The important thing is for those of you in Wisconsin to keep pressing the "No HUNT" issue.
Use the argument that Most collars for cats are made as breakaways incase it gets hung up on something the cat won't be stuck and starve to death. ALSO, with microchipping technology, there IS NO WAY for a hunter to LEGALLY assure himself that the cat in question IS in FACT a stray. He would have to 1) own a microchip reader (only a few thousand dollars..but hey if he can afford a gun..), 2) get close enough to the cat to use the reader 3) use it correctly before he could LEGALLY be allowed to hunt it, or he and the state of Wisconsin as well as the DNR will be opening themselves up to all kinds of civil law suites! ALSO, owners often have their cats tatooed....you can not see these tatoos from a distance, if a hunter kills a cat with a tattoo, he has destroyed private property and can and should be held liable not only for the property, but for emotional damage to the owner as well.
Most cats are not stranger friendly, so the whole clause of identifying a stray as a "cat who does not show friendly tendancies" is bunk. Lastly, I don't know a single cat owner (even the most careful among us who never "permit" their cats to go outside, whose cat (esp. a new pet) hasn't streaked out the door on one occasion or the other.
Animals classified as pets SHOULD NEVER BE HUNTED, even if they are unclaimed....because you can never be certain if it is actually a stray or an accidental roamer. There are too many emotions involved, and too many circumstances where those emotions can get out of hand and escalate to violence against people. Lets face it...how many pet owners do you know that are capable of physical harm to another human being, if they witnessed, or suspected that human of harming their pet?
(I personally am a pacifist, all 120lbs of me....but bolted from my car in a bad neighborhood one morning, picked up a two by four laying in the street from a building being demolished and chased a 6'4" 250 + lb male for three and a half blocks through drug gang territory because I saw him beating & kicking a dog chained to a fence.....and it wasn't even my dog...My point being...it was lucky for BOTH of us that he was faster than me, because after the 2nd block...a little voice in my head said "and WHAT will you do if you catch him?" Well I KNEW exactly what I would have done....and had I done it...who would have taken care of that dog? If it had been MY animal....there is no way in the world he would have outrun me.)
T
BONNIE J KALMBACH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
BONNIE J KALMBACH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The bad news is that the advisory vote on the resolution to make cats
an unprotected species won, but the good news is that head of the DNR
says there will be no cat hunt.
The question was passed in a statewide advisory vote by those who
attended the annua; Conservation Congress meetings held in each
county. The vote was 6,830 in favor and 5,201 opposed to the idea. The
results of this vote go to the Natural Resources Board which then
recommends changing any laws to the state legislature - but as Scott
Hassett, the DNR secretary is adamantly opposed to a cat hunt, this is
probably the end of the matter for now.
The DNR knows that allowing cats to be hunted would cause a lot of
legal problems (e.g. people often can't tell if a cat is a true feral
or a stray or a just a barn cat wandering around) that many farmers
would close their land to hunters, that tourism would be affected, and
with the DNR budget having been slashed, like those of so many state
agencies these days, they just want to avoid all the problems and
headaches that would ensue.
A lot of people are hoping this is a wake-up call to those who let
their cats run free and don't spay or neuter.
reporting from Wisconsin,
Bonnie Kalmbach
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