CHAPTER 2
INTRODUCTION
The “cat wars” are fought on diverse and scattered battlegrounds, from specific neighborhoods to the national stage. In this chapter, we discuss these different sites and also the varied parties to the conflict, primarily humans, cats, and birds. Our aim is to provide an overview of the content, tone, and sources of public debates about outdoor cats’ ecological impact and what, if anything, humans ought to do about it. We begin with an analysis of the recent book Cat Wars and its reception. This is a helpful starting place both because of the attention the book has received and because it represents a common way of framing the issue. Later in the chapter, we turn to different stages on which the cat debates are held, including community-level discussions about management plans and TNR programs as well as policies, scientific research, and other fora.
While different voices and values appear in various settings, we will see that common themes are repeated throughout. We will also see that even apparently theoretical discussions (e.g., about the value of domesticated cats and native wild birds) carry practical implications. Both reflect and influence popular opinion and policy decisions (by wildlife and animal welfare agencies as well as local governments) regarding the management of cats. By the end of this chapter, we will have set out the terms of the debate, the parties involved and their core perceptions, and the various management strategies and policies applied. This background sets the stage for our more detailed discussions of the scientific, ethical, and social dimensions of the cat debates, which are the topic of chapters 3, 4, and 5.
“CAT WARS”
The common characterization of the outdoor cat issue as a division between bird- and cat-lovers greatly oversimplifies a complex issue. It also excludes a large number of individuals and groups who do not fall neatly into either camp. However, this shorthand is useful because it points to some key aspects of the public debate about outdoor cats. Most important, it underlines the fact that the conflict is between different perceptions of what is at stake: the lives of birds or of cats. The usual framing of this issue suggests that ultimately, we must choose between the animals who matter and the animals who are disposable.
We believe that the options are not usually as stark as this suggests. However, hard choices are sometimes required and often something must give. In order to minimize the suffering of both birds and cats, and also to satisfy various human communities, it is important to understand the variety of positions and the nuances within them, to listen to middle voices, to seek common ground and shared values, and to pursue policy alternatives that do not permanently favor one side or the other. First, however, we examine the debate itself, in order to understand more fully why outdoor cats have become such a controversial, and revealing, issue.
Ted Williams vs. the “Kat Krazies”
Before we turn to Cat Wars, we can set the stage by looking at an earlier controversy, this one regarding an opinion piece that Ted Williams published in the Orlando Sentinel in March 2013. Williams was well known as a columnist for Audubon, the magazine of the National Audubon Society (NAS). The NAS, founded in 1905, is one of the oldest, largest, and best-known conservation organizations in the United States. Its focus is on conserving birds and their habitats. Although the NAS has not taken an official position on TNR, Audubon members and local groups often appear in controversies regarding outdoor cats. A prime example was Williams’s Sentinel column and its reception, which provide a microcosm of the larger debates about the ecological impact of outdoor cats. The conflict over Williams’s editorial “pitted cat lovers against bird lovers,” as the Minneapolis Star Tribune put it. “It also underscored the raw emotions in a long-simmering debate over what should be done with an estimated 30 million to 80 million feral cats nationwide and the unknown percentage of the 80 million pet cats allowed to roam outside, where they can prey on wildlife” (Smith, 2013, para. 2). This passage offers a common view of the conflict as being between two distinct groups (cat-lovers and bird-lovers), and also points to both the relevance of and the confusion over scientific research for both sides. Right from the start, then, the Williams controversy gets to the heart of the great cat debate.
In his editorial, Williams provided a concise summary of the arguments against TNR (and outdoor cats in general) made by bird advocates and conservationists. He gave a tripartite summary of the case against TNR: it is “dangerous, cruel, and illegal.” It is dangerous because “feral cats are reservoirs for disease.” This claim hints at public health concerns, but Williams give these relatively little attention—and while there is some evidence that outdoor cats can pass diseases onto marine wildlife, there is more limited evidence that they pose a threat to humans or other pets. His second point is that TNR is cruel, because feral cats suffer from disease and injury.
This is the animal welfare argument, which again he does not discuss in detail, likely because it is hard to document the quality of life of individual outdoor cats and because the only alternative usually seems to be killing the cats. The welfare argument, even in Williams’s brief mention, however, does raise larger questions about if and when humans ought to decide that a particular animal’s life is worth living, an issue to which we return later in this chapter.
Williams’s third point is by far the most frequently described by him and most other opponents of TNR: it is illegal, because “feral cats kill migratory birds and endangered species” (Williams, 2013). Williams’s point is that by enabling outdoor cat populations to remain in place, TNR encourages cat predation of songbirds and other native species. There is not, in fact, a law prohibiting cats from killing native wild animals. However, there are two federal wildlife laws that could broadly apply to bird deaths caused by cats. The first is the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) that makes it unlawful to “take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture, or kill … any migratory bird, … nest, or egg of any such bird” (Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, para. 1). In response to challenges to the MBTA, courts have found that the intent of the law was to “make the unlawful killing of even one bird an offense” (Hatley & Ankersen, 2003, p. 19)—regardless of the cause of the death: intentional or unintentional, direct or indirect. Moreover, the MBTA applies to individuals, associations, corporations, or partnerships. If a court chooses to apply strict liability under the MBTA, and if the death of a migratory bird could be tied to a cat owner, colony manager, or TNR organization who understood that cats kill birds, it is feasible that these individuals or organizations could be convicted of violating this law. The second federal law that protects birds is the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This act prohibits any person from “taking” or “harming” threatened or endangered wild species. Thus, if endangered or threatened birds were killed or wounded by cats, the owner, colony manager, or TNR organization responsible for allowing the cat outdoors could find itself charged with violating the ESA.
What is particularly important about Williams’s article, and the point that got the most attention, is that in a later section of this column, Williams proposes that bird advocates poison cats using Tylenol (acetaminophen; see Allen, 2003, for details about the effect of acetaminophen on cats). Williams’s proposals, and the heated response from outdoor cat advocates, underline the conflict between different views and valuations of nonhuman animals and nature, which we believe are at the heart of the cat debates. On one side, “bird advocates” value all wild, native birds and view cats as invasive or “pest” animals who pose a profound threat to wild nature. On the other side are people who value every single cat, owned and unowned alike, and view most birds as plentiful and as natural sources of food for cats, who are predators with a legitimate place in nature. Williams’s suggestion that cats should be killed to protect birds further illustrates the divergent perceptions of what is at stake: the lives of birds or of cats.
The claim that outdoor cats are invasive species or pests that devastate native wildlife lies at the heart of the case against TNR made by Williams and most other conservationists. It is a familiar argument to readers of Williams’s Audubon column, and his 2013 piece in the Orlando Sentinel did not mark a shift in his basic position. However, the op-ed ignited a much larger controversy than his previous anti-TNR statements, for several reasons. One was the fact that the Sentinel is a general newspaper, without the self-selecting audience of Audubon magazine, whose readers are predisposed to favor birds. Another important factor was a changing political landscape, in which “community cat” advocates have increasing clout, and TNR is accepted by a large number of animal welfare professionals and local governments. Finally, in the Sentinel piece, Williams moved from vague calls for “lethal control” or “euthanasia,” to a more specific proposal to use Tylenol (acetaminophen) as a “cat-specific” poison.1
For all these reasons, Williams’s editorial created an immediate and heated stir. On their website, Becky Robinson, president and cofounder of Alley Cat Allies wrote that “Killing a cat is a criminal offense in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Ted Williams used a major media platform to call for cats to be illegally and torturously killed. Williams and others calling for the mass killing of cats have moved beyond distorting science and statistics” (Alley Cat Allies, 2013, para. 4). Robinson called for “the immediate dismissal of Ted Williams, editor-at-large for Audubon magazine, in response to his op-ed in the March 14 Orlando Sentinel recommending that feral cats should be poisoned with Tylenol” (2013, para. 1). Robinson used the incident to make a more sweeping critique of TNR opponents: “The extremist policy promoted by Audubon Society representatives like results would only result in the mass killing of tens of millions of cats every year” (2013, para. 5).
Eventually, Audubon’s president, David Yarnold, felt compelled to dissociate the organization from Williams’s piece. Yarnold asserted that “We absolutely reject the notion of individuals poisoning cats or treating cats in any inhumane way” and “suspended” Williams’s column while reviewing the case (Yarnold, 2013, para. 2). Williams was soon reinstated (Haugney, 2013), but even his short suspension prompted his defenders to come out swinging. The advocacy group 10,0000 Birds claimed that the Audubon Society had “cav[ed] to the cat crazies” (10,000 birds, n.d.). Even the Huffington Post got into the tussle, with an article titled “Feral Kat Krazies Eat Audubon Star Reporter Ted Williams” (Petersen, 2013). A frequent question after Williams was suspended was “Has anyone seen Audubon’s spine?” The question—like some of Williams’s own arguments—suggests that cat advocates are so well-funded, well-organized, and influential that environmentalists and bird advocates are afraid of the political (and financial) consequences of defying them.2
There does not seem to be much room for conversation, let alone compromise, between groups who describe each other as “crazy” and “perverted.” One of our goals in this book is to explore the possibilities, buried beneath the anger and drama, of greater mutual understanding and, if not perfect agreement, at least some common values and collaboration on specific goals and policies. Williams’s editorial and the responses to it underline both the reasons that the debate is so difficult and, more surprisingly, a potential path toward achieving common ground. This possibility lies, we believe, in analyzing the assumptions, perspectives, and concerns of the different sides in order to understand what is at stake for each. The conflict over Williams’s article points to several themes that we use to make better sense of the cat debate, including the bigger controversies surrounding the publication of Cat Wars in 2016. These themes concern language, science, values, and practical responses.
LANGUAGE AND FRAMING: US AGAINST THEM
Our first theme concerns the framing of the problem—particularly the dualistic and often virulent language used by both sides. This is widespread in contemporary moral and political debates. Issues are commonly framed as a choice between two clear-cut and mutually exclusive positions, such as, for example, killing cats or killing birds. This approach can result both from the intensity of commitment of those already involved in the debate and their desire to claim the moral high ground by making it appear that the other side has no legitimacy. Articles in popular media also can contribute to the perception that there are two heated sides of a debate by highlighting conflict in the ways they frame the issue and by selecting quotes that use incendiary rhetoric. This black-and-white approach makes constructive conversation and mutual understanding appear impossible from the very beginning.
The debate about outdoor cats cannot and should not be reduced to one right side and one wrong side. There are, in fact, a variety of “in-between” positions as well as ambivalence, even in the stances of those on one side or the other. However, as the conflict between Williams’s supporters and his critics reveals, ambivalence and ambiguity rarely are reflected in public debates. Instead, both sides characterize the other as “extremist” (if not “crazy” and “perverted”) and insist on an all-or-nothing solution. In the case of Williams, TNR advocates demanded that Audubon fire him, while TNR opponents were equally single-minded. The prominent birding blog 10,000 Birds, for example, condemned Audubon for distancing itself from Williams and concluded: “Ted Williams is one of the few reasons I read Audubon Magazine. I see very little reason to continue doing so if his writing no longer appears there” (10,000 birds, n.d., para. 6).
The response of another TNR opponent, Outdoor News columnist Rob Drieslein, was even more revealing. When Audubon reinstated Williams’s Incite column, Drieslein wrote: “Would I have rather had a full mea culpa from Audubon? Sure, but bottom line, Ted Williams is writing for Audubon again. I can’t imagine the feral cat people are happy about this, and that’s good enough for me” (Drieslein, 2013, para. 5). For Drieslein, making “the feral cat people” unhappy is a goal in and of itself. Such confrontational approaches reflect the dominant views of both sides, neither of which see the other as having any moral or scientific legitimacy. The problem is that this sort of “winner takes all” attitude inhibits constructive conversation and mutual understanding.
In addition to the fact that polarized language makes constructive conversations difficult, “us vs. them” approaches do not begin to capture the diversity of views within both environmental and animal welfare groups. First, not all animal advocates support TNR. Notably, TNR is opposed by the largest animal rights group in the United States: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). PETA’s leaders object to TNR not on ecological grounds, but because they believe that outdoor cats live short and difficult lives. The organization explains its position thus:
Sadly, our experience with trap, spay-and-neuter, and release programs and “managed” feral cat colonies has led us to question whether or not these programs are truly in the cats’ best interests. We receive countless reports of incidents in which cats—“managed” or not—suffer and die horrible deaths because they must fend for themselves outdoors. Having witnessed firsthand the gruesome things that can happen to feral cats, we cannot in good conscience advocate trapping and releasing as a humane way to deal with overpopulation. (PETA n.d.-a, para. 1)
When pressed for an alternative solution, however, PETA is less than clear. The group’s website explains that “PETA’s position has never been that all feral cats should be euthanized” (PETA n.d.-a, para. 4). This obviously leaves much room for interpretation, and the lack of clarity may reflect an effort to avoid alienating potential supporters. PETA’s approach may thus represent an effort to have it both ways, or put more positively, a “big tent” model that can encompass both bird-lovers and cat-lovers. In practice, PETA has appeared to support some TNR programs when conditions are right and the colonies are carefully monitored, while other times it advocates humane killing of trapped feral cats.
Similarly, within environmental groups and among environmentalists, the support for TNR is not as unequivocal or universal as oversimplified “cat vs. bird” descriptions imply. For example, a 2010 article in Ecology and Society offered a divided approach, presenting a model suggesting TNR for smaller colonies and “trap-euthanize” for colonies of over 50 cats (Loyd & DeVore, 2010).
A practical example of communities trying to find the middle ground is the collaboration between cat and bird advocates in Canada, where Nature Canada’s new program, Keep Cats Safe and Save Bird Lives, involves diverse stakeholders in “one unified campaign that aims to educate the public and transform assumptions about how to approach cat and bird protection” (Cartwright & Fast, 2016, para. 8). According to Barbara Cartwright, the CEO of Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, and Eleanor Fast, the executive director of Nature Canada, this effort made sense because collaboration and kindness are “the Canadian way.”
To date, the program has nearly 30 local, regional, and national partners, including everything from humane societies, bird observatories, and wildlife rescues to kids’ nature organizations, cat population task forces, and homeless cat charities. According to Sarah Cooper, the coalition’s project manager, while the bird and wildlife groups were easier to recruit, building trust with the cat care community was more difficult—and absolutely crucial to getting them on board with the coalition.3
Among the top barriers to the cats and birds coalition is the classic “us vs. them” approach and the highly polarized rhetoric in the United States. Extreme views on both the bird and cat sides of things create difficulty in reaching a point of collaboration, particularly when mixed with the intense feelings that often accompany these views. Initially, bringing people together and attempting to have discussion proved very challenging due to these heightened emotions. However, focusing on their common ground rather than their differences eventually moved individuals and organizations along on the path of collaboration. “By the end,” Cooper explained, “we agreed not to argue about whether cats kill birds, or how many they kill, and we agreed that cats are not the villains in this drama, but rather it is cat owners’ behavior that we seek to change.”4 Cooper emphasized that one sector cannot make decisions for another, which is why opening lines of communication is so vital. Despite initial and ongoing barriers to the coalition, it has grown significantly and made great strides in bringing nature/bird groups together with the cat-care community.
Such nuanced approaches, taking into account local, ecological, and social conditions and the welfare of birds, cats, and humans, represent uncommon bright spots in an often tendentious conversation. Polarized accounts miss these possible compromises, just as they miss the common ground shared by both sides—including both a deep love for animals and a conviction that science supports their positions.
SCIENCE: UNCERTAINTY AND POLITICS
Our next major theme concerns the public role of science, and especially the problem of uncertainty—by which we mean the fact that sometimes scientific evidence on an important issue does not lead to any unambiguous, clear-cut management strategy. This problem emerges in many issues, but it is especially notable and relevant in the controversies about outdoor cats and what to do with them.
The 2010 Ecology and Society article mentioned previously justifies its moderate approach on the basis of scientific research that demonstrates different impacts of feral cat predation and different results of TNR programs, depending on the ecological and social circumstances. The role of science leads to the next theme that organizes our arguments here: significant disagreements about what scientific research concludes, first and foremost about the numbers of songbirds and other native wild animals killed by outdoor cats, but also about the total numbers of outdoor cats in the United States, the effectiveness of TNR programs, and several other questions. One reason the two sides are unable (or unwilling) to find common ground is because they diverge so sharply on their interpretation of scientific evidence. Bird and cat advocates have very different understandings of what science tells us about cats’ impact on birds, cat-related bird mortality, how other predator or threats influence birds, outdoor cat health, TNR effectiveness, and more. From this perspective, the issue is not so much whether cats should kill large numbers of birds—almost everyone agrees that they should not—but rather about whether or not they actually cause population-level destruction. In sum, different parties disagree about the accuracy of scientific research and the appropriateness of particular studies and methods.
TNR opponents consistently portray outdoor cats as a significant threat to native wildlife, especially songbirds, but also to some endangered species of mammals and reptiles. This perspective also shapes an influential article that appeared in 2013, a few years before Cat Wars was published, by some of the same authors. Writing in the journal Natural Communications, Scott R. Loss, Tom Will, and Peter P. Marra offered what they described as an exhaustive review of the scientific research on cat predation. Their conclusions summarized the ecological case against outdoor cats: “We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.4–3.7 billion birds and 6.9–20.7 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for U.S. birds and mammals” (Loss, Will, & Marra, 2013, p. 1). If cats are indeed the greatest single human-caused threat to native wildlife, surpassing even habitat destruction and climate change, then it is not unreasonable to call for more energetic efforts to reduce wildlife mortality by reducing outdoor cat populations.
Outdoor cat advocates argue that this is precisely what TNR programs achieve, but the authors of this article—and most critics of TNR—assert that in fact scientific evidence has not confirmed that such programs substantially reduce cat populations. The article by Loss, Will, and Marra asserts that “Projects to manage free-ranging cats, such as Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) colonies, are potentially harmful to wildlife populations, but are implemented across the United States without widespread public knowledge, consideration of scientific evidence or the environmental review processes typically required for actions with harmful environmental consequences” (2013, p. 1). The authors of the review paper do not explicitly advocate lethal control of outdoor cats, but rather assert that “Structured decisions about actions to reduce wildlife mortality require a quantitative evidence base” (Loss et al., 2013, p. 5). They suggest that the evidence shows clearly that cats are a serious threat to native wildlife and that TNR is not adequate to address this threat; it is left to the reader to conclude that lethal control is, at least in some areas, the logical solution.
Opponents of TNR characterize supporters as unconcerned with scientific evidence. The title of a 2010 article in the Wildlife Society News—“Feral Cat Advocates Ignore Science, Tout TNR Again!”—is typical (Wildlife Society, 2010). TNR opponents often believe that the science is unequivocally on their side, and that if the public and policymakers only understood the evidence more fully, they would reject the arguments of outdoor cat advocates. They view the spread of TNR programs as the result of poorly informed decisions, shaped by emotion rather than facts. For example, an article in The Wildlife Professional proclaimed the decision to enact a TNR program in Athens, Georgia “a resounding defeat for science—and for wildlife conservation” (Dauphiné & Cooper, 2011, p. 50). As the article explained, “This victory for TNR—and many others like it across the nation—marks in part the failure of scientists effectively to convey the threat that outdoor cats pose to native wildlife and habitats. If we’re going to win the battle to save wildlife from cats, then we’ll need to be smarter about how we communicate the science” (p. 50).5 At issue is not what the facts say, in this view, but rather how well people understand the facts.
On the other side, TNR advocates do not express lack of concern for birds and other wildlife, but rather they insist that the ecological damage done by cats is overstated by the opponents of TNR. They frequently point to other threats to native wildlife. As a participant in the Huffington Post conversation asserted, “The problem IS humans—songbirds are being wiped out by habitat destruction and pollution (all that junk you spray on your lawn?) NOT cats …” (Underlining the sorry state of the debate, he adds “For the record, I am not a nutty little old lady. I’m a very ordinary married 42 year old man.”)6
The opposing parties in the debate agree on two fundamental issues: the value of animals’ lives and the relevance of science for public policy and moral decision making. However, they diverge on what the science says, both about cat predation and about the impact of TNR. This divergence is often the result of selective and value-based readings of the science and the consequence of a lack of consistency, rigor, and clarity in both the research and the way it is communicated to the public. The two issues are inexorably linked. When scientists and conservation groups engage the public about the risks associated with outdoor cats, as we will see later in our discussion about Cat Wars, they often do so using a science deficit approach, which is based on several problematic assumptions: (1) controversies about science are rooted in ignorance caused by a deficit of scientific knowledge; (2) the role of communication is to rectify this deficit by educating the public, thereby reducing the controversy; and (3) the best way to educate the public is through a one-way transmission of science from expert to public.
Adherence to this model, which is both simplistic and wrong (Scheufele, 2013), is a failure on the part of TNR opponents, and scientists in general, to recognize that there are divergent values and ethical beliefs that are driving this conflict and influencing stakeholders’ interpretation of scientific evidence. Both critics and advocates have preconceived opinions, emotions, biases, and strongly held beliefs that influence their interpretation, selection, and acceptance of knowledge about cats, cat predation, and cat management. If you believe outdoor cats are valuable, you are more likely to agree that cats are beneficial to people than to agree that cats kill mice or birds; conversely, if you believe native birds are valuable and outdoor cats are invasive pests, you are more likely to agree that cats kill birds and mice than to agree that cats provide a benefit to people (Wald, Jacobson, & Levy, 2013). R. S. Nickerson (1998) called this phenomenon confirmation bias: where we reject ideas, data, evidence, and persuasive messages that challenge or contravene our strongly held beliefs. Scientific evidence alone will not change beliefs about cat management, because these beliefs are influenced by values, identities, and ideologies and because “Beliefs change slowly and are extraordinarily persistent in the face of contrary evidence” (Slovic, Fischhoff, & Lichtenstein, 1979, p. 37). We will return to this topic in chapter 5 and present several alternative approaches to the science deficit model. For now, we turn to the role of values and their role in social conflict over outdoor cats.
VALUE: CATS, BIRDS, AND NATURE
Our third major theme is the meaning and value of nature itself. As we have noted already, the conflicts about outdoor cats and TNR reflect the troubled relationship between environmentalism and animal welfare or rights. This relationship, in the end, is about how these groups define nature and what part of nature they value. The debate over outdoor cats illustrates the dramatic differences in the values and goals inherent in the animal rights movement and conservationists. The tensions between the two groups are summed up in the Wildlife Society Standing Position:
Animal welfare philosophy, such as that endorsed by TWS, focuses on quality of life for a population or species of animals. It does not preclude management of animal populations or use of animals for food or other cultural uses, as long as the loss of life is justified, sustainable, and achieved through humane methods. In contrast, the animal rights view holds that it is wrong to take a sentient animal’s life or cause it to suffer for virtually any reason, even to conserve species or ecosystems or to promote human welfare and safety…. The Wildlife Society is concerned that the foundational elements of the animals rights philosophy contradict the principles that have led to the recognized successes of wildlife management in North America. (Wildlife Society, n.d., para 3)
The Wildlife Society policy concludes with a rejection of the animal rights philosophy as “incompatible with science-based conservation and management of wildlife” (Wildlife Society, n.d., para 6).
Commenting on a 2007 case in which a bird advocate shot and killed outdoor cats who were threatening native birds, environmental philosopher J. Baird Callicott put the choice even more brutally: “From an animal-welfare perspective, confining cats and shooting the cat … is wrong…. [but] from an environmental-ethics perspective it’s right, because a whole species is at stake” (Callicott, as quoted in Barcott, 2007, para. 23). Framed in this manner, the options are stark: kill individual sentient animals (who look just like many people’s beloved pets) or risk the extinction of species and the destruction of ecosystems. Cats die, or birds die.
As in the use of science, the either-or framing obscures some fundamental agreements. Both sides value nonhuman animals and nature in general. However, they define and evaluate nature differently. For environmentalists, as Callicott summarizes, what matters is ecological wholes such as species, populations, or ecosystems. Endangered or rare species or ecosystems are more valuable than those that are more common, and native wild species are more valuable than domestic, non-native or feral ones. From this perspective, outdoor cats are domesticated and invasive species, thus less intrinsically valuable than wild native ones. One of the respondents to the Huffington Post article summarized the conservationist position against outdoor cats well: “Only wild, native species of animals or biological diversity create and preserve ecosystems, the very birds and animals the domestic cat is obliterating. This cat, unlike the bobcat, is not biological diversity, is not a strand in the web of all life.”7
On the other side, animal welfare advocates, including many supporters of TNR, value individual sentient creatures regardless of whether they are domestic or wild or whether their species is endangered or not. Many TNR advocates highlight the value of cats as individual animals and assert that their lives matter as much as those of birds. This argument depends on their related claims that outdoor cats do not in fact kill large numbers of birds, or at least not threatened or endangered birds, and that TNR programs effectively reduce feral cat populations.
We would argue that any approach that is exclusive and reductionistic will fail. More broadly, efforts to find workable, humane, scientifically grounded solutions to this (or any) problem will fall short as long as the people involved harden their positions into polarized opposites, use dismissive or insulting language, and insist that only one side has any legitimate claims.
However, if we take the time to understand and respect the perspectives, interests, and values of other people who care about the issues that are important to us, it is often possible to identify shared goals and values and possible areas of compromise. Open-ended and respectful discussions about what both groups value, and why, and how these values relate to other ways of seeing and appreciating nature could reduce conflicts between animal welfare and environmental advocates, the two major constituencies concerned with the well-being of nonhuman nature. Such conversations would have to address fundamental, philosophical, and ethical questions: What is the “nature” that we value? How do human relationships and preferences enter (sometimes unacknowledged) into evaluations of natural value? How do apparently neutral categories such as wild and domestic, exotic and native, create hierarchies of value? These questions are central not only to environmental and animal ethics, but also to emerging discussions in other scientific fields and in the intersections between the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. They also help us place the moral issues raised in the natural sciences into discussions about social ethics: What is the character of a good community? How do human relationships with nonhuman nature affect this community?
Outdoor cats reveal the extent to which human values and preferences enter into ethical discussions and conflicts about nonhuman nature. The debates about feral cats show, in particular, that different individuals and social groups value animals and nature in diverse ways. There is no single “nature,” no single kind of human relationship to it, and no single way to value it. Further, it is impossible (or at least inaccurate) to divide animals into mutually exclusive groups, such as wild and domestic or exotic and native. Research in animal behavior does not distinguish sharply between the cognitive or social capacities of different kinds of animals (wild or domestic, exotic and native, free-roaming or captive) (see, for example, Bekoff & Jamieson, 1995; Houck & Drickamer, 1996). While different species have different capacities, domestication in and of itself does not create “stupidity” or other wholesale reductions in cognitive, social, and emotional complexity.
This means that the lines drawn between domesticated and wild species are largely the result of historical and cultural context rather than intrinsic qualities of the creatures involved. Occupying the blurry and shifting line between categories, “feral” animals reveal the permanent ambiguity of the labels that humans apply to the rest of the animal world. This ambiguity is lost in most discussions of outdoor cats, which presume that the cats’ ecological and social roles are simple, easy to define, and unchanging. The positions of TNR opponents and advocates alike both overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge and underestimate the influence of human interventions and perceptions. On the one hand, “bird advocates” who deny the natural value of domestic species presume a radical separation between human society and nature, unintentionally reinforcing a dualism that most environmental thinkers reject, at least in principle. On the other hand, TNR advocates who insist on the right of cats to live anywhere define the cats as sentient individuals without always granting the same respect to the animals they hunt and kill. Constructive conversations between the opposing groups, based on efforts to understand their underlying moral and scientific claims, can help us make sense not only of the outdoor cat debate, but also larger questions concerning the human relationship to nonhuman animals and natural landscapes.
SOLUTIONS: LETHAL CONTROL AND
THE DEBATE ABOUT EUTHANASIA
The split between cat and bird advocates involves a fundamental disagreement about the legitimacy of killing as an acceptable way to reduce the population of “excess” cats. This is the fourth and final theme we use to organize our discussion about concerns related to policy and management strategies for outdoor cats. Simply put, one side believes that there is no adequate justification for direct killing of unowned, outdoor cats, while the other side believes that, at least in some cases, such killing is both justified and necessary. The debate about lethal control of outdoor cats is related to larger debates about killing in both animal welfare and environmental advocacy. In particular, it is relevant to the heated contemporary discussion about the use of euthanasia to reduce overpopulation in shelters.
On one side of this discussion is the fairly new, and rapidly growing, no-kill movement, which opposes shelter killing of healthy or treatable animals. This movement has expanded greatly in recent years and has launched harsh criticisms of animal welfare “traditionalists” who assert that large-scale euthanasia remains necessary to reduce overpopulation.8 Like the conflicts surrounding outdoor cats, the debate about shelter euthanasia is characterized by dualistic language that conceals certain fundamental agreements. Both sides value the lives of individual dogs and cats and seek an end to the problem of homelessness.
However, no-kill activists believe that alternative solutions, such as more aggressive adoption marketing, widely accessible and low-cost spay/neuter programs, and active TNR programs, can reduce numbers adequately without the need to kill healthy or treatable animals in shelters.
On the other side, mainstream animal welfare advocates (including many who work or volunteer at public open-admission shelters) insist that such efforts, while necessary, are still not sufficient, and that, sadly, euthanasia remains necessary because there are not enough homes for them all. People on this side of the conflict often accuse the no-kill advocates of leaving the “dirty work” of necessary euthanasia of excess animals to them. They refer to no-kill shelters as “limited admission,” because they have the “luxury” of turning away animals that are not easily adoptable. While both sides proclaim their sadness at shelter euthanasia, and both hope for a day in which no healthy or treatable animals are killed, they differ radically on the possibilities of the present situation.
The often heated discussions about shelter euthanasia are relevant to the outdoor cat debate in (at least) two ways. First, TNR programs are a centerpiece of the no-kill agenda, since in many areas stray cats labeled feral constitute a significant proportion of the animals euthanized, and all cats deemed feral are automatically killed in most areas without TNR programs. The expansion of TNR programs is one of the main reasons that shelter killings have declined significantly in the past decade or two. Without TNR, there would be more cats living outdoors and at risk of being taken to the shelter (due to higher population growth rates), and there also would be no legal alternative to euthanasia of nonadoptable (“feral”) cats. TNR makes it possible for large numbers of stray cats to stay out of the shelter system (or pass through it only briefly, for spay/neuter and vaccinations).
In addition to the practical consequences of TNR for shelter euthanasia rates, the TNR debate raises a philosophical question at the heart of debates about shelter euthanasia more broadly: whether or not humans are justified in killing animals who lack a clear or acceptable place in human society. Cats labeled feral make this point especially powerfully, because they are often not “tamable,” and it is not easy, or even possible, to incorporate them into human households. (It is important to note that many unowned cats, including some who live in feral colonies, are sociable and friendly to humans, but a proportion are in fact truly unsocialized and cannot adapt to life as family pets.) The question, in a nutshell, is whether or not we are willing to allow animals who are neither truly wild nor truly domesticated to live on the margins of human society in relative peace. This is both a practical dilemma and also a profound philosophical question about the human place in nature and our relations with other species.
The feral cat debate also is related to an issue that divides many environmentalists: should they support lethal control of “invasive” animal species, including not only domestic and feral animals, but also non-native and sometimes native wild species? In a 2005 column in Audubon titled “Public Menace,” Williams wrote: “There’s only one way to protect yourself, your family, and native ecosystems from the most dangerous and destructive wild animal in North America, an animal responsible for maiming and killing hundreds of humans each year, an animal that wipes out whole forests along with most of their fauna. You have to kill it with guns” (p. 1). The animal he means is the white-tailed deer, which Williams describes as a serious threat to forest ecosystems, especially in the northeastern United States. As in the TNR debate, again Williams criticizes people who stand in the way of sound ecological management practices: “People referring to themselves as ‘deer advocates’ repeatedly call for contraception, which, despite the extravagant claims of the Humane Society of the United States, doesn’t work. They call for trap-and-transfer, despite the facts that deer don’t live through it and that no other community wants more deer” (Williams, 2005, p. 1). Again, we see common themes from the debate about outdoor cats, including polarizing language that demeans opponents and also claims to have legitimate scientific research clearly on one’s side.
CAT WARS AND ITS RECEPTION
Having looked at the issues and parties involved in the controversy regarding Williams’s Orlando Sentinel piece, we now turn to a much more prominent, and still unfolding, issue: the publication of the book Cat Wars and the varied responses to it. We organize our analysis of the book by using the guiding themes outlined above: framing, science, values, and solutions.
Language and Framing
The framing used in Cat Wars exemplifies the polarized terminology and moral perspective that is often used when discussing the debate about outdoor cats (Marra & Santella, 2015). For example, in chapter 3, the authors describe in detail the history of Roger Tory Peterson, the author and illustrator of the Peterson Field Guides series. According to the authors, the field guide genre “would democratize birding … and set the stage for the ecological awakening in the mid-twentieth century buttressed by the likes of Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson” (p. 31). In this same chapter, they include a quote from a biography about Peterson’s first experience with a northern flicker: “When I reached out to touch its back it exploded with life—a stunning sight, flying away with its golden underwings and the red crescent on its nape—I can see it now—the way it transformed from what we thought was death into intense life” (Carlson, 2007, as quoted in Marra & Santell, 2015, p. 30). This passage is indicative of the positive frames and effusive language used to describe birds and birding throughout this book.
In contrast, the authors select Grumpy Cat, the Internet feline star (named Tardar Sauce) who is famous for her perpetually frowning face and silly poses, as an example of Americans’ “love and fascination for cats” (p. 32). Whereas birds are described as “remarkable voyagers” with “dazzling plumages” and “ethereal, musical songs,” clips of Grumpy cat are described as evidence that YouTube is “the greatest place to waste time online” (p. 31). Unlike the worshipful language used to describe the northern flicker, the authors describe Tardar Sauce’s mouth as “pulled forever downward, giving the animal its eponymous dour expression, which is actually believed to be the result of feline dwarfism and an underbite” (p. 31). This disdain for the appearance and, later in the same chapter, the actions of Tardar Sauce is indicative of the perspective the authors use for cats throughout the book—as is the final paragraph of the entire book: “loose on the landscape, they [cats] are—by no fault of their own—unrelenting killers and cauldrons of disease” (p. 178).
The language used in Cat Wars describes cats as dirty, ugly, diseased, and lazy. In contrast, birds are beautiful, almost magical creatures. Such descriptions only intensify the gap between cat-lovers and bird-lovers, a division that became evident in both scholarly and popular responses to the book. The response to this book illustrates the problem with using incendiary language to discuss controversial topics; in particular, when conservationists and bird advocates use language that is insulting or alienating, they can hamper efforts to reduce the number of unowned, outdoor cats.
A quick scan of Amazon reveals that many of the positive reviews of Cat Wars are written by people who identify with conservation or environmental movements or people who were already concerned about outdoor cats. For these individuals, this book was “An honest and unflinching assessment of the damage outdoor cats are doing to our native wildlife, as well as the suffering these cats endure. A must-read for anyone who cares about animals, nature, and the future of our planet” (Wildlife Rehabilitator, 5 stars, September 14, 2016). Another reader praised the book’s “provocative narrative, data driven, authoritative authors. The negative reviews are from folks who don’t like the conclusions. It touches nerves. The authors did not write this for the purpose of making a fan club. They are asking hard questions, arguing, building a case. It’s what good science does, and good scientists do” (Gregory K. Eaton, 5 stars, October 27, 2016). The appeal to “good science” underlines the significance of science in reinforcing strongly held values, in this case as well as others.
Most of the Amazon reviews of Cat Wars are positive (76% of the 156 reviews as of November 2019 gave it 5 stars), but those who reject the book are vocal. Many of these critics identify with animal welfare and TNR groups, who would be vital collaborators in any large-scale effort to manage outdoor cats (Peterson, Hartis, Rodriguez, Green, & Lepczyk, 2012). One reader calls it “Absolute garbage, written by biased cat hater Peter Marra, whose colleague was none other than fellow cat hater Nico Dauphiné, who was arrested and convicted for trying to kill cats. Marra has been trying to scapegoat cats for ages with his flawed and disproven studies” (Jen’s Book Den, 1 star, August 31, 2016). Another reviewer dismissed Marra and his colleague as “Disgusting closed-minded authors with a villainous agenda … obviously cat haters—this is ridiculous. I hope no one wastes their money on this trash” (AlleyCat Advocat, 1 star, August 31, 2016). These responses reflect the “cat-lover” perspective, in which there is no value—scientific or moral—in the views of those who oppose TNR. Additional critiques came from scholars in animal ethics. For example, biologist Marc Bekoff, cofounder (with Jane Goodall) of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (EETA) criticized Princeton University Press for publishing the book and called it a “sensationalist, one-sided” piece lacking “scientific rigor” (Bekoff, 2016).
Just as the authors of Cat Wars reflect on and may contribute to the polarized state of the debate about outside cats, so do the reviews of the book. On Amazon, reader reviews of Cat Wars are mostly at one extreme or the other. Most readers consider the book either excellent (five stars) or terrible (one star), and many employ absolutist language: “The negative reviews are all from people who don’t like the conclusions,” on the one hand, and “He ignores evidence, so the book is worthless,” on the other. Virtually no one gives it two or three stars, suggesting that few readers are in the middle or on the fence. The reader responses to the book suggest that people who are interested in this issue have, for the most part, already made up their minds about it and, further, have decided that the “other side” lacks legitimacy. The wide gap in responses to the book highlights two important points.
First, as we mentioned earlier, the interpretation, selection, and acceptance of knowledge is influenced by preconceived opinions, political, economic, cultural, and other social factors, emotions, and biases. Readers who agreed with the opinions and beliefs expressed by the authors of Cat Wars described the book as a “must-read,” while readers who disagreed with the authors’ beliefs or who were angered by the tone of the book or its conclusions described Cat Wars as “worthless” and “one-sided.” Second, the reviews address an issue that has been hotly debated by scientists: the role of science in society and scientists as advocates for policy. Just as journalists are expected to conduct an open-minded search for truth and present their findings objectively, scientists are expected to accurately, honestly interpret scientific data and its meaning (Hafez, 2002; Zanna, Olson, & Herman, 1987). But scientists also are expected to engage the public in conversations about complex and controversial science. The question becomes: how can scientists contribute to public debate without compromising public perceptions of scientific credibility?
The responses to Cat Wars suggest that the authors’ approach, and especially their negative language and disparaging comments about cats and cat caretakers, creates an impression of bias. It is clear that many readers, some of whom already support TNR, believe that the book’s language reflects a lack of scientific objectivity. The debate over Cat Wars thus raises larger questions about the public role of science. In polarized cases, such as the conflicts over TNR and outdoor cats, people on all sides of the issue, and many who are uncommitted, suspect that the scientific data is being manipulated by partisans seeking to bolster preexisting positions. Partisans on both sides of the cat debate insist that the evidence supports their position and can in fact cite studies that show that cats pose a dangerous threat to wildlife or that cats have only a negligible ecological impact. These claims cannot both be correct—at least not as blanket statements. Clearly, something is missing in the presentation and analysis of the scientific data that both sides employ in this debate.
Many people look to scientists and other experts for help deciding on the best approach to controversial issues. However, people approach the “evidence” from different positions. They are more likely to listen to sources they perceive as credible. The credibility of scientific sources can influence public attitudes toward scientific evidence (Gauchat, O’Brien, & Mirosa, 2017; Hovland & Weiss, 1951–52; Hunt & Wald, 2018; Pornpitakpan, 2004). When scientists use language that disparages other positions or suggests a policy position, they risk losing credibility and diminishing their ability to communicate with the public about important issues.
The authors of Cat Wars consistently delegitimize TNR supporters and cat-lovers, presenting them as the “wrong” side of the debate. On the other hand, they describe bird-watchers and conservation advocates as credible sources, whose voices should be valued and respected. The authors describe bird-watching as a valuable pastime and even a form of high culture, akin to classical music and appreciated by people with “good taste.” They suggest that prominent scientists, such as Stanley Temple, Roger Tory Peterson, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson, are part of their larger community. They lionize “pro-bird” scientists such as Temple, about whom they note that “few living scientists have such a resume” (p. 17). They present Peterson, the ornithologist and artist, as a larger-than-life character, with superior taste and impeccable training, who ushered birding into a new democratic era. The cumulative effect is to present bird advocates and conservationists as a unified force with the best research, values, and culture on their side.
The book casts cat-lovers in a very different light. While Cat Wars presents ornithologists and conservationists as heroic, rigorous, and sophisticated, they portray TNR advocates as well-meaning but misguided and driven by sentiment rather than science. In contrast to the extensive discussions of bird advocates, Cat Wars mentions only one prominent cat-lover, Mark Twain, who is cited in a brief sentence describing the way Twain’s cat, Lazy, would sit on his shoulders while he walked around town (p. 34). The book does include several quotes by cat colony caretakers, and the authors acknowledge that such advocates “give generously of their time (and often of their pocketbooks) to care for creatures that many of us have chosen to ignore or, at worse, have intentionally and callously cast aside” (p. 48). However, the section on the cat caretakers is followed by a telling passage: “Unfortunately, in their advocacy for outside cats, colony caretakers … fail to take into consideration the health of the overall ecosystem and the rights of wild animals” (p. 48). Cat advocates are thus praised, but in the same breath delegitimized as well-intentioned but wrong. Most important, according to Cat Wars, cat advocates fail to understand the real dangers posed by outdoor cats, either from naivete or from willful misreading of the evidence.
Both sides in the “cat wars” claim not only moral but also scientific high ground. Because they see the issue in dualistic terms, both groups dismiss the other side as completely illegitimate. This polarized discourse about outdoor cats is not only destructive but also based on a hierarchical, overly simplistic model of culture and values, in which scientific and ecological pursuits, such as birding, are clearly superior to animal welfare concerns, including TNR. We will return to this theme later in this chapter.
By describing cat-lovers as simpleminded individuals who fail to grasp the science, on the one hand, and bird-lovers as sophisticated consumers of fine art and democratic values, on the other, the authors of Cat Wars separate themselves, and conservation advocates in general, from ordinary people. “Othering” the public, as Jessica Pelland (2017) terms it, alienates the very people who could support scientists’ efforts to control outdoor cats: cat caretakers and TNR advocates. “If you begin a conversation with, ‘You’re an idiot,’” as climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe explains, “that’s the end of the conversation, too” (Schwartz, 2016, para. 10).
There is one positive portrayal of a TNR advocate in Cat Wars. The authors profile cat caretaker Sarah Smith, whom they portray as a compassionate animal-lover who did not plan to get involved with cats or TNR but did so in order to reduce their suffering. Smith is a sympathetic character, but she emerges after more than 100 pages of mostly negative and polarizing discussion. The negative reviews on Amazon suggest that the authors likely turned most cat-lovers and TNR supporters away within the first few chapters.
Unfortunately for both birds and cats, when scientists “other” TNR advocates, they reduce the chances for public policy based on sound science and collaborations that could result in innovative strategies for managing outdoor cats. As the authors of Cat Wars suggest, “cats are not easy to detect and count,” in part because “people who maintain colonies of cats do not report their whereabouts and do not keep records of their numbers” (p. 67). Greater trust between the different groups involved would make possible cooperative efforts to document and monitor cat colonies. This is one of the many reasons why collaborations between ecologists and TNR advocates are necessary. If they could find common ground, TNR advocates and cat caretakers would be invaluable partners in a citizen science project aimed at documenting and reducing the number of unowned, outdoor cats. TNR advocates are a unique source of local knowledge and information, and they are already taking actions to manage cats. If bird-lovers treated them as respected partners in a common effort, TNR advocates would likely be more willing to help ecologists develop better strategies to reduce the negative impact of outdoor cats.
The authors of Cat Wars explain their lack of attention to cat advocates by asserting that “it is not easy to find cat caretakers who will speak about their endeavors or introduce outsiders to their colonies” (p. 3). However, our experience has been the opposite. Cat caretakers were very willing to participate in focus groups and surveys, and welcomed our team into their organizations, even allowing us to access their membership lists, sending our survey to their members. We did this by building partnerships with respected TNR advocates and scientists, promising not to reveal the whereabouts of any colonies we learned about. In addition, after our research was complete, we shared our results with this community by sending out letters, developing in-person and online presentations, and publishing our results and survey in an online, open access journal. This suggests that when addressed with respect and understanding, cat caretakers could be valuable partners in the effort to manage outdoor cats.
CONCLUSIONS
The conflict between cat-lovers and bird-lovers—or more accurately, advocates and opponents of TNR—may appear nearly impossible to resolve. If we read accounts like Cat Wars (and its reviews), we gain a picture of a fight to the death between two sides who find nothing of value in the position of the other. The reality, we believe, is much less stark. We wanted to begin this book with an accurate picture of the current state of the debate, but in what follows we argue that the science is more uncertain, the values less mutually exclusive, and the policy prospects less impossible than the “cat wars” model suggests. Our cautious optimism on this point stems from our conviction that sound science, ethical analysis, communication, and public policy all support—and require—substantial middle ground. In the chapters that follow, we explore the prospects for that middle ground by developing some of the themes introduced in this chapter.