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This was sent to me from the Alley Cat Allies.
It is information like this that depresses the hell out of me, and makes me think that has to be a vast change and fast to the rulers who be when it comes to animals. Anyone who reads the following has to be appalled.
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed a cruel plan to kill all the feral cats on San Nicholas Island—that’s as many as 200—using leghold traps and hunters with dogs.
Your written feedback to the Fish and Wildlife Service is vitally needed by tomorrow, Tuesday, June 17.
“Feral cats have lived on San Nicolas Island, located off the coast of southern California, for more than 50 years. The Fish and Wildlife Service claims that removing cats from the island is necessary to restore seabird populations. However, the FWS has no evidence that cats are threatening the populations of birds and other species on San Nicolas Island.
“Worse, even if the Fish and Wildlife Service had any evidence that removing cats is necessary, the ill-advised plan does not consider the use of Trap-Neuter-Return to humanely reduce the population of cats on San Nicolas Island.
“Take Action. With your help, we hope to avert the needless suffering and cruel death of the feral cats on San Nicolas Island. Submit your written comments to the Fish and Wildlife Service requesting that they cease and desist with their cruel plan. Tell them that cats are not threatening other species on the island. Tell them that even if they could prove it would be beneficial to reduce the population of cats, Trap-Neuter-Return is the humane and effective alternative to cruel, ineffective hunting and trapping.
“Be sure to include your full name and a mailing address when submitting comments.
The deadline is Tuesday, June 17, 2008.
Sincerely,
Becky Robinson
President
http://action.alleycat.org/c.mmL3KgN3LzH/b.4203535/k.9CAC/Feral_Cats_on_San_Nicolas_Island_Urgently_Need_Your_Help/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx
The actual proposal and the kill methods:
The purpose of the Proposed Action is to restore San Nicolas Island’s seabird populations and protect other native fauna, including federally and state listed threatened species,
from population decline and potential extirpation or extinction. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and Navy propose to restore and protect these species and their habitat by eradicating feral cats from the island. The most common techniques used
globally for eradicating feral cats from islands are trapping, hunting, and poisoning. The presence of the San Nicolas island fox, however, restricts the available techniques in this
case, making poisoning infeasible. The Proposed Action is to use a combination of trapping and hunting through integrated adaptive management to eradicate feral cats from San Nicolas Island. A field study on San Nicolas Island conducted in 2006 demonstrated that padded leg-hold live traps can be used to trap feral cats effectively with minimal injury to cats and foxes. Furthermore, a trap monitoring system would minimize the time animals are held in traps prior to release (foxes) or euthanasia (cats). The USFWS and Navy propose to use padded leg-hold live trapping as the primary eradication method. Hunting with and without specialized dogs would be used strategically as a supplemental method.
The report:
http://www.darrp.noaa.gov/southwest/montrose/pdf/San_Nic_EA.pdf
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Read this. They've tried this crap before and it's never worked. This is another island in the same chain.
ReplyDeletekilling rats on Anacapa island
Back then they said rats were the main culprit killing the birds. Now it's cats? They tried to kill the rats with poison. Instead they killed the birds with the poison as the birds ate it directly. Talk about stupid. They also dumped two truckloads of poison on some fishing boats by accident. It ended up in the water and fish started dying. Few months later they got an algae bloom that killed more fish and birds.