Rethink the native versus alien species divide

Some scientists are saying: Rethink the native versus alien species divide.

An editorial in Nature argues that not only have too many resources been invested in curbing and controlling invasive species but that the entire concept of the threat of non-native species is flawed.
As some of us have been arguing for nearly 20 years,  humans have caused most of the earth’s problems such as climate change, urbanization and drastically changing the land, all which makes “the native-versus-alien species dichotomy in conservation increasingly meaningless."

The latest edition of Animal People states: “eradicating ‘invasive’ species is just the current politically correct term for what used to be called ‘pest control’.”

“People like to have an enemy, and vilifying non-native species makes the world very simple,” said ecologist Mark Davis of Macalester University. “The public got sold this nativist paradigm: Native species are the good ones, and non-native species are bad. It’s a 20th century concept, like wilderness, that doesn’t make sense in the 21st century.”

The Animal People magazine team said many years ago that “Except on small islands, where the effects of feral animals and wild exotics are usually ambiguous, introduced species over time tend to help more native species that they harm, by filling ecological niches that have not only been left open by the extirpation of other species, but are also essential to preventing the collapse of whole ecosystems.

“In their zeal to annihilate feral and wild exotic animals,” they argued, “wildlife regulatory agencies often don’t give nature credit for finding ways to accommodate new species.

They concluded: “The war against the largely imaginary alien menace goes on…both in the name of ecology and in opposition to ecological principle.”

It is strange that most of the environmental groups don’t tackle Agribusiness.

This is from a Rainforest website:

As the demand in the Western world for cheap meat increases, more and more rainforests are destroyed to provide grazing land for animals. In Brazil alone, there are an estimated 220 million head of cattle, 20 million goats, 60 million pigs, and 700 million chickens. Most of Central and Latin America's tropical and temperate rainforests have been lost to cattle operations to meet the world demand, and still the cattle operations continue to move southward into the heart of the South American rainforests. To graze one steer in Amazonia takes two full acres. Most of the ranchers in the Amazon operate at a loss, yielding only paper profits purely as tax shelters. Ranchers' fortunes are made only when ranching is supported by government giveaways. A banker or rich landowner in Brazil can slash and burn a huge tract of land in the Amazon rainforest, seed it with grass for cattle, and realize millions of dollars worth of government-subsidized loans, tax credits, and write-offs in return for developing the land. These government development schemes rarely make a profit, as they are actually selling cheap beef to industrialized nations. One single cattle operation in Brazil that was co-owned by British Barclays Bank and one of Brazil's wealthiest families was responsible for the destruction of almost 500,000 acres of virgin rainforest. The cattle operation never made a profit, but government write-offs sheltered huge logging profits earned off of logging other land in the Brazilian rainforest owned by the same investors. These generous tax and credit incentives have created more than 29 million acres of large cattle ranches in the Brazilian Amazon, even though the typical ranch could cover less than half its costs without these subsidies. Even these grazing lands don't last forever. Soon the lack of nutrients in the soil and overgrazing degrade them, and they are abandoned for newly cleared land. In Brazil alone, more than 63,000 square miles of land has reportedly been abandoned in this way.

Why don’t the environmental groups challenge “cattle” -----also an invasive species. In my opinion there are several reasons:

(1)  When you challenge the beef industry they fight back. Remember the law suit against Oprah at the height of the mad cow disease period?

The cattle producers sued Oprah under a 1995 Texas law under which people can be held liable if they make false and disparaging statements about perishable food products. In April 1996, the topic of the show was mad cow disease, an outbreak of which had occurred in Britain. The disease in cattle has been linked to a related disease in humans that kills people by slowing destroying brain tissue.
Ex-rancher Howard Lyman was on the show and he criticized the practice of feeding processed livestock to cattle, linked to the outbreak in Europe. Oprah said: “Lyman’s remarks just stopped me cold from eating another burger.” Lyman was also sued by the cattle producers. He said that an outbreak of human form of mad cow disease could make AIDS look like the common cold. Cattle producers claim that the remarks on the show sent cattle prices tumbling, costing them 12 million.

(2)   Environmentalists are afraid of upsetting their membership, who may interpret this as a call to vegetarianism.

(3)   Or on the other hand, they may be afraid some of their members may ask if they themselves have given up eating beef, or at least cut back on red meat.

Whatever the reason, it’s easier for them to tackle the “little ole cat ladies” who take care of feral colonies, and for them to turn the cat into a scapegoat, than face a multi-billion dollar industry that really does harm the environment.
From a 2006 United Nations Food and Agriculture report called Livestock’s Long Shadow: “ Indeed, the livestock sector may well be the leading player in the reduction of biodiversity, since it is the major driver of deforestation, as well as one of the leading drivers of land degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas and facilitation of invasions by alien species.”
Feral pigs: Another animal now on the “hit list.” Animal People notes that feral pigs have been living in Texas for 300 years. Now a new Bill allows landowners to shoot pigs and coyotes from helicopters. The hit list includes red foxes, bobcats and stray dogs. Bobcats are on the list as they may kill chickens. But chickens are now intensively farmed and the old Farmer Brown farms where chickens run around the barnyard, no longer exists. But poor old bobcats still make the hit list.
Fortunately there are some scientists today questioning the way we are treating the environment and individual animals.
“The way that we breed animals for food is a threat to the planet. It pollutes our environment while consuming huge amounts of water, grain, petroleum, pesticides and drugs. The results are disastrous.”

David Brubaker, PhD, Center for a Livable Future, Johns Hopkins University
Environmental News Network, 9/20/99

We agree with Animal People when they say: “The time is right for the humane community to exercise leadership—not just on behalf of feral cats, mute swans, wild horses, or the other popular species—but on behalf of the confluence of humane consideration for individual animal life with the ecological principle that every individual, of any species, contributes positively to the evolutionary process.”

The Bottom Line in all of the scapegoating of cats is...

So the anti-cat folks say:

1. “Allowing free-ranging pet and feral cats to roam outside, breed unchecked, kill native wildlife, and spread disease is a crime against nature,” says Michael Hutchins, executive director/CEO of The Wildlife Society (TWS), North America’s scientific organization for professionals in wildlife management and conservation.
2. “There is no perfect answer. But, in my view, the best answer is to encourage cat owners to keep their beloved pets safely indoors, to support legislation (such as leash laws for dogs) that requires pet owners to keep their cats indoors or to allow them outdoors only in enclosed catteries, and to phase out TNR cat colonies, which can become magnets for unwanted pet cats and which send the message that it’s OK to allow large congregations of cats to range freely outside and kill wildlife.”
3. The Wildlife Society believes that TNR colonies are dumping grounds for unwanted pets.

Let’s take a look at #1: We (the TNR advocates) do NOT allow free-ranging pets to roam outside. We do adoptions of dumped cats and unwanted cats and tell everyone they have to keep the cats indoors.

Still on #1: TNR advocates do NOT allow feral cats to breed unchecked. Many of us (myself included) have spayed and neutered 20,000 feral cats and some of us even more, over the last 20 years.

#2: Local governments looking for quick fixes for the feral cat “problem” never concentrate on TNR or low cost or free spay /neuter of pets. It’s easier to say “legislation, leash laws, feeding bans.” None of these help feral cats in any way. Also #2: TNR eventually does phase out feral cat colonies. I personally have seen the demise of feral colonies I have fixed.

#3. TNR does not cause dumping of unwanted pets.I have worked in animal rescue for several decades. If people want to dump their animals, they dump them anywhere. We have had cats dumped in parking lots, on highways, anywhere you can think of. Some new cats do enter these colonies, but caretakers are vigilant and immediately notice any new cat that does manage to enter ---either by knowing all the cats, or identifying them through their eartips. They will catch these new cats and get them fixed or if the cats are tame, remove them for adoption.

Examples given by Best Friends on colonies that have been reduced through TNR:

ORCAT Project
According to the Grayvik Animal Care Center, approximately 350 stray/feral cats live in the Ocean Reef Club, an exclusive island community just south of Miami. ORCAT (Ocean Reef Club Animal Trap neuter release) is a program that was established by Ocean Reef’s homeowners in 1993 to care for the cats. Since its inception, this TNR program has reduced the community cat population from around 2,000 to 350 cats.
Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association
A dissertation by Felicia Nutter, published in the Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association (2005), evaluating TNR management programs found that a controlled study of TNR and non-TNR colonies showed that within the first two years, all TNR colonies decreased in size by an average of 36 percent, and one went extinct. Within the same time period, all non-TNR colonies increased in size by an average of 47 percent. After seven years, all TNR colonies had five or fewer cats, while the non-TNR colonies continued to increase in size. Immigration into both TNR and breeding colonies was consistent but occurred at low levels in both.
And the following statement by Veronia Lennon  is what I like to call “The Bottom Line”

In 2008 Veronica Lennon wrote the following (and I believe this is the bottom line in all of these endless debates and continuous scapegoating of cats):

The American Bird Conservancy and other avian organizations like the National Audubon Society continue to fund, endorse and advance a simplistic anti-cat campaign that does not address the real issue.

Just "keep your cats indoors"? There are millions of homeless felines that do not have that option.

If the American Bird Conservancy and "Cats Indoors!" campaign supporters were intellectually honest, they would attempt to address the problem of feline overpopulation in a meaningful way. Since they reject trap-neuter-return, here are some other ideas on how they could help:

-subsidize spay/neuter clinics

-fund research for feline oral contraceptives

-start a fleet of spay/neuter mobile units

-urge bird lovers to adopt shelter cats

-donate money to existing cat sanctuaries

-stop distributing false information and harmful propaganda

If avian advocacy groups are serious about addressing the issue of feline overpopulation in a humane way, they should prove it. They should stop wasting money on propaganda and divisive tactics and do something effective to solve the problem.

Perhaps Bryan Kortis, Executive Director of New York City's Neighborhood Cats, a group whose mission is "to make TNR a fully understood, accepted and practiced method in every community," said it best: "Ultimately the wildlife and TNR organizations want the same thing — fewer feral cats. The wildlife organizations have no realistic way to get there. We do."

Louise Holton
Alley Cat Rescue
Box 585, Mt. Rainier, MD 20712
301-277-5595
National Free Feral Cat Spay Day is on April 27th. Get your veterinarian involved in helping to save lives!
http://www.saveacat.org/programs.html
http://alleycatrescue.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18444404708&ref=ts

Can we win for the cats, and help save birds as well? Yes, we can!

I am convinced of this. Even among all the naysayers and the multi-million-dollar environmental groups that oppose our work, I still think we are on the right path! The cats need defenders, they deserve to live, and they deserve to have someone fight for them. We are their only voice. And by sterilizing stray and feral cats, we are (and for decades have been) saving cats’ lives through nonlethal control, reducing the numbers of outdoors cats in a scientific and humane way, thus helping birds and wildlife as well.

Are cats hunters? Are cats carnivores? Do cats kill birds and wildlife? Do we, the TNR people, care about this?

A resounding YES to all of the above.

Cats do hunt---but this is a complex issue. Not all cats hunt. And most cats catch rodents not birds. They are built to be rodent specialists.  And yes, TNR people who support the cats do care about birds and other wildlife. I love all creatures. I rescue and save earthworms from the pavement during rainstorms and I rescue and relocate spiders to places where they will be safe. I only kill mosquitoes, flies and fleas. Nothing else.

The real issue, as wildlife biologist Roger Tabor put it, is whether prey populations can sustain the predation.

On continents, prey species have survived predation for centuries. In fact “The State of the Birds Report 2009” states: “The urban/suburban indicator, based on data for 114 native bird species, shows a steady, strong increase during the past 40 years…”

FOLKS, THIS HAS TO BE HIGHLIGHTED:  IT IS A MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE CAT PREDATION AND BIRDS-IN-DECLINE ISSUE.

 The truth is that most feral cats live in urban and suburban areas, and yet urban birds continue to increase. The truth is that in feral cats have a propensity to scavenge from human trash, plus of course when humans see them scavenging, they put out cat food. Plus the cat is a rodent specialist and even when he has to hunt to fend for himself, small mammals are much easier for him to catch.

Now, having been shown clearly that bird populations in urban areas have been increasing each and every year for 40 years, and for years before that urban birds population numbers remained the same, do the evironmental groups ever point this out?

Let me see: They extrapolate and exaggerate the numbers of birds killed by cats, and they do not make anything of the fact that urban bird populations are increasing, even though most of the “millions” of feral and outdoor strays live in urban environments?

I am thinking that perhaps they have another agenda? An anti-cat bias?

This is sad not only for cats but for birds as well.

Recent research by David I. King of the USDA Forest Service Northeastern Research Station and John H. Rappole of the Smithsonian Conservation and Research Center points scientists in a different direction in the search for the cause of bird declines. While many scientists worry about loss of breeding habitat, the evidence gathered by King and Rappole indicates that the blame may rest more with destruction of the tropical habitat where the birds spend winters.

In Tropic Cascades: Predators, Prey, and the Changing Dynamics of Nature, editors John Terborgh and James A. Estes show how numerous studies have highlighted the perverse consequences that can result from  “nuisance control”: the unleashing of even worse nuisances (i.e.mesopredators). For example control of raccoons in Florida to protect sea turtle eggs paradoxically resulted in increased predation on the eggs because another predator, the ghost crab, was released from control by raccoons.

And a poisoning program recently on an island in Alaska's Aleutian chain, intended to save native birds from introduced rats, has caused the death of more than 420 birds, including 46 Bald Eagles.

The rodenticide brodifacoum was applied and caused the death of Gulls who ate the bait, and then Bald Eagles died from eating the Gull carcasses.

This is not an isolated case. This has been happening in islands for many years.

According to Australian environmentalist Frankie Seymour, lethal control of “alien” animals does not work. She says: “Reducing a population of mislocated animals is a complete waste of time (and money) unless you are prepared to keep on reducing it—killing and killing and killing, generation after generation after generation. The moment you turn your back for a year or a season, the population will return to full occupation of all available niches.

“Lethal competitor animal control methods are about temporary concealment of problems. They exist to provide farmers with an on-going excuse for rural mismanagement, and governments with an enemy they can blame instead of addressing the real causes of environmental and ecological degradation.”             

 How can we really help birds? 

1) Reduce your paper and wood consumption-- use cloth bags for shopping

2) Reduce your oil consumption --start a carpool--ride your bike-- take mass transportation.

3) Reduce your beef consumption--especially fast food & processed beef to save rainforests.

4) Hold businesses accountable-- for practices that are socially or environmentally destructive.

5) Support sustainable farming--support The ‘Fair Trade’ movement

6) Buy “Bird-Friendly” (Shade-Grown) coffee, bananas, and chocolate-- grown under the canopy of trees instead of clear cutting.

7) Plant a garden for Birds--blackberries and wild cherries--dogwoods, spicebush, conifers, bayberry, hawthorns, crabapples, sunflowers

8) Rescue and TNR all those stray and feral cats in your neighborhood. Get your neighborhood involved in a Spay/Neuter Marathon to get homeowners’ cats fixed.

Killing and shooting feral cats??

LINCOLN, Neb. -- A report that recommends killing feral cats as a way to control the animals, including a primer on how to shoot a cat, is stirring emotions among bird and cat lovers.
The University of Nebraska at Lincoln's study found that neutering or spaying is ineffective at eliminating feral cat colonies, though useful in reducing colonies' expansion.
One official from the American Bird Conservancy calls the report "a must read" for communities with a feral cat problem.
But critics note the wild cats help control rodent populations, and say habitat destruction, herbicides and other issues are a bigger threat to birds.
They also question the report's finding that feral cats' killing of birds costs the U.S. $17 billion, when accounting for how much bird watchers, hunters and others spend on the hobbies.

From Louise Holton, Alley Cat Rescue : Feral cat TNR DOES work

First go to Vox Felina's webpages and read about how these so-called "studies" on cat predation are all flawed and exaggerated. Secondly, TNR DOES work. I have TNR'd many colonies during the last 20 years that no longer exist today. The cats all died eventually---some at 12 to 15 years old. (so much for "feral cats live short, miserable lives".)
The thing is they (the anti-cat folks) look at a couple of colonies who still have cats in them 15 or so years later, and say TNR does not work. The truth of this is the U S is a CONTINENT and we have no laws or even ways of implementing any laws to force people to sterilize their housecats. Nor can our animal control agencies keep up with people abandoning cats, so colonies will have a constant influx of new animals. But in every colony on a college campus, or any of the colonies the anti-cat people cite, the numbers are down from around 1,000 to even 2,000 cats to 500 or less.
Thing is: THEY will not listen. THEY have made up their minds that feral cats are Invasive, alien, exotic pests (even though cats have been living in the U.S. for over 500 years in a feral state) and have taken over as Mesopredators as we killed all the larger predators such as wolves and cougars.
Every study shows that even if cats rely solely on hunting, rodents are their main prey. A small number of cats become "bird specialists" but for the main part, actually feral cats live in cities and urban areas, and their main source of food is HUMAN GARBAGE.
ALSO....Only on small islands have they been able to eliminate feral cats, and some islands took 16 years (Marion Island) to do this, and other islands (Macquarie) became a disaster zone after they eliminated feral cats. So how in the heck do they plan to wipe out millions of cats on a Continent? And what will happen to our cruelty laws? So you are then allowed to go out and shoot any cat at will? What about pet cats??
I could write a book on this topic, but don't want to go on too much. Let's finish with a warning from Dr. John Terborgh in his book "Tropic Cascades": Dr Terborgh warned that eradication of cats alone on islands could result in a release in the rat populations and intensify bird declines. Now imagine the rat populations exploding on continental USA?
Dr Lilith in Australia found that protecting and restoring the habitats of declining native wildlife may be MORE IMPORTANT than simply controlling where pets can go. She said there was a popular perception that cats were the main problem in conserving small mammals, but vegetation and ground cover density appear to be a more important issue.

New Zealand is using leg-hold traps to catch feral cats

New Zealand, in my opinion, use some horrific methods to "control" so-called nuisance and feral animals. The latest is the use of leg-hold traps. Even the "soft-jaw" traps are still cruel. Its an open trap and the cat gets caught by one leg and then thrashes around for hours trying to free himself. Sometimes they try to bite off their leg in trying to get free. How this is seen in any way to be "humane" is totally beyond me.

"Peacock, a little stunned by it all, says feral cats are a real problem, that they use soft-jawed leg-traps and it is all part of a transparent and legal process. Callers ring in with their feral animal marketing slogans. Peacock says Tas has stopped using 1080 poison on possums. He says all CRC's need to have a commercial aspect to their operation.

"This is an accurate account - I was a bit stunned. We do support leg-hold trapping of cats using soft-jaw traps (as part of a management program, which it obviously was in this case); we don't employ people to soothe animal welfare concerns (I sit on two government working groups on animal welfare and our CRC has a policy not to undertake research where the welfare outcome can be predicted to be worse than currently available methods); and we don't hide our commercial members of the CRC - they are all appear on our website."

Killing feral animals does NOT solve the problem. A far better method is to TNR the cats--trap, neuter,return the cats to stop the breeding. Trapping random cats in this fashion, then killing them, if they are not already dead from blood loss after this horrific trapping, is just a stop-gap, lazy, quick-fix. Other cats left behind are going to continue to breed and they will continue to have a "feral cat problem"

I will be adding some addresses to this site for those compassionate people who want to voice their opinions that this is archaic and barbaric.

More on NOT feeding feral and stray cats

Director of Montgomery County Resource Center Mark Kumpf said leaving food out for the stray cats on the street is a bad idea. "Animals are not particular as to the food they eat," he said. "You may think the food you set out is going to be consumed by the stray cat, while wildlife such as a raccoon could be consuming the same food."
Mark, the former President of the National Animal Control Association, seemed to be pleased some time ago when he announced that NACA would support some TNR for feral cats. Alley Cat Rescue members sent him a ton of mail to request that he ask animal control agencies to stop feeding bans as they do nothing to deter colonies of cats, and in fact are quite cruel and inhumane.
He never responded to our members, as far as I know.
Now how can you “support” TNR and then tell people NOT to feed? Feeding is the start of trying to control stray and feral cats. You feed first, then, when the cats are in a regular feeding pattern, you start trapping to bring them in for spay/neuter/shots and you remove the tame cats and find homes for them.
Perhaps someone can tell me if they don’t find the stance of Mark Kumpf to be a little of an oxymoron?
Am I using the word in a wrong context here? Perhaps I am, but I don’t know what else to say when someone says "Yes lets TNR the cats, but DON’T feed."
Here is what someone had to say about an oxymoron:
“An oxymoron (plural oxymora or, more commonly, oxymorons) (noun) is a figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms (e.g. "deafening silence") to make a point. Oxymoron is a Greek term derived from oxy ("sharp") and moros ("dull" or "dumb" ), which means the word is an oxymoron. Another, similar oxymoron is sophomore, meaning "wise fool".
I don’t think I need to say more. This says it all for me!

Cat Tales

I am starting to write a Weekly Blog for the first time! My name is Louise and I have been rescuing cats--stray and feral-- my whole life, although this past-time has escalated over the past 2 decades to becoming much of my life.

I am the co-founder of Alley Cat Allies and the Founder of Alley Cat Rescue. I work full-time for Alley Cat Rescue. We rescue stray, abandoned and owner-relinquished cats and provide them full medical care and find them new homes. ACR also promotes TNR-trap-neuter-return for feral cats. Providing feral cats with a better life is a mission for me, and we help people nationwide in the U.S. and internationally to find assistance for this compassionate work. Helping people who don't want the cat killed through our Cat Action Teams to give them the names of a low-cost vet clinic, where to find traps etc etc.

I have written many Fact Sheets on all aspects of helping feral cats and have also published an award-winning Feral Cat Hand Book, which I am in the process of updating.

ACR runs a weekly spay/neuter clinic for stray and feral cats at an animal clinic in the Brentwood/ Mount Rainer area of Maryland.

It has been a huge struggle to fight for feral cats. They are much-maligned and hated by many. Misinformation has been spread about cat predation, claims about bird predation are hugely exaggerated. Counties and towns want to hunt them and poison them. The so-called "experts" have done quite a job to the point where even otherwise sensible people start believing all the bad press.

They have become a scapegoat for the environmental movement ---blamed for the demise of wildlife and bird populations. I will be writing much more on this topic as I get going with this Blog!

For now this is my very first attempt. So I hope anyone who reads this will respond with their own stories and Cat Tales! I love all animals, so Cat Tales will not be the only topic discussed here.