CHAPTER SIX
The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith but by verification.
—Thomas Huxley
Where water meets land a unique fringe habitat emerges. Mudflats, marshes, and shorelines allow species of amphipods, copepods, worms, clams, and crabs to burrow, skitter, and spawn. More than 200 species of shorebirds have evolved different length legs and bills, uniquely adapted for removing these precious protein resources (either the organisms themselves or the eggs they leave behind) from different depths of mud and water. In the United States examples include the Long-billed Curlew, Marbled Godwit, Willet, Greater Yellowlegs, and Least Sandpiper. One family of shorebirds, known as the plovers, is represented by sixty-six species globally. While most shorebird species breed in the far northern reaches of the globe, often on subarctic and arctic tundra, a handful breed in coastal areas of temperate regions, including one species, the Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus; fig. 6.1).
In Roger Tory Peterson’s Field Guide to the Birds, the Piping Plover is distinguished from other plovers in the summer by its pale back (the color of dry sand) and its very short, stubby bill and orange legs (which are brightest in breeding season). Small (roughly the size of a sparrow) and muted in color, the Piping Plover is the kind of bird that might be overlooked by the casual observer or mistaken for a sandpiper or other small shorebird. In the summer it is found along the dunes, sand flats, and beaches of the Atlantic coast from the Canadian Maritimes to North Carolina. Populations are also found around the shores of the Great Lakes and along rivers, lakes, and wetlands of the northern Great Plains. In the winter birds from these different breeding populations congregate on beaches and barrier islands, preferring open sandy stretches or rocky shores away from the water, along the southern Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Florida, at a few places in the Caribbean, and along the Gulf Coast as far south as the Yucatán. Piping Plovers capture prey, including marine worms, insects, mollusks, and crustaceans, at the land-water fringe. They forage using a run-stop-scan technique, leaning forward and picking at surfaces when they spot their quarry. Plovers also employ a “foot-tremble” feeding method, causing prey to move and thus become more conspicuous. Their eponymous call—a plaintive, bell-like whistle—is often heard before the birds are visible.
Piping Plovers reproduce in the early spring immediately upon arriving on breeding grounds in the North. Most of the birds nest in coastal areas, laying three to four eggs in a shallow depression lined with pebbles and fragments of shells. Eggs hatch within thirty days, and young plovers can fly within thirty days of hatching. Though they blend in well with their surroundings, Piping Plover eggs and chicks are especially vulnerable to storms and abnormally high tides, as well as predators—foxes, Raccoons, crows, and cats, among them. When predators do appear, adults will frequently feign a “broken-wing” display to distract them away from the nest. Adult Piping Plovers are also sensitive to human presence. If their nesting sites are too frequently disturbed by beachgoers—be they four-wheelers, kite flyers, or picnickers—they will abandon their eggs. Plovers begin their southward migration in August and spend the remainder of the fall and most of the winter months on their nonbreeding grounds in the southern United States, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean before migrating north once again the following spring.
Development on coastal fringe habitats began to accelerate after World War II and has put Piping Plover populations in steep decline. Today biologists ‘estimate that there are roughly 8,000 adult birds remaining. The birds were listed as threatened and endangered on January 10, 1986, in accordance with the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973. The goal of such a listing is to protect the species to allow its populations to rebound to a healthy enough level that it can eventually be delisted. The Piping Plovers that nest in the Great Lakes area are classified as endangered (the most critical status), while the northern Great Plains and Atlantic coast birds are classified as threatened (or near-endangered). All the birds are treated as endangered during the winter nonbreeding season, since their breeding origins are not confidently known. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service identifies two primary reasons for the plover’s endangered status: habitat loss and degradation (due to coastal habitat development and changes in water levels due to dams and other water control structures) and nest disturbance and predation (from the presence of both humans and predators near nesting sites).
The United States defines endangered species as animals and plants that are in danger of going extinct, and threatened species as animals and plants that are likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future. Under the ESA, Congress took action to provide for “the conservation of ecosystems upon which threatened and endangered species of fish, wildlife and plants depend.”1 The act prohibits, among other activities, “takings” of listed species—interpreted to include actions to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.”2
Jim Stevenson did not have the language of the Endangered Species Act specifically in mind when he dropped a loaded .22 caliber rifle into his white Dodge van on the morning of November 8, 2006 (fig. 6.2). But he was hell-bent on preventing anymore “takes” of Piping Plovers perpetrated by a colony of feral cats living under the bridge at San Luis Pass, a channel that connects Galveston Island to Follets Island on the Gulf of Mexico southeast of Houston. Stevenson, a stocky man then in his mid-fifties, had been a high school science teacher before founding the Galveston Ornithological Society. He had been out to the pass the evening before to do some bird-watching. This region of the Gulf Coast is celebrated among birders for its abundance of shorebirds and for the hundreds of millions of Neotropical migratory birds that stop over here to refuel and rest in the early spring during their return to northern climes. That evening Stevenson had spied a small group of Piping Plovers in the dunes near the bridge—and a cat stalking the birds. The presence of the cat infuriated Stevenson, who knew the plovers were endangered and needed protection. Here was a free-ranging cat, an invasive species, left unmolested to make a mockery of the efforts to restore Piping Plover populations to what the ESA deems a “healthy and vital” state. When he reached the pass that morning, Stevenson could make out the cat that had been stalking the plovers the previous evening among some other cats under the bridge. He took aim with his .22, and soon the cat lay dead. Stevenson’s eco-vigilantism did not go unnoticed. John Newland, a tollbooth attendant on the road above, heard the shot and saw Stevenson’s van pulling away. Newland had been a caretaker of the cat colony, providing food and water for the animals on a regular basis. He had become attached to the cats. As irate about the shooting as Stevenson had been with the cat’s hunting, Newland quickly alerted the local police, and soon Stevenson was sitting in jail. He was accused of animal cruelty, an offense in the state of Texas that at the time carried a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a fine of $10,000. According to Section 42.09(2) of the Texas code, “Cruelty to Nonlivestock Animals,” a person commits an offense of cruelty if he or she “intentionally or knowingly”:
1.tortures an animal or in a cruel manner kills or causes serious bodily injury to an animal;
2.without the owner’s effective consent, kills, administers poison to, or causes serious bodily injury to an animal;
3.fails unreasonably to provide necessary food, water, care, or shelter for an animal in the person’s custody;
4.abandons unreasonably an animal in the person’s custody;
5.transports or confines an animal in a cruel manner;
6.without the owner’s effective consent, causes bodily injury to an animal;
7.causes one animal to fight with another animal, if either animal is not a dog;
8.uses a live animal as a lure in dog race training or in dog coursing on a racetrack; or
9.seriously overworks an animal.3
Stevenson was clearly holding the smoking gun, though it was possible the law was on his side.
Stevenson’s fate depended, at least in part, on how the state of Texas would define the legal status of the cats that Newland had been feeding. Were they pets? Or pests? This was no simple matter. The Animal Welfare Act (U.S. Code section 2131) provides for the humane care and treatment of pets. And many states have codified laws concerning animal cruelty, vaccination requirements, and penalties for abandonment of pets. Still, while most states have a number of regulations concerning dogs, there are very few “cat codes” on the books—including codes that indicate whether unowned free-ranging cats are pets or pests. As of this writing, cats are required to be licensed under state law only in Rhode Island; in several states, including Virginia and Louisiana, local governments have taken the initiative to create their own cat-licensing protocols.
Free-ranging cats occupy an ambiguous space on the legal continuum, not quite pet yet not quite pest. “A feral animal by legal definition is an animal who was domesticated but has escaped and lives in the wild without human support. They are not considered wildlife and therefore not within the control of state Fish and Game departments,” explained David Favre, the Nancy Heathcote Professor of Property and Animal Law at Michigan State College of Law.4 State or local governments may assert jurisdiction for purposes of adopting laws if they want to, but there is nothing to mandate that they act one way or the other. Legal confusion arises, according to Professor Favre, because different localities have adopted different public-policy approaches depending on the political pressures and information available as the decisions were made. “It is not the legal status that is causing the problem; it is that there is not political consensus about what to do,” Professor Favre added.
Two areas of federal law that could have come to bear on Jim Stevenson’s case are the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) of 1916 and the Endangered Species Act. According to the MBTA, any person (or entity, such as a corporation) convicted of violating the act can be fined up to $15,000, imprisoned up to six months, or face both penalties. Corporations have been held accountable for violating the MBTA in incidents ranging from the leaking of a company’s pesticide into a pond (where it posed a danger to birds) to the improper insulation of a utility’s power lines (resulting in the electrocution of birds). Pamela Jo Hatley, a land-use attorney in Florida, has raised the question of whether a person violates the MBTA when he or she releases a cat into the wild and that cat kills a migratory bird. If an entity can be held responsible for an accidental chemical leak that results in the death of a migratory bird, why can’t an individual be held responsible if the death of a migratory bird can be attributed to a cat or cat colony that can be traced to a negligent pet owner or an individual or organization that promotes colony care?
At the time of Stevenson’s arrest, the Endangered Species Act had already been successfully applied to prosecute such indirect “taking” of endangered birds in Hawaii, as Hatley points out, in the case of Palila v. Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources. The state was maintaining feral sheep and goats on public land for hunting purposes, and these animals—which, like cats, are incidentally invasive species—were eating a native tree species, Māmane (Sophora chrysophylla). These trees provide both food and shelter for the Palila (Loxioides bailleui), a species of Hawaiian honeycreeper whose distribution is now restricted to the upper slopes of the Mauna Kea volcano on the island of Hawaii. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the destruction of critical habitat upon which an endangered species depends harms the species. As the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources was responsible for the presence of the sheep and goats, it was held liable. Since the ruling, in order to rid the habitat of the invasive sheep, the state has made the sheep-hunting season on Mauna Kea year-round and has eliminated bag limits. Increased recreational hunting has been supplemented with aerial shooting conducted by the Department of Land and Natural Resources as well as with animal drives. Though the Palila have shown modest signs of recovery, many sheep remain. Three thousand animals were removed from the volcano in 2013 alone. Hatley notes that in Florida some local governments have adopted ordinances that authorize the maintenance of cat colonies. In this scenario, these municipalities could find themselves liable under the ESA should these colonies result in the take by feral cats of an endangered species. It is not much of a stretch to surmise that the caretaker of a colony of feral cats could be held responsible for the killing of endangered species conducted by his or her colony members. This was precisely the defense that Stevenson’s attorney—Tad Nelson—planned to deploy.
The colony of free-ranging cats seeking shelter under the bridge at San Luis Pass in Galveston (as of this writing at least three cats remain) is just one of tens of thousands of such outside-cat colonies. Myriad factors have led to the explosion in the number of free-ranging cats wandering America’s urban, suburban, and rural landscapes. Cat abandonment by irresponsible pet owners is a primary factor, and the growing contingent of “colony caretakers” and other individuals providing varying levels of feeding and care for cats is another. The latter group has helped extend the life span of outside felines. Another factor is the trend in animal-management circles such as humane societies and animal shelters toward “no-kill” policies. Not so long ago Jim Stevenson may not have felt compelled to visit San Luis Pass; an animal control officer may very well have been out there to remove and eventually euthanize the cats—saving the Piping Plovers from the fate of becoming cat prey. And few people would have batted an eye.
In 2005, at the spring meeting of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress in La Crosse, a small city in the southwestern corner of the state near its border with Iowa and Minnesota, a fireman named Mark Smith stepped to the lectern. Smith proposed to the meeting’s attendees that farmers, hunters, and other residents be allowed to kill stray domestic cats in order to control their population; at the time, all domestic cats were on the state’s protected species list. He was frustrated with the free-ranging cats that congregated around his backyard bird feeder, opportunistically waiting to prey on avian visitors. Smith claimed that he was not a cat hater, but simply wanted people to keep cats under control. The resolution passed fifty-three to one at the La Crosse hearing, meaning that it would be placed on the agenda for the 2005 Wisconsin Conservation Congress. The WCC is an independent organization created by the state to gather public input on conservation issues. Its recommendations are not binding but are passed along to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for its consideration.
This was not the first time the idea of declaring an “open season” on free-ranging cats had been put forth by a member of the public to the WCC. The previous effort, floated in 1999, was voted down by the congress before it could garner much attention. Employees of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (among other state agencies) almost certainly wished this had been the fate of what came to be known as Q62.
“Question 62–Feral Cats,” as the proposal was named, read as follows in the pamphlet available to the voting public:
Studies have been done in Wisconsin [a reference to Temple and Coleman; see chapter 2] concerning effects of free-ranging feral domestic cats. These studies showed free-ranging feral domestic cats killed millions of small mammals, song and game birds. Estimates range from a minimum of 47 million up to 139 million of songbirds killed each year. Free-ranging feral domestic cats are not a native species in Wisconsin. The above mentioned cats do however kill native species therefore reducing native species.
At present free-ranging feral domestic cats are not defined as a protected or unprotected species. Thus Wisconsin should move to define free-ranging feral domestic cats, as any domestic type cat which is not under the owner’s direct control, or whose owner has not placed a collar on such cat showing it to be their property. All such defined free-ranging feral domestic cats shall be listed as an unprotected species. In so doing Wisconsin would be defining and listing free-ranging feral domestic cats.
62. Do you favor the DNR take steps to define free-ranging feral domestic cats by the previously mentioned definition and list free-ranging domestic feral cats as an unprotected species?5
The WCC holds public meetings simultaneously in all seventy-two counties across the state on the second Monday in April to allow citizens to comment and provide their input on proposed fish and wildlife rule changes. That year’s meeting was slated for April 11. Outside-cat advocates began rallying support to oppose the resolution while the Badger State was still cloaked in deep midwinter cold. Ted O’Donnell, the owner of a Madison-area pet store called Mad Cat formed a group called the Wisconsin Cat-Action Team (Wisconsin CAT) and launched a website called DontShoottheCat.com on February 16. The media attention this grassroots effort attracted underscores the fervor the issue arouses, especially among cat advocates. A few days later a local alternative news outlet picked up the story, and from there it spread farther and farther afield, being picked up by Reuters, Associated Press, and Fox News. O’Donnell ultimately landed on ABC’s World News Tonight, the network’s flagship news program. After he is introduced, O’Donnell, sporting a “Don’t Shoot the Cat” T-shirt, declaims that hunters shooting cats will damage Wisconsin’s progressive reputation and tourism industry. During another interview, on CNN, O’Donnell questioned the validity of the Stanley Temple–John Coleman report on the impact of cat predation on Wisconsin’s wild birds (discussed in chapter 2), which had been cited by the state Department of Natural Resources in the write-up concerning the resolution. O’Donnell even suggested that its results had been skewed because of the “relationship between Temple and the American Bird Conservancy, which is probably the most rabidly anti-cat special interest lobby group in the United States.”6 For the record, American Bird Conservancy states that it is “dedicated to achieving conservation results for birds of the Americas.” The fireworks surrounding the discussion of Q62 are wonderfully documented in Here, Kitty Kitty, a film by Andy Beversdorf that uses the controversy spawned by Q62 to explore the larger question of what to do about free-ranging cats. In the film, a representative for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reports that she personally responded to 2,000 phone calls and 5,000 e-mails during the buildup to the April 11 vote. Both Mark Smith and Stanley Temple reported receiving death threats. (Temple’s study from a decade earlier stirred up the vitriol directed at him.) In the film, Temple plays back a chilling message from his office phone: A female voice snarls, “You cat-murdering bastard, what goes around comes around. I declare Stanley Temple season open.” He also reports that cars would cruise into his driveway in the middle of the night and that he showed up at his office some mornings to find threatening notes tacked on his door. People who knew Stan would say later that it was the only time they ever recalled seeing him visibly shaken. For the record: Stanley Temple has never killed or proposed killing a cat; he also had nothing to do with the emergence of Q62. Temple reported that the coauthor of the report, his graduate student John Coleman, was so disturbed by the many nasty and sometimes frightening threats from fanatics that he simply wanted nothing to do with cats after successfully defending his PhD.
At one point the film captures public comments at the April 11 Wisconsin Conservation Congress meeting in Madison. As more than one news outlet reported at the time, the fur did indeed fly in the packed room at the Alliant Energy Center. Some attendees wear kitty ears and whiskers; others are decked out in camouflage hunting gear. Moderators struggle to maintain order and civility as concerned citizens offer their input. One woman steps to the microphone and explains that she owns sixty-five feral cats and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their care over the years, as onlookers gasp in a mix of wonder and horror. A man states that some advocates for the new regulation have emphasized the fact that cats are not native to Wisconsin and points out that neither are white people—to great laughter. At the end of the tumultuous evening, votes were cast in Madison and in the other seventy-one counties around the state: 6,830 votes were cast in favor of Q62, 5,201 in opposition.
Although a majority of WCC attendees—57 percent—had favored a change in the Wisconsin regulations to allow for the hunting of “‘free-ranging’ domestic feral cats,” the notion proved a nonstarter. On May 17, 2005, the Wisconsin Conservation Congress announced that the measure would not be pursued any further. Despite the fact that WCC members had voted to present the measure to the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board, the executive committee declined to do so. To become law, the board would have needed to approve the measure for consideration by the Wisconsin legislature, which in turn would have had to pass the measure. Even after that, it would have become law only upon receiving the governor’s signature.
On a practical level, even if Q62 had become law, it would have likely had little impact on Wisconsin’s swelling free-ranging cat population. Cat hunting is currently legal in Minnesota and South Dakota to the west and has had little impact on the free-ranging feline populations there. “We don’t make much of a dent in mice, rats, pigeons, starlings, or sparrows,” Temple notes toward the end of the film, implying that listing a species as an unprotected animal (as those species are) is an ineffective way of controlling their numbers. And in rural areas it was already fairly common practice to accord unwanted free-ranging cats a sudden and violent end; “shoot, shovel, and shut up” was the mantra in such regions. There was little reason to think that the hubbub concerning Q62 would alter this behavior, though several cases concerning rural cat slayings did receive coverage in Wisconsin in the months thereafter, including that of Myrtle Maly, dubbed the “Septuagenarian Cat Killer.” Maly admitted to resorting to poison after her neighbor’s cats repeatedly entered her yard and attacked birds, and her calls to animal control yielded no assistance.
Ten years after the fact, what does Wisconsin’s Q62 imbroglio say about American attitudes toward cats and birds? Given the Wisconsin Conservation Congress Executive Committee’s unwillingness to pass on the WCC’s recommendation to the Natural Resources Board—despite a decided citizen majority of supporters—one can conclude that political bodies have little stomach for taking on the cat lobby. Indeed, then-governor Jim Doyle went on record before the meeting of April 11, 2005, to say that should a feral cat hunting bill reach his desk, he would refuse to sign it. Prominent conservation groups—notably the National Audubon Society—also seemed unwilling to take a strong position on the issue, most likely fearing alienation from a portion of their membership. Many bird lovers, after all, also keep cats.
“Nothing has changed at all in terms of policy,” Stan Temple said recently, when asked to reflect on Q62. “There’s been no response from federal agencies in terms of articulating a policy for dealing with free-ranging cats. The greatest lesson I took from Q62 was to not allow the media to take control of the message.”7 In most of the media stories, there was no countering of any of the claims that cat advocates shared concerning cat behavior and impacts. American authorities remain resistant (if not heartily opposed) to the idea of managing free-ranging cat populations by lethal means.
In Australia a very different ethos is guiding free-range cat management strategies, as government officials rally to save a host of endangered endemic species from extinction.
Domestic cats arrived on the Australian Continent with European visitors, perhaps as early as the seventeenth century (with shipwrecked Dutch sailors) and most certainly by the late eighteenth century when the English began their colonization efforts. (Australia, like Antarctica, does not have any native members of the cat family, Felidae.) By the mid-nineteenth century, feral cat colonies were well established throughout most of the continent, with the exception of wetland rain forests and some offshore islands. Additional cats were intentionally introduced on the continent in the late 1800s in hopes of reducing populations of nonnative rabbits, rats, and mice.
Cats, as has been noted, are highly effective predators, and in the course of several hundred years they have had a significant impact on Australia’s indigenous fauna and, ironically, no impact on its populations of nonnative rabbits, rats, and mice. In fact, a number of small mammals (the Australia Department of the Environment places the number at twenty-seven) and several species of ground-dwelling birds have gone extinct, thanks in large part to cat predation. Predation by foxes, another introduced species, has undoubtedly also contributed to the problem. “Many Australian mammals were easy prey for feral cats and foxes,” said Dr. John Woinarski, a professor at the Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods at Charles Darwin University, who has been involved in research, management, advocacy, and policy relating to biodiversity conservation, particularly in relation to threatened species. “Before their introduction, there were no comparable native predators. All the mammals that went extinct were small, shy, nocturnal creatures like the desert bandicoot, a small rodent-like animal that was distributed through central Australia’s arid regions. People didn’t really appreciate them, as they weren’t very aware of them. It didn’t help that these animals had low reproductive rates.”8
The connection between feral cats and these Aussie extinctions has been made most forcefully by Dr. John Wamsley, known in some circles as the “cat hat man.” Beginning in the early 1970s, Wamsley would show up at public events wearing a hat fashioned from the pelt of a feral cat and fronted by the animal’s face. He recalled in a 2005 interview that some animal liberationists had pointed out that it was illegal for him to do anything about the feral cats that were destroying wildlife on his land, and they would take action against him if he did so—so he had to change the law. His cat hat statement certainly attracted attention; in the same interview, he recalled, “I knew exactly what newspapers had reported it, by where the death threats were coming from.”9
“Wamsley is a bit of a crank in some ways, but he’s certainly charismatic,” Woinarski said. And Wamsley’s commitment, Woinarski acknowledged, has gone beyond controversial headgear. “He built some enclosures designed to keep cats and foxes out so native animals could live without these invasive predators. These experiments in creating a cat-free environment showed that the native animals could thrive without predators.” The cat hat man’s antics and experiments in predator-free environments certainly raised awareness of the impact cats had been having on Australia’s native fauna. An analysis undertaken by the Australia Department of the Environment of the factors that had led to the extinction of the twenty-seven endemic mammals implicated cats as one cause, further strengthening Australia’s resolve. “Once the report came out,” Woinarski explained, “parties concerned about the well-being of native species managed to convince the Federal Environment Minister that he should draw the line on the extinction of Australia’s endemic animals. The greatest opportunity was to campaign against feral cats.”
It took roughly twenty years for the notion of controlling feral cats by lethal humane means to become policy in Australia. Humane, in this context, implies “with minimal suffering.” Predation by feral cats was listed as a Key Threatening Process under Australia’s Federal Endangered Species Protection Act of 1992. This led to the creation of the Threat Abatement Plan [TAP] for Predation by Feral Cats in 1999 by Environment Australia and an updated plan in 2008, created by the Australia Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (as the Australian Department of the Environment was then known). “Although total mainland eradication may be the ideal goal of a cat TAP, it is not feasible with current resources and techniques,” the 2008 plan states. “Cat populations must instead be suppressed and managed to mitigate impacts in targeted areas where they pose the greatest threat to biodiversity.”10 Government documents concerning the reduction of cat predation emphasize that reducing cat populations is merited only as a means of protecting and abetting the recovery of native species; it is not killing for killing’s sake. The TAP also emphasizes the need for “effectiveness, target specificity, humaneness and integration of control options for feral cats,” and highlights the importance of “increasing awareness of all stakeholders of the objectives and actions of the TAP, and of the need to control and manage feral cats.” In addition to the TAP and other national initiatives to mitigate the impact of cats on wildlife, legislation has been introduced in many Australian states and territories to restrict the reproductive and predation potential of owned domestic cats. On a local level, many municipalities have introduced legislation that includes the banning of cats as pets in some communities, compulsory spaying or neutering, individual identification, and containment of pet cats.
In July 2015 the Australian government announced plans to cull up to 2 million feral cats by 2020 in a bid to provide a possible reprieve for the more than 100 species of mammals (including the Numbat and species of bilbies, bandicoots, and bettongs) and thirty-plus bird species (including the Spotted Quail-thrush, the Buff-banded Rail, and the Swift and Orange-bellied Parrots) that are threatened with extinction brought on, at least in part, by feral cats. Australian environment minister Greg Hunt declared that “We are drawing a line in the sand today which says, ‘On our watch, in our time, no more species extinction.’”11
A large part of the culling program will hang on the success of a bait dubbed Curiosity, a poison encased in a skinless sausage that was designed to appeal especially to felines. Adapted from an earlier iteration of cat bait called Eradicat, it combines kangaroo meat, chicken fat, and flavor enhancers with a dose of para-aminopropiophenone (PAPP). PAPP acts by converting hemoglobin in the animal’s blood to methemoglobin, which leads to death by inhibited breathing. Death by PAPP ingestion has been likened to falling into a sleep from which one does not wake up. Testing in select regions has shown that nontargeted species—that is, animals that are not feral cats—are not interested in the bait or will spit out the PAPP-containing capsule if they do attempt to eat it. (A method of PAPP delivery through oral grooming rather than bait is also being explored.) The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (the British version of the ASPCA) has indicated that cats that ingest PAPP die a humane death. Because feral cats in Australia are very widely dispersed in the most rural areas, where they pose the greatest danger to endemic birds and mammals, management techniques such as trapping or shooting, or constructing large-scale fences to protect wildlife from predation, are not feasible from either an economic or operational perspective. Instead, baits are dropped by plane in critical regions. (It should be noted that baiting is being conducted far from any human population centers, so owned cats who are let outside face little danger of exposure to Curiosity.) Eradication programs are also under way on Australian islands that have feral cat populations, including Christmas Island.
The Australian government has dedicated significant resources toward the eradication efforts—over $100 million in Australian dollars for the program’s first four years, starting in 2015. Researchers are also exploring the possibility of introducing viruses into feral cat populations. Some believe this method poses the best chance at widespread eradication.
Why do Australians tolerate the wholesale killing of feral cats? Is there a deep-rooted antagonism in the Aussie character toward felines or, at best, indifference? Not necessarily. “Domesticated cats are much-loved pets for many Australians,” said Australia’s Threatened Species Commissioner, Gregory Andrews, when asked about Aussie attitudes toward cats. “But there is growing community recognition that free-ranging feral cats have proven devastating to wildlife, especially our small mammals, lizards, frogs and ground-nesting birds. And Australians do value their unique native fauna, and they are important to Australia’s cultural identity.”12
Though a majority of Australians have been accepting of their government’s decision to begin feral cat eradication efforts, some outsiders have felt it necessary to voice their opposition. The French actress Brigitte Bardot has said, “This animal genocide is inhumane and ridiculous,” arguing that Australia should spay or neuter feral cats rather than kill them. The English pop singer Morrissey also chimed in, calling the Australian government “a committee of sheep farmers who have zero concerns about animal welfare or animal respect.”13 As with some examples we have shown earlier, these very vocal advocates seem to overlook the “genocide” of native animals perpetrated by introduced predators and display little “animal respect” for the Australian Continent’s 100-plus threatened species.
There is no doubt that Australians place value upon the native fauna being victimized by feral cats. Meanwhile, on the neighboring island nation of New Zealand, the five species of kiwis still in existence—birds that are revered as a national symbol—face possible extinction, brought on by a host of invasive predators, including stoats, ferrets, domestic dogs, and cats. The kiwis are not alone; a number of other native New Zealand birds face the fate of the Stephens Island Wren (see chapter 1) at the paws of cats and other invasive predators, including the New Zealand Kaka, the Weka, and kokako, mohua, and saddleback species. One New Zealander, an economist turned investor turned philanthropist/social activist named Gareth Morgan, is not happy with the situation—and he has the means and gumption to do something about it (fig. 6.3).
In January 2013 Morgan raised the ire of the cat lovers of New Zealand—a nation said to have more cat owners per capita than any other country—by launching a campaign called Cats to Go. On the surface there is nothing subtle about Morgan’s approach. The campaign website begins with the declaration “That little ball of fluff you own is a natural born killer,” and goes on to declare, “Every year cats in New Zealand destroy our native wildlife. The fact is that cats have to go if we really care about our environment.” Adorned with slightly eerie cartoon cats, the Cats to Go website highlights the damage that free-ranging cats have inflicted upon New Zealand wildlife; warns that all cats that are let outside are hunting, despite their seemingly gentle nature (“The fact is that your furry friend is actually a friendly neighborhood serial killer”); describes a pristine New Zealand without cats; and berates the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for condoning trap-neuter-return programs.14
The offices of the Morgan Foundation are on the second floor of an older brick building near the waterfront in Wellington, New Zealand, a pleasing city that recalls a smaller version of San Francisco, with steep hills sloping down to Lambton Harbour. There is an open floor plan, and several employees are fixed before large computer screens. Morgan is distinguished by a broad forehead, a sweeping red mustache that extends below his lip line, giving him a slightly dolorous expression, and a mildly mischievous manner. He explained that the genesis for Cats to Go was a project called Our Far South. “We basically took a cross section of New Zealanders from different walks of life, put them on a ship with some scientists, and headed south to the subantarctic islands to expose them to nature,” he said, between bites of a breakfast sandwich.15 Seeing the environment there, the logic went, would raise awareness of the ecological issues facing New Zealand’s islands and mainland. One of the new understandings Morgan and his fellow travelers came away with was the impact that introduced predators, particularly rats and mice, had on nesting bird populations on the islands. On some of these islands, steps were being taken to eradicate the rodents that fed on seabird eggs and chicks.
“This got us interested in trying to address some of the invasive predators on some of our own islands,” Morgan continued. “We decided to see if we could remove mice from the Antipodes, the only mammalian species on the islands.” This campaign, which was dubbed Million Dollar Mouse, sought to raise $1 million (in New Zealand dollars) toward the effort. New Zealanders donated NZ$250,000 toward the project, the World Wildlife Fund kicked in another NZ$100,000, and Morgan matched contributions dollar for dollar. This was enough to launch the project, and the New Zealand Department of Conservation committed to fund the remaining costs. The eradication process, which relies on poisoned bait, is slated to begin in earnest in the spring of 2016. The Million Dollar Mouse project came together pretty easily, so Morgan and his team began looking for a bigger island to tackle. “Stewart is New Zealand’s third-largest island, so we began looking at that,” Morgan said. “We learned that the invasive predators on the island were possums, rats, and cats. ‘Cats?’ I asked. ‘Are cats a predator anywhere else?’ I was told that they were, particularly in townships and cities.” And Cats to Go was born.
Morgan likes to joke that the Cats to Go initiative made him the most hated man in New Zealand. It certainly garnered attention to the issue of cat predation, and that was the intention all along. A cat on your lap at home is fine in Morgan’s opinion, but he would like to see free-ranging cats removed from the landscape. As in the United States, there is no sanction for free-ranging cats in New Zealand nor any official distinction between owned and unowned cats. Now that the issue of free-ranging cats has entered the public conversation, the Morgan Foundation is pushing for a mechanism that codifies the distinction. Under his pest management strategy, all owned cats would be registered and implanted with a microchip, and a budget would be established to employ a network of animal control officers to collect roaming cats. Captured animals would be checked for a microchip. Owners of cats with chips would be contacted and given several days to retrieve their animal; if they did not, the cat would be destroyed. Animals without a chip would be classified as pests and also be destroyed. The foundation’s goal is to lobby regional councils (which determine local policy) to get the program in place to show its viability and then push for national adoption. Management strategies are in place for other invasive predators, Morgan argues. Now it is time for cats.
“People say ‘There’s no wildlife in the cities, why should we bother?’” Morgan said, gesticulating with coffee cup in hand. “It’s not just the concrete that’s preventing birdlife from taking hold in the city, it’s the bloody cats!” To help illustrate this point, Morgan purchased a set of game cameras and installed them on his property in Wellington. Game cameras are triggered by the motion of a passing animal and are used both by hunters and biologists to monitor the presence of prey and other animals. The first night the cameras recorded nine separate cats crossing his grounds. Other cameras were purchased and placed in yards around Wellington, and the footage showed an astounding number of cat visitations; when extrapolated across the city and for the duration of the year, the number came to 49 million.
In the hills of Wellington, just ten minutes above downtown, rests a unique nature preserve called Zealandia. The nearly one-square-mile sanctuary provides a predator-free home for a host of New Zealand endemic life, including the lizard-like Tuatara, the Hihi (or Stitchbird), the North Island Saddleback, and the Little Spotted Kiwi. Zealandia’s success as a preserve is dependent on keeping out predators—including free-ranging cats. To that end, a very expensive fence was designed and built to exclude the roughly thirteen species of nonnative mammals found around the valley. The fence prototype was tested to repel a range of animal capabilities, including jumping, climbing, digging, and the ability to squeeze through tiny spaces; the selected design included three components—a curved top, a wire-mesh wall, and an underground skirt. Completed in 1999, the fence is more than five miles long and completely encloses the Karori Reservoir valley. Its price tag (excluding design) was NZ$2.4 million. Annual costs of maintaining Zealandia eclipse NZ$2 million.
“To me, Zealandia is the most expensive cat-food factory in the world,” Morgan said, throwing up his arms. “The birds fly over the fence and BOOM!—a cat gets them. I’m constantly asking why we’re wasting money on a bird sanctuary if we’re not going to take care of the cat problem. I’m trying to get people to think about where their tax dollars are going. People always say to me, ‘My cat’s good, he/she doesn’t kill anything.’ If it’s wandering around, it’s killing things. I had this exchange with the prime minister [John Key], who said his cat, Moonbeam, would never hurt a bird. I said, ‘Why not perform an autopsy on Moonbeam. If there aren’t any feathers, I’ll buy you a new one.’”
If current trends are not reversed, it is expected that at least one of New Zealand’s five kiwi species will go extinct within the next fifty years.
The fates of the kiwis, the Orange-bellied Parrot, and the Piping Plover depend at least in part on whether or not invasive predator species—among them, free-ranging cats—can be suppressed. Beyond the legal, political, and logistical questions such suppression begs, there is a tremendous ethical/philosophical question: Does the fate of a species trump that of the individual? And on another level, does the fate of an individual animal trump that of an ecosystem?
As our world seems to shrink and more and more animals are showing up in places beyond their original range, incidents of culling one animal to save another are becoming increasingly common. In the Pacific Northwest, populations of Pacific salmon and steelhead have been in steep decline, and a number of subspecies are listed as endangered. The Columbia River, which separates Oregon and Washington and is one of the main thoroughfares for these fish as they head back to their natal waters to spawn, has become a battleground. At the river’s mouth the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to eliminate up to 26,000 Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus), which prey on juvenile salmonids as they leave the Columbia for the Pacific; 11,000 birds are to be shot, and 15,000 unborn chicks terminated by egg oiling. One hundred and fifty miles upriver, adult Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) waiting to negotiate the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam face a different predator, California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus). After cracker shells (loud like firecrackers but not injurious) and other nonlethal deterrents failed to dissuade the sea lions from killing the salmon, wildlife agencies in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho received federal authorization to euthanize problem animals. To date, nearly 100 sea lions have been killed. In each of these cases, native species are being killed in an attempt to save other native species.
For bird lovers, perhaps the most vexing drama involving the killing of one creature in hopes of sustaining another is also unfolding in the Pacific Northwest. In the old-growth forests of northern California, Oregon, and Washington, Barred Owls (Strix varia) have been displacing (and in many cases killing) the threatened Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina). Even individuals uninterested in environmental news will likely recall the Spotted Owl controversy of the early 1990s, when logging was curtailed in large swaths of forestland to preserve habitat for the critically endangered bird—a rather diminutive creature, as owls go, and seldom witnessed in the wild. The curtailment led to venomous and at times violent standoffs between loggers, environmentalists, and the officials charged with upholding the cutting bans. Passing through small towns along Highway 101 from Eureka, California, to Forks, Washington, one would come upon restaurant signs reading “Spotted Owl Served Here” and bumper stickers bearing the legend “I Like Spotted Owl … Fried.”
Barred Owls historically made their home in the eastern United States but by 1949 had begun appearing in northern British Columbia. They slowly made their way south, arriving in Washington by the late 1960s, Oregon in the late 1970s and California by the mid-1980s. Barred Owls seek the same habitat as Northern Spotted Owls and, being the larger and more aggressive of the two species—and having a more catholic diet and requiring less territory to survive—have a competitive advantage. Where Barred Owls have colonized, Northern Spotted Owl populations have plummeted.
In an effort to stem the impact of Barred Owls on Spotted Owl habitat, federal officials have green-lighted an experiment to hire marksmen to reduce Barred Owl populations in four limited regions. The marksmen have been authorized to kill as many as 3,600 Barred Owls in the selected regions. One of the designated marksmen, a retired wildlife biologist named Lowell Diller, expressed the profound ambivalence he felt about shooting a bird he would normally revere in a conversation with National Geographic. “When I went out to do it the first time, I was shaking, I had to steady myself,” he recalled. “I wasn’t sure I could actually do it. It was so wrong to be shooting a beautiful raptor like this. It continues to be awkward to this day.”16 As of this writing, Diller has shot approximately 100 Barred Owls. Bob Sallinger, the conservation director of the Audubon Society of Portland, summed up the dilemma of exterminating one owl to save another succinctly: “On the one hand, killing thousands of owls is completely unacceptable. On the other hand, the extinction of the Spotted Owl is completely unacceptable.”17
A number of ethicists have grappled with the issue of sacrificing one animal for the chance of another to survive. Dr. Bill Lynn (a research scientist in the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts; Senior Fellow for Ethics and Public Policy at the Center for Urban Resilience at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and former director of the Masters in Animals and Public Policy [MAPP] program at Tufts University near Boston) was retained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to review the Barred Owl culling initiative. He concluded that much of the responsibility for the decline of the Northern Spotted Owl lay at the hands of humankind, in the form of overly aggressive logging; in more intact old-growth forest, he reasoned, there might be a different competitive dynamic between the two species. Given that humans helped create the problem, Lynn believes it is humans’ role to make up for the harm that has been caused to the Northern Spotted Owl, a subspecies nearing the brink of extinction—even if that means killing members of another species. He has referred to the culling as “a sad good.”18
Another school of thought posits that the conventional approach to conservation—the attempt to maintain or promote conditions that enable native species to survive—risks ignoring the lives and experiences of wildlife. This line of thinking, dubbed “compassionate conservation,” draws on research that documents animals’ cognitive and emotional states—that crustaceans can learn to avoid pain, for example, and that bees are capable of pessimism.
The leading voice of compassionate conservation is Marc Bekoff, a former professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and cofounder, with Jane Goodall, of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. As we learn more about how animals think and feel, Bekoff’s logic goes, the less we can ignore any suffering that we inflict upon them. “The life of each and every individual animal is valued,” Bekoff has written.19 And given this guiding principle, Bekoff believes that killing off members of one species to save another is unacceptable.
Back in Texas, the furor over Jim Stevenson’s culling of the cat under the bridge at San Luis Pass sparked a debate focused specifically on the ethics of killing free-ranging cats in order to preserve an endangered species. J. Baird Callicott, University Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Texas and co-editor in chief of the Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, saw the duality of the situation. Speaking to the New York Times Magazine, Dr. Callicott said, “From an animal-welfare perspective, confining cats and shooting the cat, in the Galveston example, is wrong. From an environmental-ethics perspective it’s right, because a whole species is at stake. Personally, I think environmental ethics should trump animal-welfare ethics. But just as personally, animal-welfare ethicists think the opposite.”20 Holmes Rolston III, University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University and author of A New Environmental Ethics: The Next Millennium for Life on Earth, shares Dr. Callicott’s opinion but is less sanguine. “You’re trading a feral cat, an exotic animal that doesn’t belong naturally on the landscape, against piping plovers, which evolved as natural fits in that environment. And it trades an endangered species, piping plovers, against cats, which as a species are in no danger whatsoever. Suffering—the pain of the cat versus the pain of the plover eaten by the cat—is irrelevant in this case.”21
Jim Stevenson spent more than a year awaiting the trial that could have cost him $10,000 and two years of his life. He continued observing birds around Galveston. The trial was held the week of November 12, 2007, at the Galveston County Court House before district judge Frank Carmona. Paige L. Santell, then Galveston County assistant district attorney, said that Stevenson shot the cat in cold blood and that the cat died a slow and painful death, “gurgling on its own blood.” She attempted to make the case that John Newland, the bridge attendant, had cared for the cat, providing food, bedding, and toys. He had even given the animal a name, Mama Cat. Stevenson’s defense counsel Tad Nelson countered that buying some food and toys for a cat does not make you the owner if you have not taken other steps such as having the animal spayed or neutered or purchasing a collar and tags. Newland’s actions suggested a love for cats, not ownership. In the course of arguments, pictures of the crime scene were shared with the jury of eight women and four men. Stevenson’s .22-caliber rifle and a magazine of hollow-point bullets were also on display. During a break in proceedings, Stevenson told a reporter that cat fanciers who have condemned him and sent him hateful correspondence, “think birds are nothing but sticks. I did what I had to do.”22
The trial lasted three days, and jurors deliberated the case for eight and a half hours over two days. In the end, the foreman informed Judge Carmona that they were deadlocked, and on November 16 the judge declared a mistrial. Shortly after, Galveston County District Attorney Kurk Sistrunk announced that Stevenson would not be retried. After the decision was announced, Stevenson was hopeful. “I think it’s a real positive step from the DA’s office because it shows they are making some progress in bringing bird and cat lovers together and will save a lot of money,” he told reporters.23
Whether bird and cat lovers were brought together by the decision—or lack of a decision—is debatable. A posting on Cat Defender—a popular blog among free-ranging cat advocates—did not exactly strike a conciliatory tone:
Bird lovers all over the world are still whooping it up following serial cat killer James M. Stevenson’s great victory last Friday afternoon in a Galveston courtroom. Even the usually dour cat-hating monster found it difficult to contain his elation as he strutted out of court all the while laughing up his blood-soaked sleeve at the travesty of the American judicial system.
After deliberating a scant eight and one-half hours over two days, a panel comprised of eight women and four men told Judge Frank T. Carmona that they were hopelessly deadlocked and he then declared a mistrial. Although the sadistic killer needed only one bird lover or ailurophobe to vote in his favor in order to produce a hung jury, in this instance he got four.24
The furor stirred up by State of Texas v. Stevenson had at least one result. On September 1, 2007, the Texas legislature altered the statute concerning animal cruelty to eliminate the ownership requirement for prohibiting the killing of a domestic animal. “Feral” cats were specifically protected in the new statute.
Had Jim Stevenson shot Mama Cat on September 2, 2007, he would almost certainly have been found guilty. Much to Stevenson’s chagrin, in March 2015 the Galveston City Council voted six to one to approve a proposed trap-neuter-return ordinance that would no doubt legitimize the presence of many more Mama Cats on the dunes along Galveston Bay.