned cats amounts to nothing more than "subsidized abandonment" -even if the animals are vaccinated, altered, and monitored on
a daily basis. And far from seeing cat caregivers as Good Samaritans, these same critics view them as misguided, even criminal, wrongdoers. One leading humane organization went so far as to urge a North Carolina prosecutor to apply criminal laws against animal abandonment to caregivers working to spay
and neuter homeless cats in their area. Our View: We believe compassion towards animals should be fostered and encouraged, not criminalized. Countless people, many of us included, became cat lovers only after a stray at the door won our hearts. We may not have known at first all there was to
know about responsible pet ownership, the importance of spaying and neutering, or the challenges of managing a feral cat colony But to condemn the first steps towards compassion and understanding would prevent millions of people from opening their hearts and homes to help cats. And, most unforgivable, it
would deny to millions of cats the love, protection, and safety net of care these people provide every day of their lives. To us, asking whether cats have a right to this life-sustaining aid is like asking whether the victims of earthquakes, floods, fires, or war have a right to the assistance offered by
neighbors, friends, and compassionate volunteers. Of course they do. The Right to a fair share of public resources for the care and treatment of companion animals. The Debate: In California, shelters reportedly take in about as many cats as dogs. Yet fewer cats than dogs are redeemed by their owners or adopted into new homes, and many more are euthanized. Why? The reason heard most often is that the community
is to blame: People are irresponsible; they won't do the right thing; they treat cats like second-class citizens. What's needed, then, is more legislation: coercive legislation to compel the owning public into caring-and caring the way the legislation's proponents want them to care-for their pets.
Spay/neuter mandates, cat licensing ordinances, vaccination laws all are being promoted as ways to help cats and all are focused on forcing others in the community to change their behavior through punitive government mandates financed by taxpayers. Our View: When we look at the millions of people helping cats throughout the country, it's hard for us to blame the community. It's even harder when we see what's happening inside shelters themselves. In most of today's shelters-both public and private-dogs
get the lion's share of time, space, and attention. During their stay, dogs are usually housed in runs, often with indoor/outdoor access. But cats are typically kept in steel cages stacked one on top of the other, sometimes in rooms that weren't designed to hold animals at all... conditions that readily invite
the spread ofdisease. To deal with this threat of disease, welfare experts openly advise shelters to keep their cat populations down by killing cats and maintaining empty cages. With death, rather than fair and equal treatment, promoted as a legitimate "cure," it’s little wonder more cats than dogs die in our
country's shelters. What's harder to believe is that some choose to point their fingers at the community for treating cats like second-class citizens, rather than focusing on shelters who set the example. The Right to be treated as equal members of the animal kingdom. The Debate: The fact that cats are gaining in popularity as housepets hasn't kept them from being ranked among the "throwaways" of the animal kingdom. Feral, stray, and homeless cats, in particular, are seen as 'pests" in our cities and towns and as "non-native"
intruders in our parks and countryside. In either case, the point is clear: Their lives don't count, and therefore they can and should be eliminated to protect more important species and to preserve "natural" habitats and "native" environments. Park rangers, environmentalists, bird watchers, and even animal
protectionists have endorsed cat eradication, most recently in the name of protecting songbirds. Cats kill birds, theyargue, so we must kill the cats. Our View: Cats aren't the first to be targeted for slaughter in the name of protecting other species or preserving "native" habitats. They've been joined at different times and in different places by red foxes, gulls, cowbirds, sea lions, coyotes, mountain lions,
ravens, raccoons, wild horses ... the list goes on. Referred to as "garbage animals," “alien" species, "weeds," and 'vermin," these creatures have become scapegoats for the massive habitat destruction, environmental degradation, and species extinction caused by one species and one species alone: Humans. Had we
honored and preserved life, had we treated all animals-cats, birds and every other creature who shares our planet-with the respect they each deserve, we might have spared many of the species now lost forever. To us, there are no 'garbage animals" and slaughter and death aren't the tools we need to preserve life. To
do that-to preserve the life of all animals-we believe we must honor and preserve the life of each. The Right to be represented accurately and humanely by those who speak on their behalf. The Debate: Many have commented on a "strong cultural bias" against cats, and we don't have to look far to find cats portrayed in the worst possible light. Rather than being told of their beauty and grace, or of the companionship and affection they freely give us,
we are presented, again and again, with an image of cats as destructive and harmful.They are decried as wanton and dangerous killers, each said to "stalk and kill several hundred small mammals andbirds every year,' and together responsible for the death of millions of birds "each day." They are demonized as
disease-ridden threats to public health, who spread rabies, "human plague," and "the black death." And, in a new twist for these environmentally conscious days, cats have even been compared to “oil spills" and "poisons in the environment."
Our View: Myths, misinformation, and malice against cats are nothing new. But the words and images above don't come from cat-haters: They are the words of self-avowed advocates and all are taken from articles and pamphlets produced by humane organizations and
intended to influence other animal agencies and the public. Some of these publications were meant to encourage support for cat control laws. Others had a different message. But whatever themessage, in our eyes the method of promoting it is just plain wrong. Everybody knows cats aren't perfect, and a balanced point
of view is essential to educating pet owners to care responsibly for cats. But cats don't deserve the bad press they have gotten, and they certainly don't deserve it from those who claim to be acting in their best interests or speaking on their behalf. Reprinted from The San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals website |
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Barbwire Cats |
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Installment 1
Part one: Clayton’s Story My name’s Clayton Goode. I live in the southwest part of the Mojave Desert, in a little tiny town called Barbwire, California. Barbwire was founded in 1935 by some folks who were supposed to be building a new state highway through this area. They’d been hired on by the U.S. government under the Public Works Administration, a plan cooked up by FDR to bring the country out of the Great Depression by putting unemployed people to work building lots of new railroads, dams, hospitals, schools, highways, you name it. This desert is big and desolate. The nearest towns were usually at least two hundred miles away, so the road-crews were completely on their own. To make life a little easier, about every fifty miles, they’d build a temporary camp. These camps consisted of some wooden bunkhouses for the single-men, some wood-sided tents with canvas tops (these were for the married men who often brought their families along with them), and a mess-hall for cooking and eating the communal meals. Then they’d all move ahead another fifty miles or so, building the highway as they went along, and then build another camp, and so on. This way, when the workday was done, the work crew was never too far from a hot meal, a bath, and a bunk. Even today, some seventy-five years later, you can still see the remnants of some of the old road-camps, if you know where to look. In this part of the desert, the weather’s fairly moderate between the tail-end of February, and about the middle of June. Unfortunately, that leaves eight and a half months, every year, of bitter, painful cold; and relentless, blistering heat. The worst part, is that in the summer, when the sun finally goes down, and you’re praying to get a little cool breeze; it seldom drops below ninety degrees, that’s right, even at night. It was torturous work, even for the toughest of men. Well, just about the time the highway workers were getting good and sick of building this highway, a man named William “Fannie” Pfanensteil, the crew’s Chief Surveyor, and a trained geologist, noticed a large outcropping of copper less than a mile from the roadbed. When he core-tested the surrounding area and did some quick calculations he nearly keeled over. He could barely get his mouth to form the words he needed to tell the crew that he’d found an estimated three billion ton mass of pure copper ore “Right over there!” The next day they sent a letter all the way to Washington DC, to the Public Works Administration, signed by every last man, saying, basically, “Thank you very much Mr. Roosevelt, but we quit.” And just like that, what had been simply the latest in a long string of temporary road camps, became the roots of the new mining town of Barbwire, California. Now, they could have rushed right in, blasted out all the copper in about three years, and then just walked away, taking millions of dollars with them, but leaving a three-billion ton, mile-wide scar of desert behind. But they had a much different plan. These people were determined to build a town where they could raise families. They wanted to build a real community, one that’d last. A good and peaceful place, it would be the first real home most of them had ever known. It was kinda like they all went to sleep one night, and had all dreamt the exact same dream. They dreamed of a small piece of America, and in their collective dream, it looked just like they’d always imagined that a small piece of America should look. To get started, there was a lot of the good old sticky red tape to untangle. First they laid claim to a five mile radius of empty desert, with the town proper at its center. This gave Barbwire plenty of room for future growth. Then in 1936 they got San Miguel County to incorporate their new town. They dug their water-wells, drew up plans for business zones and residential zones, and set aside space for public areas, like parks, and a civic center. Neat rows of houses appeared, and these rows slowly grew into real neighborhoods. All the residents of Barbwire had been working people their whole lives. And, like most hard-working people (people who work with their hands, their backs, and their hearts), they knew how to keep their mouths shut. So until they legally owned the land, nobody outside of the original sixty men, ever heard so much as a rumor about the millions of dollars in copper that snoozed like a friendly green behemoth, right under their merry little feet. They had all seen the mining towns that seemed to materialize overnight. Their natural treasures hastily and recklessly looted, until all of the land’s openhanded, unselfish offerings had been raped by dynamite, then ravaged, scraped and stripped to the bone. The ore-rabid miners and the greedy, short-sighted mining companies left behind only wounded land, grieving wind, and the remorseful ghosts of countless blood- drenched sins. But the town of Barbwire would prosper and grow, because the town fathers understood the need for restrained, carefully planned growth. And their first concern, always, was for the preservation of their beautiful land. Any damage or changes to the land caused by their mining operation were repaired as soon as engineering needs allowed. The citizens of Barbwire named their copper mine “The Fannie”, The Fannie Mine was strictly an “excavation” type mine. Excavation was by far the hardest, slowest, and most expensive copper mining method available. But it was also the least destructive method. The ore was mined by digging out a main shaft with secondary shafts branching out where needed. Until 1963, the only alternatives to excavation-type mines were the “open-pit” type mine, and the “strip-type” mine, which were both a lot more profitable, but took a very ugly toll on the land.
Sixty equal shares of ownership were issued; one for each of the original road-crew workers, including one for my Granddad, John Goode. I own that share now, and thanks to their good planning, it’s given me a chance to live free of time clocks and tyrannical bosses. The Fannie is still producing in its slow, easy-going way. The Fannie’s production was kept to a moderate, steady level. And to insure that all their eggs weren’t in one basket, the people of Barbwire began creating all the different kinds of businesses that they figured a real town needed. Stores where they could buy bread, meats, produce, hardware, machined goods, dry goods, clothing, lumber, and of course, they built schools, and churches of every denomination, including a beautiful synagogue And something else had happened that brought even more economic security. 1937 the highway (now called
Interstate 395) was finally finished (by a whole different work-crew of course).New restaurants, gas stations, and a nice hotel were just a few of the services that travelers and tourists could expect here. I-395 connected Vincentville, sixty-two miles south, to the great network of highways that winds through the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Central and Northern California, and Western Nevada. Barbwire was now literally, officially, and fiscally on the map. And for almost four years, Barbwire was potentially, pound for pound, perhaps the best place in the country for an honest person to live, raise their family, retire, and finish out their days. Then, in 1941, The Great Attack came. Nope, not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (that wouldn’t happen until December 7th). This attack was right here in Barbwire, and it began at 8am on March the first. It was a boundless ocean of rats! (Continued in the next issue of The Cat's Meow) David Perry lives in the High Desert of southern California
with his two cats, Psycho and Lupe. His first novel "Whispering Cats" is due out mid-year 2007. |
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