Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 16:35:25 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Denise Ryan Subject: Re: Feral Dogs and Cats MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" One clue to recognize a feral is to look for a "docked" or notched ear. My adopted feral has a notched ear because she was a part of a feral colony. Unfortunatley, this colony was over 100 cats large due to a stupid woman in the vicinity who loved kittens, but dumped them on a regular basis after they grew up. Volunteers were trapping an neutering so many cats in the colony, that they needed to track which cats had been altered. I was told it is routine to notch the ears of animals that had been altered, so that if they were caught in the trap again, they knew it was ok to turn that particular cat loose. This isn't fail-save as some folks might adopt those ferals and allow them to run free, but it is a small sign. Lots of ferals are extremely shy. Denise Ryan Washington, DC -----Original Message----- From: john messina To: MDOSPREY@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM Sent: 2/18/03 12:06 PM Subject: [MDOSPREY] Feral Dogs and Cats For the past few years, humane societies have been teaming up with wildlife groups in a campaign to educate cat owners to keep their pets indoors at all times. I do that with my cats, both for their benefit and to protect wildlife. One problem with hunting ferals is that I don't know of any sure-fire way to distinguish feral cats and dogs from people's pets, and I believe that shooting companion animals--whether they are currently owned or abandoned--would really trash birders' and wildlife lovers' reputations (if people make such a stink about addling mute swan eggs, imagine the firestorm that would result from shooting puppies and kittens). Various groups set out humane traps to catch ferals or abandoned pets, and donations to groups that do this--or to encourage other groups to begin this practice--would almost certainly result in more removals of dogs and cats than bullets would result in kills. I'd also like to see our governments explore ways of educating people not to dump unwanted pets or to more severely punish those who do. Cathy Messina ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================