Is it moral to shoot stray cats?

[iamrefreshed]

But as I say, they’ve never had to live on a farm and butcher the animals that they eat, so they have no concept.

NYC boy here. Got my first taste of where meat came from when, while in the Air Force, I was invited to a nearby friends farm for their family pig slaughtering party

Made me appreciate my pork chops and sausage all the more!

I’ve since become a hunter:thumbsup:

 

[estesbob]

But as I say, they’ve never had to live on a farm and butcher the animals that they eat, so they have no concept.

So the solution is we need to learn how to eat cat meat?

 

[rwoehmke]

Once you watch a cat, either feral or otherwise, catch a mouse or a bird you will probably not have much sympathy for the cat. They catch it and play with, sometimes interminably, before they kill it. Sometimes it is injured in the process. The cat lets it escape just a little bit before recapture. A dog on the other hand when it comes to rats or mice wastes no time killing it. When it comes to running larger animals like deer a dog pack is equally cruel.

Then there is the “bambi syndrome”. Oh they are all so cute and harmless. So beautiful to watch. Than the population of deer gets out of control and you see many of them lying by the side of the highway, mangled terribly. Feature it, a car going 60 mph hits a 200 lb animal. In at least a 100 cases each year the deer comes through the windshield and kills the driver or passenger. You also find the bones in the spring of deer who have starved to death or died from sickness or injury.

It is not humane to not control animal populations by hunting or trapping. Feral cats included. They are a menace to many endangered species of small wildlife and need to be controlled. I grew up a farm kid and observed over a lifetime all of these things.
The world of tooth and claw is not always a pretty one.

I grew up owning several domestic cats and loved themm dearly, but even they liked to nail and occasional bird or two and went “hunting” almost daily even when fed. Its the sport you know.

Melens Dad, shoot those cats with an easy conscience, you will probably never run out of targets and a head shot is relatively merciful. Tennis ball at 500, wish I had been that good. Living not far from the Indiana Illinois line you must be in corn country. I went to school for four years in Reneselaer in the 50’s.

 

[grandfather]

How do we determine what is moral or immoral? This is a Catholic site. Is it by how we “feel” about the thing, as one poster insinuated by telling us how he “felt”? Is it by personal opinion? Should we vote on it? Has the Church ever taught that killing a pest is immoral? Does it matter whether it is by a bullet from the landowner or gas at some agency?

It is immoral to kill people. The sin is called murder. It is not immoral to shoot an animal that is causing damage to one’s property or environment. If it were the practice would have been forbidden by the Church.

I can’t even believe there would be a debate about it, especially on a Catholic site. Individuals do not determine morality for themselves. That is called relativism. There is an objective morality and it is knowable.

If you would rather see bluebirds and cardinals shoot the cats. If you feel badly or guilty about shooting the cats, don’t shoot the cats. There is nothing moral or immoral about either decision. You are not compelled by morality to do anything about the matter either way.

If there are too many cats it probably is immoral to spend a lot of money in a program to neuter them. They can be done away with quickly and inexpensively. It is human suffering that it is immoral to ignore. The hundred or so dollars spent to neuter a pest, times how many thousands of pests, could be spent caring for starving children, beings with immortal souls, made and loved by God. The rich man was condemned by Jesus for ignoring the sufferings of the poor beggar Lazarus, not stray cats.

 

[Sheeniac]

technically you are not a native species to that environment. your home killed many natural species.

Well, technically - from a religious POV, we are truly the native species.

BTW - are you involved in bengal rescue? I am with the Great Lakes rescue - we’re going to be applying for our c3 status.

Back to you, melensdad…

The feral cat organizations (not regular humane societies) will generally trap for you. For reasons I will never understand, getting people to agree to let them come on their land is one of the most difficult tasks for them!

If you think you can take a feral cat out cleanly with a single bullet, then more power to you - it might be the best thing for the cat. Is this really any different than the arguments used in support of hunting when they want to expand the number of licenses? That the deer, being overpopulated in a given area, will live and die terribly, so more will need to be ‘culled’ this year…

It makes sense, but for those of us who are cat lovers, it is hard to see them being hunted, even if for the best.

 

[Kitty_Chan]

So for those of you who are opposed to the idea, please help me out here. What other practical solution do I have? Other than to pray for a very long and very cold winter to naturally cull the cats? We do have coyotes, plenty of them, but they stay well away from the house, stick to the tree lines, along the creeks or in the farm fields. The cats seem to thrive in the woods surrounding the house well away from the coyotes.

This thread is moving too quick I will just add, hope its not been said sorry I tried to read most of this.

Traps, I sat with a petition against traps, they do nothing but offer a bandaid at best and make people feel they are doing something. You dont know if your catching the right cat or what. And in our cities situation, it leaves open opportunity for animal abuse. In your situation youd have to catch every cat and thats not practical. Besides you may catch Fluffy the neighbours cat whos only crime is being a good mouser.

Spay / neuter was not for you to do. The reason I suggested talking the the Humane Society was to discuss solutions. To be clear I was not suggesting you bring in the animals.

Rather I was thinking, If the society is not aware of your particular problem then they can do nothing to address it.

I know ours enforces the animals to be spayed/nuetered when you adopt. To those animals not, they offer discounts with vets.

Also, they should interview the people and the family to make sure they are “worthy” of adopting a animal. Are they going to commit to keeping the life they adopt, or toss it when little Jimmy is tired of it?

Public attitudes, this is where education comes in and is a big part of any humane society. If people saw the cat for instance as something more then they wouldnt be so inclined to dump them in the countryside near your home. And or if they knew it was illegal or wrong to do so.

If you feel shooting them is a answer then do it. But remember like a trap its a bandaid. You can shoot but if they keep coming then you will have to buy lots of bullets.

You asked if it was moral? what wont be right, is a continuation of the situation. It will eventually drain you shooting peoples mistake feral cats. You will hate cats and people in the end, that is what will eat your soul.

Thats why I encourage you to find a solution, also is there a Fish and Wildlife officer like in Canada there, maybe they can help. ?? Especially if they are feral and affecting wildlife.

btw when I sat with the petetion against traps and we had the required signatures. What happened was we wanted licensing, you can tattoo cats right? Some of the licensing money could of gone to discounting spaying/nuetering which is what will solve the problem. We were following a successful model from Vancouver, where they all but elimanted the stray and feral cats.

But they would have had to put down the bylaw on traps and rewrite things and the media was all over it. So they went with the traps and nothing has changed. Just another bandaid.

Hope any of this helps

 

[Jennifer_G]

I think it would be better to trap the cat before assuming it’s a stray or feral and just shooting it. What if it was someone’s pet? (Some owners don’t put collars on their cats)

 

[Sheeniac]

How do we determine what is moral or immoral? This is a Catholic site. Is it by how we “feel” about the thing, as one poster insinuated by telling us how he “felt”? Is it by personal opinion? Should we vote on it? Has the Church ever taught that killing a pest is immoral? Does it matter whether it is by a bullet from the landowner or gas at some agency?

I am happy that this thread was started by a very level-headed and MALE Catholic.

BTW - I understand your final argument, but I do rescue work AND donate a lot of money and goods to the poor, pro-life causes, etc. As a loving steward* of God’s creatures, I am not worried about His judgment when He looks at my acts. There’s an issue of possible cruelty here, IMO, which is a sin. However, in this case, I would say the OP has noting cruel within him. Compare and contrast to Michael Vick and his ilk, I suppose.

• I must plead guilty to the charge of being a city-dweller ignorant of the facts of rural life.

 

[melensdad]

I think it would be better to trap the cat before assuming it’s a stray or feral and just shooting it. What if it was someone’s pet? (Some owners don’t put collars on their cats)

My cat situation involves cats that have been born in the wild, or that, in some cases, were born in captivity but always allowed to roam the woods and they then acclimated themselves to the wild. The family that had these cats never took them inside, they lived outside year round and there were literally a couple dozen of them that were given food and water and allowed to interbreed at will and become wild. The family moved away a few years ago and didn’t bother with the cats. So they have continued to integrate into the wild over the past few years. We see little kittens each year and they are just as mean and wild as the older cats.

Understand please I live in a rural area. We are 6 miles outside of the nearest small town (6000 residents) and 8 miles from another town (2200 residents). We have very few social services out here like they have in the cities/suburbs, certainly none to deal with feral cats roaming over hundreds of acres.

But if I do trap these cats then what? The county shelter will kill them. The trap will cost me money, I can only trap 1 at a time, I’d have to take them to the shelter in the trap, its a 30+ minute drive each direction so I’d be burning a lot of gas too. And there are a couple dozen cats so that would take an awful lot of time, gas, etc when dealing with them one at a time. Why would it be more humane to have someone else kill the cats?

But please realize we are not talking about Garfield the house cat. We are talking about wild cats.

 

[CarrieH]

I think it would be better to trap the cat before assuming it’s a stray or feral and just shooting it. What if it was someone’s pet? (Some owners don’t put collars on their cats)

True with strays, but feral cats leave little doubt as to their identity as such. “By their deeds ye shall know them,” and there is nothing friendly or pet-like in the behavior of feral cats. Demonic, maybe…

 

[melensdad]

I went to school for four years in Reneselaer in the 50’s.

St Joseph’s College? A guy I used to work with graduated from St Joseph’s College, and his son, who was a couple years younger than me also went to school there. Renselaer is about 45 minutes southeast of me. I’m close to Beecher, IL and Lowell, IN and northeast of Kankakee, IL.

. . .there is the “bambi syndrome”. Oh they are all so cute and harmless. So beautiful to watch. Than the population of deer gets out of control and you see many of them lying by the side of the highway, mangled terribly. Feature it, a car going 60 mph hits a 200 lb animal. In at least a 100 cases each year the deer comes through the windshield and kills the driver or passenger. You also find the bones in the spring of deer who have starved to death or died from sickness or injury.

It is not humane to not control animal populations by hunting or trapping.

As someone who grew up in the suburbs and even had an apartment in Chicago for a while, its been a major adjustment living out here in the boondocks. We’ve been here almost 13 years and I do love it, but I will admit that there is some of that “bambi syndrome” inside me. I’m amazed at how much I have learned about real life by watching nature, it is not like the city/suburban people think it should be.

Animals are brutal in the wild. Watching them fight is a horrific sight and not for the faint of heart. We had some coyotes chase down and kill a deer in the “back yard” one afternoon while several people watched. They were probably 200 yards away and even at that distance it was not a pretty sight. We stopped feeding birds when the big dog learned how to jump up and pull the raccoons out of the trees as they tried to raid the bird feeders. I got tired of having to bandage up the dogs and kill the raccoons that were torn apart by the dogs. I have to tell you, I’ve heard all sorts of stories about how a raccoon can tear apart a German Shepard dog but I have an Akita and there is no way that a raccoon can begin to fight an Akita. My Akita is such a gentle beast of a dog, at 90# she is just a lap dog. But she protects the house and will not tolerate a raccoon in her yard, so we learned not to feed the birds. On the other hand, our other 3 dogs weigh 7#, 12# and 22# respectively and a raccoon could easily kill all 3 of those. Heck a feral cat could probably easily kill the two smaller ones. I now generally keep the dogs in a fenced yard or in the house, or they are under very close supervision.

Living out here in the country is VERY different than life in the suburbs. I don’t think I could go back to the city/suburbs, and I have really come to resent the city politicians who try to run the lives of rural dwellers with city laws. It just doesn’t work out here!

 

[Matas]

A .22 is instant birth control.

.22LR might do the trick…with proper shot placement. I’d feel more comfortable with using .22 magnum rounds for a definite quick and painless kill. Sounds to me like Melensdad uses something like .308 for feral cats, if I perceive the 500 yard reference correctly. What do you use for pest control?

 

[Newbie2]

How do we determine what is moral or immoral?
I can’t even believe there would be a debate about it, especially on a Catholic site. Individuals do not determine morality for themselves. That is called relativism. There is an objective morality and it is knowable.

If you would rather see bluebirds and cardinals shoot the cats. If you feel badly or guilty about shooting the cats, don’t shoot the cats. There is nothing moral or immoral about either decision.

Objective morality, you say, and it’s knowable. I beg to differ that there is a knowable objective moralitily for every situation, otherwise moral theologians would have nothing to talk about.

Perhaps I misunderstand your point?

I’d also disagree that there is no aspect of morality in shooting cats, whether one untimately decides if it is moral or not…there is an aspect of morality in pretty much every action we take, is there not?

Consider one of the most mundane actions: e.g. It is a moral action to buy a candy bar at the store, but immoral to steal it.

 

[Wolseley]

Living out here in the country is VERY different than life in the suburbs. I don’t think I could go back to the city/suburbs, and I have really come to resent the city politicians who try to run the lives of rural dwellers with city laws. It just doesn’t work out here!

That’s one of the best parts of living out in the pulpwood slashings, is that you don’t have a pack of politicians regulating how often you have to cut your grass, how often you have to rake your leaves, how many cars you can park in your driveway, whether you can burn trash in a barrel, etc., etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum et absurdum et nauseam. I cut my grass maybe five times a year, and I haven’t raked in leaves in years.

You couldn’t get me to move back into a city or the suburbs at the point of a gun.

Matas:

.22LR might do the trick…with proper shot placement. I’d feel more comfortable with using .22 magnum rounds for a definite quick and painless kill. Sounds to me like Melensdad uses something like .308 for feral cats, if I perceive the 500 yard reference correctly. What do you use for pest control?

I use a .22 long rifle with a scope for varmints (cats included); for bigger problems (such as a bellicose, destructive coyote, for example), a 30.06 loaded with softpoints. At close range, or in heavy brush, I recommend a shotgun for feral cats.

 

[melensdad]

"CarrieH:

feral cats leave little doubt as to their identity as such. “By their deeds ye shall know them,” and there is nothing friendly or pet-like in the behavior of feral cats. Demonic, maybe…

Agreed, there is very little similarity between a feral cat and a house cat and its pretty easy to tell the difference by watching them, approaching them, etc. A stray tabby will typically come to you, accept food/water, etc. I should also note that while we have some houses on our road, none have cats. The 3 of the 4 houses on my road to my north have dogs. There are 4 houses to my south, one of them has a small dog, the others have no pets. The closest house to the rear of my home is literally so far away that you have to look at it through binoculars to see what color it is painted, I don’t know if they have pets or not!

Sounds to me like Melensdad uses something like .308 for feral cats, if I perceive the 500 yard reference correctly. What do you use for pest control?

A .308 is accurate in the right rifle out past 800 yards and can be used out to 1000+ yards with the correct loads, remains supersonic to roughly 850 yards (varies by bullet load); but my property is under 1000 yards long so I don’t shoot quite that far here. Shotguns work great for moderate range and are decisive to be sure. 5.56/223 out to 350 or 400 yards with a reasonable rifle work very nicely. But I will also say that at 50 yards or less, a 22LR is going to make a clean one shot kill on a cat sized animal.

My 12 year old daughter is a better shot with a 22 than I am But I would not ask her to shoot an animal! She has a couple rifles of her own, including a hot pink AR15 that converts calibers and fires both the little 22LR rimfire and larger, more powerful centerfire 223/5.55 NATO. Below she is using a semi-automatic Ruger 10/22 with laminated stock and standard barrel.
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[Kitty_Chan]

So for those of you who are opposed to the idea, please help me out here. What other practical solution do I have?

This thread is moving quickly, just wondering if there was a comment on my post 66??

You wanted some practical solutions…

 

[melensdad]

This thread is moving quickly, just wondering if there was a comment on my post 66??

You wanted some practical solutions…

In that post you wrote:

You can shoot but if they keep coming then you will have to buy lots of bullets.

And suggested that shooting was nothing more than a band-aid solution, just like traps would be only a band-aid.

I don’t know that anyone specifically agreed/disagreed with the overall message, but I think that both shooting and trapping are final solutions. The problem is not caused by cats that city folk keep dumping out here, the problem was caused by one family that left all their cats to become wild, then they moved away. So there is a finite number of cats here, at least as the situation has developed.

Trapping would work, presuming the cats were then killed after being trapped. Shooting would work as it kills the cats where they stand.

• What I don’t consider practical is trapping the cats, having them spayed/neutered and then returned to do more damage.
• I also don’t really see the point/practicality in trapping them, having them spayed/neutered and then moved to a new place to do damage since that just moves the problem and the cats will still destroy the native animals.
• I also don’t see the point of trapping them and then driving them to the county shelter where the county will kill them, simply because the end result is the same and the cat is put through far more trauma before it is ultimately killed.

For those who don’t know much about bullets, 22LR bullets are sold in boxes of 550 at places like Wal-Mart and cost about $8 or $9 per box. Centerfire bullets cost more, but are typically sold in lots of 20, 100, 250, 500 and 1000. Many of us also load our own ammunition. But it is pretty normal for a target shooter to have several THOUSAND rounds of ammunition in the house at any given time. Different loads are used for different purposes, distances, wind conditions, etc.

I always find it funny that the newspapers and TV news report that someone’s home was searched and they make a big deal about finding “500” rounds of ammunition. What they don’t tell you is that in 1 box of discount ammo at Wal-Mart or K-Mart there is often that much ammo. And if you go out to any target range on the weekend for causal practice you can easily shoot 500 rounds of ammunition in a couple of hours.

500 rounds of ammunition to a shooter is like a dozen golf balls to a golfer!

 

[MarthaMartha]

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Res ipse loquitur.

 

[grandfather]

Objective morality, you say, and it’s knowable. I beg to differ that there is a knowable objective moralitily for every situation, otherwise moral theologians would have nothing to talk about.

This is true. There are areas where moral questions are settled and there are always new questions that arise. So we see for example end of life issues being a focus with moral theologians today. New medical capabilities open new moral questions. If there has been a behavior that has been around since time immemorial however, and the Church has never questioned it or taught on the matter, like whether or not it is moral or immoral to wear a black hat, or eat pizza with anchovies, then we can presume the issue is settled. It would be impossible for a common behavior to be sinful for two thousand years and the Church not realizing it, such as killing pests.

Consider one of the most mundane actions: e.g. It is a moral action to buy a candy bar at the store, but immoral to steal it.

This is most certainly settled. Stealing has been addressed.

 

[Wolseley]

http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Humor/Cats/MouseHunter.jpg

Res ipse loquitur.