Saddest thing - Page 11

Which is it?

Being the smarties that they are, they'll take repeatable handouts over hunting/foraging (well, maybe not always - leftovers in the garbage can still be tastier then a can of Friskies, or if peer contention is too high). But they will revert back as soon as the food stops. So, we provide food to our colonies - 98% of which we purchase at cost, but occasionally we get handouts or donations - but if we're late to a feeder, well things quickly get back to "in the wild". The other good news about the feeding is that it keeps them centralized and helps to limit their roaming. Since they all want to be first in when the food hits the plates, they tend to linger. That's a tool for us since we can position the feedings away from places people find obtrusive or just inconvenient. And, generally, it's preferable to them dumpster diving and leaving scraps around (though cats don't make nearly the mess that raccoons do...) Hope that helps clear it up! ps - I really didn't mean to hijack the thread with Feral/TSNR stuff, but here's hoping the the insight might have helped generate some additional understanding.

If anyone has issue with what razl is doing or anything else not directly involving Rudy you are free to start your own thread. I keep coming here checking for updates on an inspiring story and instead I come across all sorts of negativity and snide remarks. Let's not ruin a good story here!

stfu. and razl, you're a good person

Very kind of you to help them out and much appreciated by many.

I see feral cat colonies all the time at beaches, they live under the boardwalks mostly and are fed cat food by the public. It's nice to know the rest of the process involved. Is the goal to keep the population sustainable or just eventually let the colony die off naturally?

I understand that you're doing what you do out of sympathy, but in my judgment it's misplaced. How about instead of feeding and nurturing a "colony" of cats, it was a colony of rats? They're both nuisance animals--or are the rats not cute enough?

Can you explain what non-human animal cuteness is?

I think we'd all be lying to ourselves if we didn't say cuteness had something to do with our acceptance of different species, but I don't think that really explains it. It's more the domestication of the species - meaning, it's ability to interact with and serve man in a domestic setting. Feral cats are essentially cast-off of domesticated species. Yes, they can live in "the suburban wild", but that's not really their purpose and they aren't geared well for it. To be sure, they're capable, but there's nothing more pitiful than a feral Persian who's coat is perpetually matted (and all the problems that go with it) because it's breeding accentuated traits for man, not for the wild. It's almost like something man went to all this work to shape and create cast off as garbage - but unfortunately it's a living thing. All feral cats struggle with issues like this - even though they might look content to be foraging, the outside world really isn't their ideal everyday environment. Could rats be domesticated? Sure, but they aren't. Any and all rats ideal environment is currently the wild, not with man (the fact that a few adventurous souls have made great pets of some, notwithstanding). A better contrast might be (if we lived in wilder places, thankfully we don't) a colony of panthers vs. a colony of domestic (feral or non) cats. I'd be leaving the panthers alone but working on the cat colony. The panthers are beautiful (by my eye) and even of the same family (genus?) but only one group really needs us.

I have two pet rats and I love them. Such intelligent creatures. One of the few animals capable of metacognition.