Is it moral to shoot stray cats?

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melensdad said:
OK here are the facts.
  • I live waaaay out in the country, shooting pests is perfectly legal.
  • Cats are NOT a native predator in this area.
  • The native birds, squirrels, etc are easy pray for cats and the cats are killing the natural species.
  • The balance of nature is being thrown off by stray cats and it is even affecting plant species.
So is it moral to shoot the stray/feral cats? 🤷

If not, why not?
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I wouldn’t shoot a cat…not sure if it’s immoral, but shooting domestic animals (even if they have gone astray)…just sounds awful. :o
 
melensdad said:
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.
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I have two house cats that definitely would not approach a stanger. In fact one of them snuck out and it took *us *two weeks to catch it because it wouldn’t even come to us once outside regardless of what we offered it. We even tried an animal trap and the darn thing out smarted us. Some how it managed to get the food without getting trapped. We did catch two neighborhood cats and a lovely possom. Inside the house it loves on us and curls up in our lap.

How much experiece do you have with cats? Several of my friends growing up had cats -some were friendly and some were not. Some wouldn’t even let the most of the family touch them. Those kinds of cats usually picked one family member it trusted and shunned the rest. I cat sat for a neighbor one time and the only reason I knew that cat was there was each time I came the food I left before had been eaten. I never even saw the darn thing.

Just because a cat is not friendly does not mean it is feral. The one house cat that snuck out -if a stranger actually tried to pick it up she would claw the person to peices. Cats have all different kinds of personalities.
 
rayne89 said:
How much experiece do you have with cats?
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Not much. My wife, on the other hand had 1 or 2 all her life until we got married. My in-laws have cats now. But no, we don’t have any. We have friends with cats. I pet and play with them when I visit homes of people who have cats. But I have never owned one.

However, from your answer it seems obvious that you skipped over many very important parts of the thread.

Please read this post: forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=2858483&postcount=89
And this post: forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=2852961&postcount=69
After reading the posts, please tell me which house might own these cats? 🤷

This part of your post does go to the point that trapping these cats might be silly to attempt:
rayne89 said:
I have two house cats that definitely would not approach a stanger. In fact one of them snuck out and it took *us *two weeks to catch it because it wouldn’t even come to us once outside regardless of what we offered it. We even tried an animal trap and the darn thing out smarted us. Some how it managed to get the food without getting trapped.
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Also, what about the responsibility we have to good stewardship of the land? Leaving these cats roam and destroy the native animals is clearly bad stewardship so how do we reconcile that issue? Further, what is more humane than shooting the cats, yet still fulfills our responsibility to good stewardship?
 
strngrnrth said:
I feel it is cruel because these cats, some of them, may once have been pets; they may think humans are their own kind and trust them. That is also why I feel that hunting is better than keeping livestock to kill, because the hunted game knows perfectly well that the hunter is a predator.
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Then you know nothing about feral cats.

A feral cat is not a stray. It is a cat born in the wild, which has had minimal, if any, contact with human beings. Feral cats are vicious, predatory wild animals. They do not trust human beings, they try to avoid contact with them. If you approach a feral cat and try to get friendly with it, you’re asking for a trip to the hospital to get yourself stitched back up, because the thing will slice you to ribbons.
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whatevergirl:
wouldn’t shoot a cat…not sure if it’s immoral, but shooting domestic animals (even if they have gone astray)…just sounds awful.
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Again: a feral cat is not a domestic pet, and never has been a domestic pet. It is not a runaway kitty that’s gone astray. It is an animal that was born in the wild and has been wild all its life. A feral cat may be a generation or two removed from domesticated pet cats, but they are not domesticated pets. They are wild animals, just like coyotes, wolves, and bears are.
 
strngrnrth said:
I feel it is cruel because these cats, some of them, may once have been pets; they may think humans are their own kind and trust them. That is also why I feel that hunting is better than keeping livestock to kill, because the hunted game knows perfectly well that the hunter is a predator.
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Where do you feel this? Is it in your heart? God gave us minds to think. If we try to use our hearts to think we get heart disease. What do feelings have to do with deciding a moral question? What does it matter what you or anyone “feels”? How does that effect what is moral or immoral? Good grief! How confused can we get?
 
Wolseley said:
Then you know nothing about feral cats.

A feral cat is not a stray. It is a cat born in the wild, which has had minimal, if any, contact with human beings. Feral cats are vicious, predatory wild animals. They do not trust human beings, they try to avoid contact with them. If you approach a feral cat and try to get friendly with it, you’re asking for a trip to the hospital to get yourself stitched back up, because the thing will slice you to ribbons.

Again: a feral cat is not a domestic pet, and never has been a domestic pet. It is not a runaway kitty that’s gone astray. It is an animal that was born in the wild and has been wild all its life. A feral cat may be a generation or two removed from domesticated pet cats, but they are not domesticated pets. They are wild animals, just like coyotes, wolves, and bears are.
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ok…well that being said…i would only do so if my domain, or my family…or myself was in danger.
 
whatevergirl said:
ok…well that being said…i would only do so if my domain . . . was in danger.
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So there we have it.

The Church requires us to be good stewards of the land. The land around our homes is our domain. In my case that is many acres. The cats are destroying (or have largely already destroyed) all the game birds like woodcock and pheasant that we had in the area. The squirrel and chipmunk population is smaller as well. There are cat dropping on our patios, decks, etc. The cats are obviously a “danger” to the natural species. They are nothing more than a pain in the rear to me as I have to clean up after them.
 
melensdad said:
Have you been sneaking around my property with a camera :eek:
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I’ve had my own encounters with the beasties, remember. I know what they look like.

I know what they smell like, too…they have that nasty, musky smell to them. And they’re also huge----some of them can be twice the size of a domestic cat.
 
melensdad said:
If a cat is “dropped off” then it is likely that that particular cat could be saved by being taken to an adoption shelter. That is a completely different issue than the one I am struggling with.

You are dealing with house cats that were thrown out of the house. I would suggest that it is compassionate to feed and capture them and then return them to caring homes (via a shelter).

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.

But under no circumstances should cats be allowed into the ecosystem!!! It seem immoral to me to throw them away in the first place, but it is certainly bad environmental stewardship to let them destroy the native species.

Yes I very clearly am listening. They are reintroduced into an ecosystem where they do not belong and long before they die off, they KILL THE NATIVE SPECIES. If you want to come over to my home I will show you the damage they do to the species. There are other posts here that confirm that the wildlife takes A YEAR OR MORE to come back from the damage from JUST 1 CAT.

As for the dogs, it is nature for them to get old. If they are street dogs then they will get diseases just being out there and as they age they will not be able to hunt for food so they will die of disease or starvation. It is just natural. Unless someone goes to feed it. But who will keep it disease free? Nobody. We need to think through the consequences of our actions!!!
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Sorry it took me so long to get back here. You are correct with throw aways. However telling which is a throw away or not can be something. I have had “feral” or maybe they were semi perhaps (?), which have quieted down with some care. Being kicked around or being abused by those who love to do so definitely has an impact on a “house” cats behavior. Oh, how I fault those who just leave their pets behind when they move. Another story but related here. It disturbs me to have birds and other indigenous animals being killed by cats. I do understand that a true feral is wild. One rarely sees them. You and others do bring out good points. And thanks for making them.
 
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