{"id":23113,"date":"2022-06-14T08:28:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-14T12:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=23113"},"modified":"2022-06-14T10:53:02","modified_gmt":"2022-06-14T14:53:02","slug":"lethal-removal-of-cats-backfires-tnr-wins-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/06\/14\/lethal-removal-of-cats-backfires-tnr-wins-out\/","title":{"rendered":"LETHAL REMOVAL OF CATS BACKFIRES TNR WINS OUT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u00a0\u201cI suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.\u201d \u2014Abraham Maslow<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just three months after an intensive culling effort, conservationists observed no difference in the area\u2019s population of cats. Nevertheless, they describe their campaign as \u201ceffective,\u201d arguing that lethal methods could be improved only if they were more \u201cintense and continuous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Non-lethal methods, it seems, never occurred to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaign was conducted on a small peninsula, roughly 10 square miles in size, on the New Caledonian island of Grande Terre<\/a>, approximately 880 miles northeast of Brisbane, Australia. Over the course of 38 days, researchers deployed 32 traps daily across an area slightly more than four square miles, capturing and then killing 36 cats [1]. In their recently published study<\/a> documenting the project, the researchers describe the cull as \u201ceffective\u201d since it resulted in the removal of \u201can estimated 44% of the population\u201d (based on camera trap data).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThree months after the end of the culling campaign that eliminated 36 cats\u2026 no meaningful differences in the relative abundance and density of feral cats were observed in response to culling, whatever the indicator of population size considered\u201d [1].<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this is what \u201ceffective\u201d looks like, one wonders what it would take for these researchers to admit failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the first study of its kind. Research from Tasmania, published in 2015<\/a>, also employed camera traps to estimate cat numbers before and after lethal removal. Following that campaign, which the researchers describe as \u201clow-level culling,\u201d the \u201cminimum number of feral cats known to be alive\u201d increased\u2014an average of 75 percent at one site and 211 percent at another [2].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, too, the researchers emphasized the need for \u201cintensity of [lethal] effort\u201d over any consideration of non-lethal methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not surprisingly, the obvious implications of the Tasmanian study have been almost entirely ignored<\/a> by TNR opponents. And there\u2019s no reason to think the findings of the New Caledonian study will be treated any differently. After all, if removing nearly half the cats from a four-square-mile peninsula makes no difference in their numbers three months later, what hope is there that such a campaign\u2014requiring far more effort than even a well-resourced animal control agency can afford\u2014would make a difference where cats are far more abundant (e.g., urban and suburban areas of the U.S. [3])?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, opponents are likely to continue arguing\u2014despite mounting evidence to the contrary\u2014that \u201cTNR doesn\u2019t work\u201d [4\u20138], and implying that lethal removal does\u2014again, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. This, too, should come as no surprise. If they were to acknowledge the numerous failures of lethal methods, across a range of environmental contexts, their argument<\/del> house of cards would quickly collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

LITERATURE CITED<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Palmas, P.; Gouyet, R.; Oedin, M.; Millon, A.; Cassan, J.-J.; Kowi, J.; Bonnaud, E.; Vidal, E. Rapid Recolonisation of Feral Cats Following Intensive Culling in a Semi-Isolated Context. NB<\/em> 2020, 63<\/em>, 177\u2013200, doi:10.3897\/neobiota.63.58005.<\/li>
  2. Lazenby, B.T.; Mooney, N.J.; Dickman, C.R. Effects of Low-Level Culling of Feral Cats in Open Populations: A Case Study from the Forests of Southern Tasmania. Wildlife Research<\/em> 2015, 41<\/em>, 407\u2013420.<\/li>
  3. Rowan, A.N.; Kartal, T.; Hadidian, J. Cat Demographics & Impact on Wildlife in the USA, the UK, Australia and New Zealand: Facts and Values. Journal of Applied Animal Ethics Research<\/em> 2019.<\/li>
  4. Longcore, T.; Rich, C.; Sullivan, L.M. Critical Assessment of Claims Regarding Management of Feral Cats by Trap-Neuter-Return. Conservation Biology<\/em> 2009, 23<\/em>, 887\u2013894.<\/li>
  5. Marra, P.P.; Santella, C. Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer<\/em>; Princeton University Press: Princeton, N.J., 2016;<\/li>
  6. Gerhold, R.W.; Jessup, D.A. Zoonotic Diseases Associated with Free-Roaming Cats. Zoonoses and Public Health<\/em> 2012, 60<\/em>, 189\u2013195, doi:10.1111\/j.1863-2378.2012.01522.x.<\/li>
  7. Lepczyk, C.A.; Lohr, C.A.; Duffy, D.C. A Review of Cat Behavior in Relation to Disease Risk and Management Options. Applied Animal Behaviour Science<\/em> 2015, 173<\/em>, 29\u201339, doi:10.1016\/j.applanim.2015.07.002.<\/li>
  8. Crawford, H.M.; Calver, M.C.; Fleming, P.A. A Case of Letting the Cat out of The Bag\u2014Why Trap-Neuter-Return Is Not an Ethical Solution for Stray Cat (Felis Catus<\/em>) Management. Animals<\/em> 2019, 9<\/em>, doi:10.3390\/ani9040171.<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u00a0\u201cI suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.\u201d \u2014Abraham Maslow Just three months after an… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","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":[9],"tags":[2977],"class_list":["post-23113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-lethal-removal-of-cats-backfires-tnr-wins-out"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23113","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=23113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}