Well done!

I have always been intrigued by the fact that the science demonstrating this one particular anthropogenic cause of wild animal mortality – the magnitude of domestic cat predation on native wildlife – is the ONLY science to come under scrutiny by TNR advocates, even though many of them claim to be friends of the birds and/or ‘environmentalists’ concerned about issues affecting our natural resources. You know, they care about ALL animals. Yet, somehow, the information presented in other literature and sources that discuss other human-related hazards to birds and other wildlife (pesticides, oil spills, wind turbines, communication towers, window/building collisions and so on) are taken at face value. There is a lot of good research that has taken place that focuses on MANY issues. This helps us understand better what we can do to help wildlife. Cat predation is one of those issues and we cannot afford to ignore what the science tells us.

Great Job, Michael.

I think it was Winston Churchill who said, “the thing about an extremist is that not only will he never change his mind, he’ll never change the subject!” Feral cat advocates are just like any other group whose entire movement is based upon a faulty premise. They cannot tolerate any scrutiny of that premise, lest everything they do be proven wrong. I suspect some of these folks still hold to the belief that the Earth is flat.

TNR advocates, as a group, simply do not have the collective integrity, or the perspective, to recognize and admit that they do NOT actually care about all animals, at least not equally. They care about feral cats, first and foremost; the rest of the animal kingdom is far down the list. As I have said before, the release of a single feral cat, neutered or otherwise, amounts to a declaration that the life of that cat is more important that the lives of the hundreds, if not thousands, of native creatures that a single feral cat could destroy in its lifetime……not because it is hungry and needs food, but because it is a domestic animal, selectively bred to prey upon other creatures.

And as for the assertion that I hate cats….my five, happy, strictly-indoor cats would disagree.

Ed Clark, President
Wildlife Center of Virginia

Perhaps it’s time for us to stop giving time to refuting the arguments of feral cat advocates. They can continue to say that predation by cats is insignificant, but I equally say that monkeys are responsible for the routine theft of feral cat food bowls and shelters in my neighborhood. I have no scientific proof of this, but it sounds good and it furthers my aim of elevating the status of feral monkeys in North America.

On a serious note, I’m a little disturbed that state wildlife departments have ALLOWED the release of a non-native predator into the environment. Capture & neutering is all well and good, but the RELEASE of a non-native mammal into the environment SHOULD be an illegal act. Here’s hoping state agencies will take a stand on this.

Jim: I believe it is important for us to spend the time to refute the feral cat advocates. Unfortunately, if we wildlife professionals do not respond, then many people will conclude that the feral cat advocates must be right, when the science clearly says that they are dead wrong. I too believe that state and federal agencies responsible for protecting our native wildlife need to step up to the plate and deal with this issue, no matter how controversial. Thanks for your comments.

Our friend at Vox Felina is at it again, criticizing wildife professionals and scientists for their take on feral cats. You can see his ramblings at: http://www.voxfelina.com/. What’s the old saying: “I think thou protest too much.” That is usually the case when my arguments hit a particular sore spot in an indefensible position. Sorry, but I am not going to take the bait. Why should I spend my time defending the peer reviewed literature when it is there for everyone to see and has gone through extensive evaluation by topical experts? As I said in my previous blog, the truth will be revealed.

Here’s one difference between scientists and non-scientists: Scientists reserve judgement until they see the data and change their minds if the data point in another direction. Non-scientists, especially those blinded by emotion, make up their minds first and then twist the data to fit their pre-conceived notions. Or, alternatively, they filter the data through the prism of their own narrow worldviews, accepting information that supports their worldview and rejecting information that refutes it. Furthermore, they may come up with some reason to reject the pesky data or call it, or the scientists’ motives into question. Trying to demonize one’s opponents is a common strategy used in all forms of propaganda. Sorry, I don’t play that game. That will be my last word in this particular useless discussion. There will be more later, but in other more productive venues.

Ok, I went and read the posts. I am struck by Peter Wolf’s insistence that somehow ecology is like pharmacology, where money would corrupt scientists and the peer review process. The “interested scientist/author” problem that is indeed disturbingly common in the pharmaceutical literature is not analogous the basic ecology and conservation scientific literature which is simply not based in any financial reward system beyond the idea that some people have jobs in this field that pay the rent/mortgage. There is simply no incentive for those in wildlife management and ecology to publish “bogus science” as Peter seems to imply. Or is that what he is saying at all? Maybe it was something about the peer review process being fallible. That is certainly true, but far less so in those disciplines that people chose for the love of it, and without the corrupting influence of big corporate money.

Next post on voxfelina comments that sanctuaries are not a panacea for feral cats. I have to agree with that; there is a shocking amount of money spent on feral cat rescue, but not enough to put them all in sanctuaries. Feral cats need to be euthanized and cut off at the source by promoting responsible pet ownership, by requiring that people treat them with the same respect as we do for dogs. Because we as a nation no longer tolerate free-roaming dogs, there is not a big problem with feral dogs. Cats need to be managed in the same way, confined to properties of their owners and with zero tolerance for free-roaming/feral animals. And this will mean that some proportion will be euthanized, there is no way to sugar-coat that fact. But to leave feral cats outside is to ensure that native wildlife is killed instead. TNR does not avoid killing animals, it just changes which ones are killed. I do agree, though, that wildlife advocates are disingenuous if they argue that all feral cats can be put in sanctuaries.

The alternative vision from some major TNR promoters is that cats should be allowed to roam anywhere, on any public or private property, in any habitat or neighborhood, and to take away the ability to do anything about it. Such a vision would clearly not be acceptable for any other domestic species and it should be rejected for cats as well.

In a previous post, Peter Wolf criticizes authors of a published paper for asserting that George (1974) found that half of the prey items captured by outdoor cats were provided to their owners. Apparently this is a huge misinterpretation of the George (1974) paper to the extend that Wolf accuses the authors of not reading it at all. George did assert that he only found 50 % of the prey items returned by the cats in his backyard study, based on a series of assumptions about the rate of return and his observation intensity.

The point made by the criticized authors that owner returned numbers of prey items are less than total prey items still holds. Any estimate of total predation from free roaming cats needs to incorporate the number of items that were a) not returned to owners (George didn’t confirm that all items were returned, just that when they were returned they were returned to the same location), b) loss of items returned to scavengers (which George was trying to account for), c) returned but not observed by owners (the issue of sampling intensity and search efficiency on the part of owners).

So although George didn’t “find” that half of prey were returned to the drop-off site, rather he estimated that his enumeration of prey items to be 50% of the total killed, the point that fewer prey are observed than items actually killed is valid. So on this criticism, I’d have to say “arguably true on a technicality, but the point being made by the authors still holds.” Should this language have been more precise? Yes, and it shouldn’t be repeated as fact elsewhere. But by concentrating on this detail, Wolf does not succeed in undermining the point, which is well documented across ecology and wildlife management literature, that you never see all the dead bodies from any mortality source because of limitations in sampling, search efficiency, environmental conditions, and variations in animal behavior, which Mr. Wolf would know if he were actually educated in this field. I would wager Mr. Wolf would find similar mischaracterizations should he set his obsessive mind to analyzing the propaganda from Alley Cat Allies.

Thank you Ecology Professor. I will also note that the scientific system is self-correcting because in those rare instances where one scientist publishes something bogus, there are 20 others that will attack him/her in the literature and set the record straight. It is this confrontational and completely open system that keeps science highly honest when compared with ALL other significant human endeavors, including politics, business and religion. A little known fact is that knowledge advances not because we can prove things, but rather that we can disprove them.

Thanks again, Ecology Professor: You are absolutely right that sanctuaries cannot be the ultimate solution for the growing problem of feral cats. Live capture and euthanasia have to be part of the picture, as has been the case for decades in this country. We also need to cut off the source of new feral cats through both education and significant penalties for those who let their cats outdoors unsupervised, as we now do for dogs. How many millions of dollars would be misspent to build indoor sanctuaries and feed these cats, not to mention the growing impact on marine resources as documented by De Silva and Turchini (2010) in the Journal of Agricultural Environmental Ethics 21: 459-467 for the production of cat food?

OK, I checked this stuff out, too. A coupla things:
1 – regarding the discussion on training and professionalism — many of us get trained in various skills at different points in our life, but applying these skills is quite a different matter. I got “trained” in taxidermy — but I ain’t no taxidermist and god help you if you want me to prepare a body! Peter Wolf talks about his “training” in engineering… but lists his profession as “freelance writer”… so… am I missing something or is his training in engineering not being, er, employed? My uncle is an engineer and he’s way too dang busy with that to blog about anything, even engineering, let alone something waaaay outside his field, like putty-tats! Kinda makes me wonder what PW really does besides attack people… I know what Michael Hutchins and Ed Clarke do because they actually have jobs, in which they presumably use their scholarly training!

2 – Wolf (gotta love the name! a native predator!) says he is interested in “asking better questions” or some such thing… but, well, he doesn’t seem to ask any such questions. Rather, his task seems to be to shoot his little stink bombs at everyone who doesn’t think cats should run wild and help themselves to ever critter that comes their way!

3 – Wolf makes an analogy between corrupt psychiatry papers and wildlife papers that aim to contribute to conservation…. don’t quite follow. The drug papers he mention are obviously about making lots of money despite the results of the tests… but wildlife scientists? Who is paying them off, dya think? Cause I’ll tell you where you’ll end up if you follow the money… right at Alley Cat Allies’ central command unit — they get buckets more money than the conservationists could ever dream of, sad to say… maybe our friend Peter is hoping for a piece of that kitty pie

Thanks Pat. You hit it on the head: Physicists are not ecologists and vice versa. Though I am trained in ecology, I do not pretend to know everything there is to know about atomic particles, or to fully understand the details of quantum mechanics. In addition, just because one uses the products of science (i.e., a practitioner, as, e.g., an engineer, veterinarian or medical doctor), does NOT mean that one has been trained as a scientist. Indeed, it is highly arrogant to step outside one’s field and attempt to assess the validity of an entire discipline or subset of a discipline that one knows comparatively little about. I wouldn’t have an engineer operate on me if I had a medical problem, and that goes for receiving advice on wildlife management and conservation issues too. That’s why expertise means something–even if we now live in world that seems to have little respect for it. In today’s blogosphere, everyone seems to consider themselves an “expert”; they certainly seem to have no qualms about giving people technical advice, even when they are not qualified to do so. Since the quality of information we receive on the Internet varies from credible to pure fantasy, I, for one, find this trend very disturbing. This is why one must always consider the source of information and look into a topic thoroughly before making up one’s mind. Although a wonderful tool for communication, the Internet has also made it possible for people to pass along bogus information of all sorts. While our friend criticizes the peer review literature, he should really be criticizing the Internet–the very vehicle he uses to freely disseminate non-peer-reviewed misinformation about feral cats and wildlife.

I was thinking about my previous blog yesterday–ironically, while in the grocery store. Upon approaching the checkout counter, I happened to glance at the National Enquirer and other such “news” magazines. The headline on one was: Obama Born in Kenya: Presidency Illegal and the other: Oprah’s Big Secret. Wow, apparently Oprah worked as a prostitute when she was younger! They even had details about her clients and how much she charged for her services.

When I was a kid, I used to look at these headlines in amazement; one of my favorites was Bat boy–the boy who was raised by bats. Dang, he even looked a bit like a bat. Then, after many years of ignoring such publications, I happened to glance at another story when I was in graduate school studying animal behavior. The story was about a troop of monkeys that had attacked an African village; but when I read the details, I knew that some putz in a cubicle had made the entire story up. In fact, according the account, the furious monkeys had stormed the village and could be seen strangling their victims by the throat with their bare hands.

This is not the way that monkeys fight, but I’m sure some unsuspecting reader (or maybe many) bought that story hook, line and sinker. The moral of the story is that the source of information still matters, and it matters even more now that we have a blogosphere, with everyone and their dog having a strongly held opinion about something. Having an opinion, unfortunately, does not make it true, nor does it ensure that it is the most ethical and well-considered option out there. Enough said.

Shawn: I particularly like the last one. Here are a couple of other relevant quotes:

“Judgement is the ability to think of many matters at once, in their interdependence, their related importance and their consequences.”-C. P. Snow

“A man’s [or woman's] judgement cannot be better than the information on which he [she] has based it.”-Arthur Hayes Sulzberger