{"id":22320,"date":"2022-05-09T23:29:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T03:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=22320"},"modified":"2022-05-10T00:52:24","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T04:52:24","slug":"the-immorality-of-killing-cats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/05\/09\/the-immorality-of-killing-cats\/","title":{"rendered":"The Immorality of Killing Cats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Editorial<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s a shame that Polk Sheriff Grady Judd’s staff for using their position of leadership in the community to suggest the outrageous and illegal\u00a0act of hunting and killing cats. Such threats of government-sanctioned cruelty toward any species are unacceptable and must be confronted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cats are sentient creatures who suffer and feel pain. Our culture understands this and therefore rejects institutionalized killing as an immoral concept. In a recent poll, 86 percent of Americans said they prefer that their community use tax dollars to adopt sterilization as its cat control policy instead of bringing cats found outdoors into shelters to be killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grady Judd staff runs the Polk County animal shelter which is a KILL shelter\u2026. PERIOD!!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Killing is also a complete waste of government resources. When cats are killed or otherwise removed from the landscape, more cats move in to replace them. This is a phenomenon known as the vacuum effect, and it has been proven in many species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our society demands a humane path, such as Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR), in which cats are humanely trapped, spayed or neutered, vaccinated, ear-tipped for identification, and returned to their outdoor homes. TNR is an evidence-based and sound policy. It is effective and humane for community cat population management, reduces shelter intake and killing, and saves taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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TNR programs work in Lee and Collier counties have ordinances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some of the cats at one of the largest TNR colonies in Lakeland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Community cats are residents of the communities we call home. Humane, lifesaving plans are the only option that will garner the broad community support needed to successfully care for these animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk Sheriff Grady Judd’s staff will not change the law and allow TNR colonies and caretakers in Polk County. But there are TNR program colonies in Lakeland but there is no law that protects the caretakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The sheriff’s office will not allow us to interview the Sheriff on this issue, WHY? What is he hiding is it because he\u2019s been quoted to say \u201ccats kill birds\u201d. They also kill rats and mice as the TNR colony does at Disney World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cats have been a staple of the Disney theme park experience since 1955, shortly after Disneyland opened. And are part of the parks in Orlando. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Before we begin, it\u2019s worth noting that the Walt Disney Company does not publicly tout the presence of feral cats in the theme parks for a variety of reasons, including not wanting to draw undue guest attention to these invisible employees. There\u2019s also the clear conflict of interest posed by the Mouse House opening its gates to cats, the sworn enemy of Mickey and Co.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mission statement of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office states we will serve with integrity, compassion, accountability, and professionalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Integrity – the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles<\/strong>; moral uprightness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compassion – sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accountability – the fact or condition of being accountable; responsibility<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professionalism – the competence or skill expected of a professional<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do these words really mean something to Grady Judd on this issue?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now we are waiting on Sheriff Grady Judd to do the right thing!!!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial It\u2019s a shame that Polk Sheriff Grady Judd’s staff for using their position of leadership in the community to suggest the outrageous and illegal\u00a0act of hunting and killing cats.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[2818],"class_list":["post-22320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial","tag-the-immorality-of-killing-cats"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}