Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Feral Cats in the News...

is blogging again!

This can be a bad thing for me (tongue firmly in cheek). Barb has the ability to find just the articles that make me want to comment at length back over here. I've already seen a bunch that have set me off this morning, but I MUST take a shower and get to work, so I'll have to read them over this evening.

Okay, okay, maybe I do have to comment on the "humane touch" article:

It is impossible to "humanely" euthanize a feral cat or wild animal. Even if they don't feel pain, they are in total terror. One of the subjects I'm having to deal with in a feral cat presentation, is euthanasia. Basically, "humane euthanasia" requires the same procedures as "professional anesthesia" for feral cats. They should be gently handled, restrained quietly in the trap via an isolator, and then tranquilized or chemically anesthetized via injection. Then the cat can be removed by hand and either be further anesthetized for surgery, or euthanized.

If feral cats can be quietly and calmly handled by the hundreds every day all over the U.S. for anesthesia and surgery, they can be just as calmly handled for euthanasia in shelters were feral cats are still euthanized. There is no need to terrorize these cats with catchpoles, pole syringes, cardiac-sticks when fully conscious, or CO2.

(Okay, to prove the power of Barb's blog, I just went off on a six paragraph rant about CO2 euthanasia, which I have just deleted so that I can comment more intelligently in the future. Ah! It's worse than alcohol! A rant drug!)

FCITN has a ton of information within it and on the sidebars, which is why I visited it regularly even when there weren't daily posts. Now I see I have a lot to catch up on!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It seems there are some that think hunting them is the key to controlling them.
www.feralcathunt.com has people on there killing them