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An article in the Wall Street Journal, April 18, 1999, caught my eye. Seems a veterinarian by name of, Susan G. Hauser, participated in a wild and wooly "cat neutering" party. States like Oregon have become concerned by the number of wild cats roaming the countryside, not to mention cozying up in the suburbs and cities as well. How to control them seemed an easy question to answer, just catch them cut out their reproductive organs, toss them back into the wild and you have instantly gained a great deal of satisfaction in the belief that you have reduced the cat population*.
I don't quarrel with them when it comes to population control, but do question whether they have been completely honest when they return a damaged animal back to at best, an hostile environment, expecting he or she (now it) to cope with life while trying to recover from a recent bout of forced civilization. Susan returned to her fireside and comfortable lodging, her victims had to cope with catching the evening meal on the hoof.
All these do-gooders assume that the wild cat population is up to no good. Certainly they catch their share of pretty birds and fuzzy rabbits. But along the way they help control the population of wild rats and mice. Have been known to feast on a slim jim, otherwise known as a small snake, perhaps done in more than a few possums, coons and anything else that walks, slithers or flies that can be caught by these feline hunters. Get rid of the cats and you have created another problem, explosion of the population of those animal colonies that were kept in control by the cat's presence. Nature will triumph over man every time.
Justification in doing the knife trick on the cat is based on some great mathematics. Seems someone who had more time on his/her hands than good sense did some multiplication based on the reproductive tendencies of cats. Those 238 cats they neutered could have each produced 20,000 offspring in five years, according to estimates by United Kingdom knife wielders. (That's 4.76 million cats, or about the total cat population in England.)(2) This never happens. What's going on here? There is certainly more than a single wild cat out there producing kittens and yet the feral cat population (that's what you call wild cats) is estimated (no one can catch them and put a number on them all, not even the U. S. Department of Commerce and its census bureaucrats), at about 55 to 60 million cats. Did they all start from a single fertile dam? Of course not, something else must be taking place. Attrition in cats is something horrible to see. The population is pretty much in balance with the supply of food.
Those cats the good Doctor neutered had about one chance in a hundred of surviving to the next year. And, now thanks to the feel good crowd in Oregon, their chances of survival have been decreased ever more.
Am reminded of the child's poem;
As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives,
Seven wives had seven kids,
Seven kids had seven cats,
Seven cats had seven kits.
How many were going to St. Ives?
Math says; 7 times 7 times 7 times 7 equals 2,401 (plus 1) or 2,402.
That's wrong, "I" was the only one going to St. Ives.
Same with the nice people in Oregon. They're going the wrong way.
And now to recommend a book to put your mind at ease; The Great Cat Massacre, Basic Books, Inc., New York. Here's a selection from Robert Darnton's book, pp 94;
"Cats possessed occult power independently of their association with witchcraft and deviltry. The could prevent the bread from rising if they entered bakeries in Anjou. The could spoil the catch if they crosse the path of fishermen in Brittany. If buried alive in Bearn, they could clear a field of weeds. They figured as staple ingredients in all kinds of folk medicine aside from witches' brews. To recover from a bad fall, you sucked the blood out of a freshly amputated tail of a tomcat. To cure yourself from pneumonia, you drank blood from a cat's ear in red wine. To get over colic, you mixed your wine with cat excrement. You could even make yourself invisible, at least in Brittany, by eating the brain of newly killed cat, provided it was still hot."
Perhaps we haven't moved that far away from ancient times when we believe that torturing an adult cat can make us feel all better.
On the other hand, perhaps when you consider that many of the "feral" cats are the direct result of having been dumped on the countryside by some well intended owner, maybe, the vet has the right idea after all. Castrating just a few of the "dumpers" would probably do more to control the wild cat population than any other measure I can think of.
Which reminds me of the ethnic story about a wife who goes to see the Doctor. She has just had her eighth child and doesn't want any more.
The doctor looks in the medical book of the times and reads, "If a reduction in birth rate is desired it is recommended that the right testicle of the offending party be removed." Considering this, the doctor asked the wife to bring her husband with her the on the next visit. After consultation, it was agreed that surgery was in order and shortly thereafter, the gentleman returned home light on the right side.
Next spring however, the wife gave birth to her ninth child. She was most upset and the good Doctor consulted his updated medical text and found the following instructions, "If you have removed the right testicle and received no relief from the burdens of childbirth, it is recommended that the left testicle be removed." Now this was upsetting to the husband but he was in distress wondering how he was to support his growing family so agreed that when wife left the hospital he would undergo the surgery. Which he did. Unfortunately this isn't the end of the story.
Next spring the wife gave birth to her tenth child. Both husband and wife were upset and demanded an explanation from the Doctor. He referred to his manual of medicine and read the following, "If you removed the right testicle from the gentleman and got no relief from unwanted pregnancies, and you removed the left testicle from same gentleman and yet the woman continues to become pregnant, you have castrated the wrong ________.*" It is in this space that you can substitute which ever group to you which to cast a racial sneer upon.
So, it appears that the good people of Oregon have once again cut the wrong animal.
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(1) I trust they don't set on the same tactics to prevent invasion from
the populous state to the South.
(2) There is a bit of a logic problem here. Of course male animals don't
bear offspring, and removing one male animal from the reproductive pool just
means that another can step up to take its place. Want proof, just look at
reproductive rates following war when many of the soldiers (male) didn't
return from the front.
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