So you think they can't make people hate cats?

There's an ugly war being fought over the American love for cats right now... and the cats are losing.

Yes, most of us love cats, are intrigued by cats, watch cat videos, and in ever-growing numbers share our homes with cats. But if you'd had your ear to the ground of the last few years, you'd realize there's a force out there trying to change that.

It began with a series of high-profile headlines about how cats are murderous beasts. It was sustained by junk science and "alternative facts" about how many birds outdoor cats kill each year. And it was given credibility by the academic credentials of the virulent cat-haters behind this propaganda war, one of whom actually said in his book Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer that felines should be removed from the landscape "by any means necessary."

(Which to the best of my knowledge is the first and only time a cat hater has quoted Malcom X to support his case. But I digress.)

You might accuse me of over-reacting, and I hope I am. But these guys are playing a long game here, slowly getting the media to pay attention to their anti-cat message and, more frighteningly, attempting to supplant the reality of the cats in our laps with the demonic image of a killing machine with an unquenchable appetite for endangered songbird. They're presenting to veterinary organizations and at science conferences. They're writing articles and books, and doing propaganda-filled book tours. They're courting the media. They're supporting hyped up media coverage of the risks of toxoplasmosis and rabies.

And what are we in animal welfare doing about it?

Good question.

Sometimes it seems we're all so engrossed in our own cat-positive worlds, doing TNR and helping shelters increase their feline lifesaving and singing the praises of community cats, warehouse cats, and barn cats that we're almost oblivious to the propaganda taking hold all around us.

When we do pay attention, we seem to think that cats will be spared by the irony of the fact that, by opposing TNR, these idiots are themselves the greatest barrier to reducing the number of unowned, free-roaming cats. 

We need to wake up. We need to write op-eds, write our own books, go on local radio programs, put our best and most articulate spokespeople forward, fund research, and stop burying our heads in the kitty litter. These guys are trying to eradicate cats from America unless they're safely locked in a high-security indoor environment -- which means they want to kill more than half the cats currently alive in this country.

And they're frustratingly, hypocritically doing it in the name of saving birds... birds who themselves have been responsible for more human and wildlife deaths than any other type of living creatures bigger than a pathogen.

And we're letting them.

Comments

[Claudia Bloom]

Are these people from Audubon, who are trying to send the Salt River wild horses to slaughter because they supposedly kill bird habitat in Az? The bird people are crazy. They should be focusing on human encroachment, climate change, etc on bird habitat, not wild horses or cats. After feeding birds for years, I have watched feral cats and everything else. the biggest killer of wild birds in my yard is predator birds and unfortunately, disease.

[Nancy Hicks]

This is awful.