Cat Defender

The Innocence of Lambs: Unaware of the Dangers That Threaten His Very Existence, Dodger Charms Commuters on the Bridport to Charmouth Line

2012-01-25T13:17:00.002-05:00

"We moved here nineteen months ago and our house backs on to the bus station. He is an old boy and is very friendly. Sometimes he just sits in the middle of the road and waits for the bus to turn up before he gets on."
-- Fee Jeanes

Unperturbed by the myriad of glaring dangers involved, both the English public and media once again are celebrating the exploits of yet still another footloose and fancy-free feline with a dangerous case of Wanderlust burning in his soul. The 2011 version is a fifteen-year-old ginger and white tom named Dodger who hails from West Street in Bridport, Dorset, and has developed a penchant for riding mass transit by his lonesome.

Named in honor of the accomplished pickpocket artist, the Artful Dodger, from out of the pages of Charles Dickens's novel, Oliver Twist, he of late has been making ten-mile roundtrips between his home and Charmouth aboard First Bus. He also reportedly has been sighted treating himself to excursions along the Jurassic Coast on the number fifty-three bus which runs between Exeter in Devonshire and Poole in Dorset. (See photos above and below of him at the bus stop and climbing on board.)

Dodger usually begins his day by hanging out at the bus station in Bridport where he sometimes helps himself to sandwiches, pork pies, and other edibles left behind by the commuters. (See photo further down the page of him sitting on one of the benches inside the station.)

Once on board, he often is able to find an obliging lap on which on rest his tired bones and even when one is not immediately available either a friendly pat on the head or a gentle stroking of his fur will do almost as well. As an added bonus, some of the drivers have taken to treating him to tins of tuna. (See photo below of him being caressed by a commuter.)

The buses' main attraction is believed by some to be the warm laps provided by the commuters but that does not seem likely in that the has plenty of those at home. A far more plausible explanation is the availability of plenty of free food. A sense of adventure, boredom, and loneliness all likely factor somewhere into the equation.

Press reports fail to disclose either how often Dodger rides the buses or how long he has been engaging in this activity. Anecdotal evidence, however, tends to suggest that hopping on board is a fairly new diversion as far as he is concerned.

"We moved here nineteen months ago and our house backs on to the bus station. He is an old boy and is very friendly," his forty-four-year-old owner, Fee Jeanes, told The Bridport News on December 14th. (See "Meet Dodger, the Bus Traveling Cat.") "Sometimes he just sits in the middle of the road and waits for the bus to turn up before he gets on." (See photo below of her with Dodger.)

That frank admission simply is mind-boggling because no halfway decent and responsible human being ever would knowingly allow a cat to venture out into traffic. It often is said that cats and dogs have the maturity of a four-year-old child and no parent ever would allow one of them out in traffic without accompaniment and the same is doubly true for cats because whereas most motorists will brake for a child they cannot be counted upon to do likewise for a cat.

Every bit as outrageous, Jeanes does not even know Dodger's whereabouts most of the time. "He's down there (at the bus station) all day and I have to go out in the night to make sure he is okay," she confessed to the Dorset Echo of Weymouth on December 14th. (See "Dodger the Cat Hops on Bridport Buses.")

Instead, she is forced to rely upon surveillance reports supplied by family members, commuters, and bus drivers. "I hadn't seen him all morning until my daughter Emily told me one of her friends had just seen him on the bus at Charmouth. I couldn't believe it and panicked," she told The Bridport News in the article cited supra. "I got into my car to go off and look for him and then at that moment the bus pulled up near our house and lo and behold he got off."

Even that scare failed to prompt her to mend her irresponsible and uncaring ways and thus keep a closer eye on her cat. "That afternoon I saw Dodger climb on board another bus and I rushed to tell the driver," she told The Bridport News. "I was shocked when she told me Dodger was always on there and liked to sit on the seats because they are warm from where people have been sitting."

To hear her tell it, playing Russian roulette with the life of a cat is the most natural and morally acceptable thing in the world. "He's absolutely fine," she declared in the face of all logic to the Dorset Echo. "He comes home and sleeps at the end of my bed and spends the rest of the day at the bus station."

Luckily for Dodger, First Bus is an unusually feline friendly carrier. "The drivers have been asked not to feed it because we recognize that cat has an owner and we do not want to discourage it from returning home for food and shelter," a spokesman for the company told The Bridport News in the article cited supra. "But in principle we do not have a problem with it being around the station."

Even Dodger's failure to feed the farebox is not a problem. "Given this cat is elderly we suspect it would be eligible for free travel, perhaps a bus puss, if such a thing existed," the spokesman added tongue-in-cheek.

In another poignant example of First Bus's caring attitude, on February 10, 2009 driver Peter Whiting rescued a black cat that had been run down and left for dead by a motorist on Fakenham Road in the Taverham section of Norwich. Although the cat suffered a broken jaw, a concussion, and possibly even brain damage, it nevertheless was expected to live.

Moreover, the compassion shown by Whiting must have been contagious because once the cat was safely on board his kindhearted passengers not only attended to it but one of them, Jo Laker, even was so gracious as to procure emergency veterinary care for it. Such altruism is almost unheard of in the United States where motorists make a sport out of running down cats and other animals and most individuals are too cheap and selfish to spend so much as a lousy penny on any animal.

Soon after The Bridport News published its exposé describing Dodger's rambles, the story was picked up by most of London's dailies, television stations, and even by media outlets in cat-hating Australia. As a consequence, both Dodger and Jeanes now are world famous.

"It's been amazing. It has gone mad," she exclaimed to The Bridport News on December 21st. (See "National Newshounds on the Trail of Dodger the Bus Puss.") "We didn't expect so much attention. Dodger is worn-out."

Whether or not Jeanes expected that type of a media feeding frenzy is a debatable point in that it was precisely she who contacted The Bridport News in the first place. It accordingly would be a tragic shame if she is needlessly endangering Dodger's life in order to garner acclaim and financial gain for herself.

As it is perfectly obvious, the perils confronting Dodger can in no way be underestimated. First of all, he could be either accidentally or intentionally poisoned by scaveging for food at the bus station.

Secondly, he easily could get lost. That is of special concern whenever he is on board the Jurassic Coast line which traverses a distance of one-hundred-fifty-three kilometers with many stops along the way. Regardless of which bus he rides, there are from time to time substitute and new drivers at the wheel who might elect to put him off at just about anywhere and that very well could spell the last that either Jeanes or anyone else ever saw of him.

He also could be stolen for either nefarious or humane purposes. Back in 2007, for example, a cat-lover abducted Slim from the streets of Ottawa and refused to return him to his owners out of a sincere belief that they were neglecting him. (See Cat Defender post of July 9, 2007 entitled "Hungry and Disheveled Cat Named Slim Is Picked Up Off the Streets of Ottawa by a Rescuer Who Refuses to Return Him to His Owners.")

Considering Jeanes's abysmal failure to protect and keep Dodger out of harm's way, he definitely would be far better off in the home of another owner. Sometimes even outright thievery is preferable to sitting idly by and allowing a cat to be abused and, possibly, even killed.

The endless machinations of ailurophobes are another concern but the greatest threat to Dodger's well-being comes from motorists. No cat belongs in any busy street, let alone an elderly one who is the equivalent of seventy-six-years-old in human terms.

Back in 2009, a twelve-year-old tuxedo named Casper from the Barne Barton section of St. Budeaux in Plymouth, Devonshire, shot to international notoriety when it was revealed that he had been riding First Bus's number three line for four years. During that time it is estimated that he traveled twenty-thousand miles by his lonesome. (See photo of him directly above.)

His adventures made for a charming story but his all-too-brief sojourn on this earth ended tragically on January 14, 2010 when he was run down and killed by a hit-and-run taxi driver while crossing Poole Park Road in order to get to the bus stop on the opposite side. (See Cat Defender posts of August 27, 2009 and January 30, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Casper Treats Himself to an Unescorted Tour Around Plymouth Each Morning Courtesy of the Number Three Bus" and "Casper Is Run Down and Killed by a Hit-and-Run Taxi Driver While Crossing the Street in Order to Get to the Bus Stop.")

"I never dreamt I'd miss an animal as much as I miss him," his owner, sixty-seven-year-old health care worker Susan Finden, said shortly after his death. "He was lovely and loved people so much. He was such a different character."

She since has published a book entitled Casper the Commuting Cat with the proceeds from which supposedly going to animal charities. (See photo of the book above.)

"What would I give to have one last cuddle? There are so many little things that I miss about you, Casper. I miss you sitting on the worktop watching me cook; I miss the closeness as we sat on the sofa together in the evening," she wrote in an excerpt published in the Daily Mail on July 23, 2010. (See "Tickets Purr-lease! Hopping on the Bus Every Day Turned Casper the Cat into a Star, a New Book Recalls His Exploits.") "But most of all, I miss looking out the bedroom window and spotting you there at the bus stop, waiting patiently with the other passengers for the number three bus as if it was the most natural thing in the world."

She, quite obviously, is either a liar or so slow on the uptake that she never learns a blessed thing from her colossal mistakes. After all, she had known for some time that she was placing Casper's life in grave jeopardy by allowing him to venture out into traffic by himself. In fact, even before his untimely death he had had several narrow escapes.

"We think he's about twelve-years-old but he has no road sense whatsoever," she candidly admitted shortly before his death. "He just runs across the road to the bus stop."

In Dodger's case, he does not have to cross the street in order to board the bus but that advantage is negated by his proclivity to wait for it in the street as opposed to on the curb. On top of that, West Street is very busy and congested on weekdays despite there being only thirteen-thousand residents in Bridport. (See photo above.)

It therefore is a foregone conclusion that unless Jeanes and First Bus do a far better job of safeguarding Dodger's fragile life than Finden and the company did with Casper, he is destined to suffer a similar fate. Under such depressing circumstances, it might not be too soon to initiate a death watch for him.

At the bare minimum, either Jeanes or another member of her family should put Dodger on the bus in the morning and be on hand to collect him when he returns later in the day. During the interval, his safety should be the responsibility of First Bus.

Cats have a legitimate right to their freedom but Jeanes's callous treatment of Dodger and Finden's failure to protect Casper are tantamount to cold-blooded, calculated acts of animal cruelty. Additionally, the deafening silence emanating from both the English media and animal rights groups regarding the safety and well-being of both Dodger and Casper speaks volumes for them but it is not a script that either of them would be flattered to have read back to them.

Much the same is true for the hundreds of commuters who ride the Bridport to Charmouth line every day. Unlike Thomas Harris's fictional character Clarice Starling, they never allow the terrified bleatings of innocent lambs to disturb their repose.

Photos: BNPS and the Daily Mail (Dodger), The Sun (Casper), Amazon (book jacket), and D1169254 of Wikipedia (West Street).

Veterinary Watchdog Group Not Only Allows an Incompetent Substitute Practitioner to Get Away With Killing Junior but Scolds His Owner for Complaining

2012-01-19T15:51:00.004-05:00

"J' ai eu l'impression que ce vétérinaire ne pensait qu' à l'argent et que l'état de santé de mon chat le laissait complètement indifférent. Les vétérinaires font ce qu'ils veulent sur les animaux."
-- Graziella Croisé

When seven-year-old Junior developed a fever and stopped eating in June of 2010 his devoted owner, Graziella Croisé, took him to see an unidentified veterinarian doing business on l'avenue Charles-de-Gaule in Laon, approximately one-hundred-twenty kilometers north of Paris. Because he also was underweight and had a weak pulse, the practitioner initially diagnosed him to be suffering from either the Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) or Feline Leukemia (FeLV). Despite the fact that Junior was listless and had pale gums, it apparently never occurred to him that he also might be suffering from anemia.

He therefore gave Junior an injection of antibiotics. He also gave Croisé a week's supply of pills to give him plus a prescription to be filled. She returned to the surgery two days later at which time a blood sample was taken at the tune of €63.95.

Croisé made a third visit to the veterinarian two days later and that was when he informed her that Junior had tested positive for FIV and was going to die. He gave him another injection and relieved her of an additional €160.

At that same time she also learned to her horror that not only had Junior been anesthetized when the blood sample was taken but that the veterinarian also had extracted a tooth and cleaned the remaining teeth. Since both the administration of general anesthesia and the removal of the tooth were undertaken before the blood sample had been analyzed and, more importantly, without her knowledge and consent, she believes that they contributed to Junior's unnecessary suffering and premature death exactly four days after his initial visit to the surgery.

The utterly deplorable situation is further complicated by the fact that Junior was treated by a substitute veterinarian. It is unclear from the record, however, exactly when Croisé learned of that.

Croisé, who also cares for four other cats and a dog, accordingly filed an official complaint against the veterinarian with the Conseil régional de l'ordre des vétérinaires Picardie (CROV) in Amiens. (See photo above of her with her poodle.)

On all counts she has just cause to complain. First of all, anesthetizing a cat is dangerous business that never should be undertaken except in emergencies. It is so dangerous in fact that some veterinarians require owners to sign consent forms beforehand.

In this regard it is important to remember that even sedating a cat in order to either transport it on an airplane or to untangle its fur can have deadly consequences and the administration of general anesthesia is far more dangerous than that. (See Cat Defender posts of April 7, 2009 and December 23, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Pregnant Minskin Arrives in Oregon Frozen as Solid as a Block of Ice Following a Fatal Cross-Country Flight in the Cargo Hold of an Airliner" and "Tavia's Desperate Pleas for Help Fall Upon the Deaf Ears of the Evangelical Who Abandoned Her and the Heartless Officials and Citizens of Kissimmee.")

Besides being potentially lethal, anesthesia is superfluous when it comes to taking blood and urine samples. Even in the case of a frightened cat veterinarians have muzzles, bags, gloves, towels, and various stereotactic devices at their disposal which preclude the need for intubating and knocking out a cat as cold as a stone.

Much more importantly, a pre-anesthetic blood screening would have detected Junior's anemia and warned the veterinarian against administering general anesthesia and extracting the tooth. In hindsight, it now appears that what he desperately needed was either oral medication or an emergency blood transfusion.

Although it has not been disclosed how the substitute veterinarian arrived at his diagnosis that Junior was FIV-positive, the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) test is the usual tool even though it is far from being one-hundred per cent accurate. As a consequence, it usually is supplemented by the Western Blot test.

In particular, kittens born to FIV-positive mothers will test positive for the disease under the ELISA regimen. Conscientious veterinarians therefore usually wait three to six months before testing them again with the Western Blot protocol. By that time the inherited antibodies usually have disappeared.

"Mon chat était certainement condamné mais ce qui lui a été fait par ce vétérinaire l' a achevé de façon inhumaine," Croisé told L'Union of Reims on June 17, 2010. (See "Son chat est mort du syndrome d'immunodéficience acquise, elle accuse le vétérinaire.")

In that regard the facts tend to indicate that she is only partially correct. In particular, FIV rarely is the death sentence that she and her veterinarian allege. Au contraire, most cats suffering from the malady live long, healthy, and relatively normal lives without any symptoms at all. (See The Orange County Register, August 24, 2008, "A New Look at FIV" and the Grand Traverse Herald of Traverse City, Michigan, September 2, 2008, "'Un-touchable' Cats Get New Lease on Life.")

Although there is not any per se treatment for FIV, infected cats should be fed good quality food and have their health closely monitored because any infection could be potentially life-threatening. Nevertheless, since the disease is transmitted by bites, it is not always necessary to even segregate these cats from their non-infected playmates.

Since it therefore seems unlikely that FIV was the cause of Junior's untimely death, suspicion falls upon the veterinarian's failure to diagnose and treat his anemia as the most likely culprit. Unless diagnosed and aggressively treated in a timely manner, anemia can be fatal. (See Cat Defender post of April 18, 2010 entitled "Ally's Last Ride Lands Her in a Death Trap Set by an Uncaring and Irresponsible Supermarket Chain and a Bargain Basement Shelter.")

In spite of all of that, the CROV sided wholeheartedly with the veterinarian and curtly dismissed Croisé's complaint in either late December of 2010 or in early January of 2011. It did not stop there, however, but availed itself of the opportunity presented to it in order to rake Croisé over the coals for having the temerity to even complain.

"Les actions thérapeutiques et de diagnostic du vétérinaire se sont inscrites dans la continuité et que la préocédure n'atablit aucune faute déontologique crédible à la charge du vétérinaire, lequel a rapporté avoir subi des injures et dénigrements non justifiés de la part de la plaignante qui a attaqué la profession dans son ensemble par voie de presse," the CROV ruled according to the January 5, 2011 edition of L'Union. (See "Chat mort du syndrome d'immunodéficience acquise: la vétérinaire hors de cause.")

If that simply absurd example of a professional whitewash sounds familiar it is because Croisé received even less satisfaction from the CROV than did Blaydon Burn resident Heather Irwin when she complained to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) about an incompetent veterinarian who nearly killed her cat, Felix. (See Cat Defender post of June 17, 2010 entitled "Veterinarian Gets Away with Almost Killing Felix but Is Nailed by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons for Not Paying Her Dues.")

So, in the end, Croisé was left with only the satisfaction that she did not elect to have Junior's life snuffed out like so many other unconscionable cat owners do but instead stood faithfully by his side until the bitter end. "Je voyais qu'il était en train de mourir," she told L'Union in the June 17, 2010 article cited supra. "Je peux vous assurer qu'il a énormément souffert car je suis restée à ses côtés jusqu' à son dernier souffle."

Like so many other cat and dog owners all over the world, Croisé learned much too late that the vast majority of veterinarians care only about money. "J'ai eu l'impression que ce vétérinaire ne pensait qu' à l'argent et que l'état de santé de mon chat le laisait complètement indifférent," she averred to L'Union in the June 17, 2010 article cited supra. "Les vétérinaires font ce qu'ils veulent sur les animaux. Ils sont formatés pour vendre. C'est ça qui me dégoûte."

As far as Croisé's complaint about being overcharged is concerned, that is merely par for the course in that most veterinarians, and MDs as well, seldom pass up an opportunity in order to gouge the public. That is what Brian Burgess of Sandyford in Staffordshire found out firsthand on December 16th when his sixteen-year-old cat suffered what he claims to have been a stroke.

When he first telephoned a local veterinarian he was told that it would cost him £119 to have his stricken cat dispatched to the devil. After the dirty deed was done, however, the veterinarian turned around and hit him up for £141.59.

"Once again, another institution has jumped on the bandwagon to screw the general public out of money," he complained January 16th in a letter to the editors of The Sentinel of Stoke-on-Trent. (See "£141 Put My Pet Cat to Sleep.") "The vets that I knew as a child were dedicated to the welfare of any animal and they were moderate with their fees according to your standard of living. But the new generation of vets is pay up or your animal can suffer, and if you have not got insurance, tough luck."

While it sans doute is true that neither the veterinary nor medical professions any longer have much in the way of compassion for the impecunious, cat owners such as Burgess certainly have not changed their way of thinking. Specifically, when it comes to medicating and attending to the needs of their elderly and sick companions they are every bit as cheap and lazy as their ancestors.

Based solely upon his own words, Burgess apparently contemplated taking even far more drastic measures in order to rid himself of his moral responsibilities to his stricken cat. "Do I take her home and watch her die in agony, take her down to the canal with a brick around her neck, or simply belt her across the head with a hammer?" he asked the readers of The Sentinel.

Individuals like Burgess are so uncaring and such cheapskates that the mere thought of procuring competent veterinary care for their ailing cats is as alien to them as cutting off their own hands. Au fond, they fail to recognize any discernible moral difference between a sick cat and a broken alarm clock; consequently, they view them both simply as objects to be chucked out in the trash once that they have outlived their usefulness.

It also would be interesting to know exactly how Burgess determined that his cat had suffered a Feline Ischemic Encephalopathy (FIE) in that even blood samples, urinalysis, and radiography are not always capable of making that type of sophisticated diagnosis; instead, usually either an MRI or a computed tomography (CT) is required.

Much more importantly, if an FIE is diagnosed early and localized, a full recovery is possible. In such cases, cats usually start to show signs of improvement within seventy-two hours and most return to normal within two to three weeks. Therefore, if Burgess had cared anything about his cat he would have put his precious bob to far better use by procuring treatment for her instead of cruelly and heartlessly having her killed.

None of that in any way obviates the pressing need for legitimate veterinary care that is affordable. As things now stand, many loving but impoverished cat owners are left without any alternative other than to sit idly by and watch their beloved companions die due to a lack of moola.

The odious practice of veterinarians maiming and killing cats, dogs, and other animals while simultaneously cleaning out their owners' pockets is by no means confined to France, Angleterre, and the United States; on the contrary, the practice of veterinary medicine is a racket that does not recognize any boundaries and extends worldwide. Of particular concern are veterinary chains, such as Medivets in England, which employ unqualified assistants at slave wages to perform procedures that should be left to licensed veterinarians. (See Cat Defender post of January 11, 2012 entitled "A Deadly Intrigue Concocted by a Thief, a Shelter, and a Veterinary Chain Costs Ginger the Continued Enjoyment of His Golden Years.")

For instance, in March of 2010 public relations consultant Wendy Leow took her beloved three-month-old Shih Tzu, Precious, to a veterinarian in Petaling Jaya in the Malaysian state of Selangor to be treated for a skin problem. Without even performing so much as a skin swab, which is customary in such cases, the practitioner diagnosed Precious to be suffering from the mange.

Dissatisfied with the treatment that Precious was receiving, Yeow took him to another veterinarian in Bricksfield, outside of Kuala Lumpur, who correctly diagnosed him to be suffering only from a common yeast infection and not the mange. Yeow accordingly was advised to put him on a fish diet and to add a teaspoon of yogurt to his food dish.

Unfortunately by that time the damage had been done and it was necessary for the second veterinarian to perform emergency surgery on Precious's ulcerated right eye. Afterwards the eye had to be sutured shut for forty days in order to give it a chance to heal. Despite that effort, his vision has been irreparably damaged due to scarring.

As Yeow was to later learn, the veterinarian who so grotesquely misdiagnosed Precious's condition was not a real veterinarian but only an unqualified assistant. (See photo above of Precious and his damaged eye.)

Even more outrageously, the same surgery killed a one-year-old Pekingese earlier in March of 2009 at its Kuala Lumpur office by botching a routine sterilization. The veterinarian not only punctured the female's intestines but was so careless as to leave behind fur in the wound.

After somehow enduring all of that, the poor dog was left unattended in a deserted clinic to suffer alone. (See photo immediately above.)

The dog's owner who is known only by the nom de guerre of Elsie took the dog to another veterinarian who performed emergency surgery on her but, tragically, was unable to save her life. Adding insult to injury, Elsie was threatened when she had the cheek to complain to the first veterinarian about killing her dog.

"I'm so sad about losing my dog," she told The Star of Kuala Lumpur on September 27, 2010. (See "Beware Bogus Vets.") "I hope someone can do something and stop more animals from dying because of this horrible vet."

It additionally is not uncommon in Malaysia for veterinarians to allow their spouses to treat sick animals. Pet shop owners who practice veterinary medicine without being licensed to do so are another huge problem.

"They not only vaccinate, they do spaying surgery, castration, and so on. And they are cheap," Paul Chelliah of the Malaysian Small Animal Veterinary Association told The Star in the article cited supra. "Some of them are former DVS (Department of Veterinary Services) staff who are not qualified, just assistants previously. Some of them operate from their houses or go house to house. I have confronted some of them but they laughed and challenged me to do something."

Even the United States has its share of bogus and incompetent veterinarians. (See Cat Defender posts of February 14, 2006 and February 26, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Special Agent Fred the Cat Goes Undercover to Help Nab a Quack Vet in Brooklyn Sting Operation" and "The Dark Side of Spay and Neuter: Veterinarian Botched Surgeries and Back Alley Castrations Claim the Lives of Numerous Cats.")

As far greater problem in the land of guns and dollar bills are veterinarians who, although more or less competent, do not have an ounce of respect for the sanctity of feline life. (See Cat Defender post of December 22, 2011 entitled "Rogue TNR Practitioner and Three Unscrupulous Veterinarians Kill at Least Sixty-Two Cats with the Complicity of the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals.")

The portrait of the veterinary profession that emerges from all of these cases is not a very pretty one. On the one hand, pet owners who take their companions to surgeries are often unwittingly handing them over to be treated by substitutes recruited from parts unknown and with dubious qualifications, unqualified assistants, relatives of licensed practitioners, and outright quacks. On the other hand, there is not any guarantee that even when a licensed practitioner can be secured that either he or she will behave in a competent and professional manner.

Worst of all is the marked disdain that the profession harbors in its malignant bosom for treating and saving animals. Watchdog groups such as the RCVS, CROV, and the despicable American Veterinary Medical Association do not any more police their colleagues than the Better Business Bureau regulates the conduct of its greedy, unscrupulous members.

Caveat emptor therefore is the rule whenever selecting a veterinarian. Moreover, locating an honest, sincere, and competent practitioner is only half the battle; a wheelbarrow chock-full of cash also is needed.

If at all possible, no owner ever should allow a cat to be left alone with a veterinarian. That is the faux pas that Croisé committed and it ended up costing Junior his life.

Photos: L'Union (Croisé), The Star (Precious and the Pekingese).

A Deadly Intrigue Concocted by a Thief, a Shelter, and a Veterinary Chain Costs Ginger the Continued Enjoyment of His Golden Years

2012-01-11T14:14:00.002-05:00

"Ginger was put down without consent, without giving us a chance to find him. We should have been given at least twenty-four hours to find him. We believe our rights have been taken away by the vets."
-- Beverley Hume

James Bond is far from being the only person with a license to kill. Veterinarians also enjoy the same privilege and, so long as they are handsomely rewarded for their services, it is one that they seldom pass up an opportunity to exercise.

The latest defenseless cat to fall prey to these miserable, unprincipled, moneygrubbing scoundrels was a twenty-five-year-old one named Ginger who lived with his fifty-six-year-old owner, Beverley Hume, at Kent Court in the Kingston Park section of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. (See photo of him above.)

The events that culminated in his untimely demise are straightforward enough and not in dispute. Hume, as was her custom, allowed him out into her garden to play on the morning of October 13th.

An unidentified local resident shortly thereafter abducted him from the street and delivered him up to the Newcastle Dog and Cat Shelter (NDCS) on Benton Road. The shelter in turn fobbed him off to Blythman and Partners in the Gosforth section of the city who promptly killed him. The entire affair, beginning when he exited Hume's residence and ending with his death on a cold slab at Blythman, barely took three hours.

As per usual, the veterinarians claim that Ginger was suffering way too much in order to be allowed to go on living for so much as another minute. "We were presented with a very thin, elderly cat crying in pain and having difficulty standing," senior partner Heather Morton told the Daily Mail on October 20th. (See "Furious Cat Owner Slams Vets after Pet Was Put Down Three Hours after It Went Missing.") "He was examined by two veterinary surgeons and was screaming in pain due to a tooth root abscess penetrating his jaw and tracking into the eye socket."

First of all and contrary to what Morton and many others believe, being old should not be a capital offense for either a cat or a man. In human terms, Ginger was the equivalent of one-hundred-sixteen-years-old and it certainly would not have been anything out of the ordinary for him to have been thin and, perhaps, a little unsteady on his feet. The fact that he had lost his right eye years ago no doubt contributed to his looking old and frail.

Hume, who runs a dress shop in the nearby village of Ponteland, ardently contradicts all of Blythman and Partners' conclusions. While readily acknowledging that Ginger was suffering from an abscess, she points out that he was receiving antibiotic injections from her vet and was doing fine.

She furthermore disputes the claim that Ginger was experiencing difficulties walking. "He had a new lease on life recently and was taking his walks and enjoying himself," she told the Evening Chronicle of Newcastle on October 18th. (See "Missing Pet in Newcastle Put Down by Vet.") "His own vet treating him in Ponteland said he was a remarkable cat."

She additionally vociferously denies that he was in any kind of pain. "If I thought for a second that my cat was suffering I would have done something about it," she added to the Daily Mail in the article cited supra.

Sans doute Hume is a dedicated cat owner because she graciously accepted custody of the then fifteen-year-old, one-eyed cat way back in 2001 when her parents, Gwen and George Clay, died and left him homeless. After all, there are not too many individuals in this world who are willing to take on the moral and financial responsibilities of caring for an aged cat. She, accordingly, is deserving of nothing but praise for her magnanimity and compassion.

A cat's health can, however, rapidly deteriorate and tooth abscesses not only can be excruciatingly painful but debilitating as well and that applies to animals as well as to humans. It also is probable that Ginger became traumatized as the result of being bandied about by his abductor, shelter personnel, and his executioners.

He therefore could have been howling as much in fear as he was in pain. Even if his tooth had taken a turn for the worst that was not any reason for the vets to have killed him.

This is only conjecture but more than likely NDCS has an arrangement with Blythman to do its dirty work for it and the latter quickly decided to kill off Ginger so that it could collect another hefty fee. After all, veterinarians seldom say so much as hello unless they get paid for doing so.

Blythman also attempts to justify its cold-blooded murder of Ginger on the grounds that he neither was microchipped nor wearing a collar. Being practicing veterinarians, Morton and her colleagues most assuredly are aware that most cats do not carry identification.

That is because implanted microchips, in addition to offering absolutely no protection against the machinations of ailurophobes, have been demonstrated to cause cancer. (See Cat Defender posts of November 6, 2010 and September 21, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Bulkin Contracts Cancer from an Implanted Microchip and Now It Is Time for Digital Angel and Merck to Answer for Their Crimes in a Court of Law" and "FDA Is Suppressing Research That Shows Implanted Microchips Cause Cancer in Mice, Rats, and Dogs.")

Collars, on the other hand, can come off and, elastic ones in particular, are easily transformed into killing devices. (See Cat Defender posts of June 22, 2010 and May 28, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Hobson Is Forced to Wander Around Yorkshire for Months Trapped in an Elastic Collar That Steadily Was Eating Away at His Shoulder and Leg" and "Collars Turn into Death Traps for Trooper and Que but Both Are Rescued at the Eleventh Hour.")

If Blythman's conduct in this regard was totally inexcusable, that is doubly true for NDCS because it candidly admits to being cognizant of these problems. "If you have lost your cat please ensure that you come to Newcastle Dog and Cat Shelter on a regular basis to view our stray cats, a telephone call to us is not enough as collars and tags can fall off, descriptions may vary and occasionally a microchip cannot be found," it declares on its web site. (See "Lost Cats" at www.dogandcatshelter.com)

Of course, all of that palaver is useless since NDCS quite obviously fobs off some cats to Blythman to be executed. Once again, a shelter has been caught publicly advocating one thing and doing something entirely different when no one is watching. (See Cat Defender post of July 29, 2010 entitled "Benicia Vallejo Humane Society Is Outsourcing the Mass Killing of Kittens and Cats All the While Masquerading as a No Kill Shelter.")

On a much more fundamental level, the veterinarians surely were aware that cats do not live as long as Ginger without having someone to feed, shelter, and medicate them. "It must have been obvious that he belonged to someone," Hume pointed out to the Daily Mail.

Blinded by greed and disdainful of the sanctity of feline life, it is doubtful that Blythman would have spared Ginger's life if he had been tethered to a hot air balloon that announced in bold lettering that he was owned by Hume.

Hume is, justifiably, every bit as infuriated with Ginger's unidentified abductor as she is with Blythman. "Some do-gooder lifts him from near his home and takes him to a shelter and three hours later he's dead. It's disgusting!" she railed to the Daily Mail. "Cats have the right by law to roam around and by snatching him away they took away his rights."

Since nearly everyone alive is aware of the petit fait that shelters are nothing more than thinly disguised killing factories, the individual who stole Ginger off the street was anything but a Good Samaritan. He or she very well could be a cat-hater who delivered Ginger to the knackers at NDCS with the explicit purpose of having him killed. (See Cat Defender posts of June 15, 2006 and August 19, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Serial Cat Killer on Long Island Traps Neighbors' Cats and Then Gives Them to Shelter to Exterminate" and "Music Lessons and Buggsey Are Murdered by a Cat-Hating Gardener and an Extermination Factory Posing as an Animal Shelter in Saginaw.")

Considering how lethal shelters are to cats, none of them, neither domestics nor rough-sleepers, belong within a mile of any of them. Moreover, as recent events in New York City have demonstrated, veterinarians are every bit as deadly for cats as shelters. (See Cat Defender post of December 22, 2011 entitled "Rogue TNR Practitioner and Three Unscrupulous Veterinarians Kill at Least Sixty-Two Cats with the Complicity of the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals.")

To her credit, Hume is not about to sit idly by and allow Ginger's murder to go unavenged. She has, for example, initiated a Justice for Ginger campaign as well as filing a formal complaint against Blythman with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS).

If Blaydon Burn resident Heather Irwin's dealings with those slackers is in any way indicative of how they discipline their colleagues, Hume is wasting both her time and money. Although Silke Birgitt Lindridge of Consett Veterinary Center nearly killed Irwin's seven-year-old cat, Felix, back in 2007 by grotesquely incorrectly setting his broken left leg, the RCVS pulled her license for only three months.

Most outrageous of all, that was not in retaliation for what she had done to Felix but rather for failing to pay her dues. It thus would appear that the RCVS cares only about getting its cut of the action and absolutely nothing about the welfare of animals. (See Cat Defender post of June 17, 2010 entitled "Veterinarian Gets Away with Almost Killing Felix but Is Nailed by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons for Not Paying Her Dues.")

Hume's task is further complicated by Blythman's chummy relationship with the RCVS. "As one of a limited number of recognized Veterinary Nurse Training Centers approved by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, Blythman and Partners offers the best in animal care," the surgery boasts on its web site.

Although veterinary chains, such as Blythman which has eight offices scattered around Tyne and Wear, are not known to be any more bloodthirsty, greedy, and incompetent than independent operations, this case once again has rekindled the debate over the advisability of retailing the practice of veterinary medicine along the same lines that Kmart and Walmart sell general merchandise. Most notably, the growth of such operations certainly has not led to any discernible amelioration in the exorbitant prices that they and all veterinarians demand.

Just as importantly, there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that chain surgeries actually scrimp on personnel and pay lower wages than their competitors so as to even further enhance their bottom lines. At least that was one of the alarming discoveries made by the BBC during an investigation of Medivets in 2009 and 2010.

The BBC hired Alex Lee to work undercover for nine months at one of Medivets' seventy surgeries around the country and even though she had received only three weeks of training she was asked to insert catheters and to administer injections. She also observed patients being beaten and abused as well as their owners being charged out the wazoo for services that never were rendered.

"What I discovered will send a shudder of disquiet through the hearts of pet owners who believe they are entrusting the sick animals they love to the exclusive care of qualified practitioners," she told the Daily Mail on July 23, 2010. (See "Undercover at One of Britain's Largest Vets Where Sick Animals Are Abused, Pet Owners Ripped Off and Trainees Carry Out Life-or-Death Procedures.") "While I concede that many of the vets employed by Medivet are, indeed, diligent, skilled and scrupulous, others I have observed are guilty of malpractice, dishonesty and delegating critical tasks to unqualified nurses such as myself."

For its part, Medivet immediately cut its losses by apologizing and promising that remedial action would be taken. "We are shocked and appalled at the behavior of a few of our staff, and wish to apologize unreservedly for this," the chain told the BBC on July 23, 2010. (See "Medivet Responds to Panorama.") "We have immediately suspended a number of staff shown in the program to have behaved unacceptably, and disciplinary procedures will follow. This will include reporting possible professional misconduct to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons."

The obvious problem with all such inquiries, whether they be undertaken by either the BBC or the RCVS, is that few individuals either inside or outside the veterinary medical profession have any regard for the sanctity of animal life. As a result, veterinarians are at liberty to not only kill cats like Ginger with impunity but to withhold treatment from the impecunious. (See Cat Defender post of July 16, 2010 entitled "Tossed Out the Window of a Car Like an Empty Beer Can, Injured Chattanooga Kitten Is Left to Die after at Least Two Veterinarians Refused to Treat It.")

Besides, it is not in their financial interest to provide expert veterinary care. In Medivet's case, doing so would substantially cut into the £20 million that it rakes in annually.

Although the odds are against her, Hume knows that her cause is just. "Ginger was put down without consent, without giving us a chance to find him," she told the Daily Mail in the October 20th article cited supra. "We should have been given at least twenty-four-hours to find him. We believe our rights have been taken away by the vets."

That is putting it rather mildly! The individual who abducted Ginger should be jailed for theft and both the NDCS and Blythman indicted for murder. What they did was not only criminal but morally reprehensible.

Unfortunately, snuffing out the lives of innocent cats is so ingrained in western culture that none of them did anything that the RSPCA and other so-called animal protection groups do not do every day of the week. (See Cat Defender posts of June 5, 2007 and October 23, 2010 entitled, respectively, "RSPCA's Unlawful Seizure and Senseless Killing of Mork Leaves His Sister, Mindy, Brokenhearted and His Caretakers Devastated" and "RSPCA Steals and Executes Nightshift Who Was His Elderly Caretaker's Last Surviving Link to Her Dead Husband.")

"We're all mortified. Ginger was a member of our family," Hume added to the Daily Mail. "When the vets told me I thought 'how dare you'?"

The answer to that rhetorical question is the same as it is in regard to the behavior of shelters, Animal Control officers, rescue groups, police officers, and all others who kill cats. In short, it is because there is absolutely nothing to stop them from committing their heinous crimes.

The only way that these senseless killings can be stopped is to outlaw the killing of cats by all individuals and groups under all circumstances. No discretion can be allowed because these groups have demonstrated time and time again that they have very little regard for the sanctity of feline life and ruthlessly will exploit any leeway that is given to them.

For the time being, Hume has been left with her grief and outrage. Even children living at Kent Court have been touched by Ginger's murder because, as according to Hume, "he was such a little character."

Of course, Ginger has lost the most. With topnotch veterinary care and Hume looking out for him at every turn, he conceivably could have lived for as long as another five or ten years.

Instead, his wonderfully long life ended horribly at the hands of no-good, rotten strangers who have nothing in their black souls except an overpowering love of money and an utter contempt for cats. Ginger deserved far better than that and, at the very least, should have been allowed to die at home of natural causes.

The final disposition of his remains is unknown. Hopefully, they were returned to Hume so that she not only could provide him with a proper interment but also receive a measure of closure as well.

Photo: Beverley Hume.

Nico Dauphiné Is Let Off with an Insultingly Lenient $100 Fine in a Show Trial That Was Fixed from the Very Beginning

2012-01-06T14:11:00.003-05:00

"I plan to go back to the community (of fellow cat abusers and killers) and work to repair all the damage that has been done."
-- Nico Dauphiné

Dr. Nico Dauphiné strutted out of Superior Court in Washington on December 14th as a free woman and no doubt laughing up her sleeve all the while at the corruption and utter imbecility of the American judicial system. Thanks to the mindless generosity of Judge Truman A. Morrison III, all that her attempted poisoning of a colony of homeless cats in Meridian Hill Park last spring cost her was a measly $100, or the equivalent of a local parking ticket. (See photo of her above grinning like the devil.)

If she is like most cheap-ass, penny-pinching academics, she will squeal from here until she is interred about being forced to part with her precious shekels but other than that she could not have many complaints. After all, under District of Columbia law she could have been fined up to $1,000 and sentenced to serve as much as one-hundred-eighty days in jail.

Even though her fine has been earmarked for the Crime Victims Compensation Fund, it is highly unlikely that the cats' caretakers, who first discovered the rat poison and antifreeze in their feeding dishes, will see so much as a red cent of it. In addition to receiving a one-hundred-eighty-day suspended sentence, Dauphiné was ordered to perform one-hundred-twenty-hours of unspecified community service and placed on probation for a year. During that period she has been ordered to stay away from cats.

Dauphiné, who proclaimed her innocence throughout the proceedings that culminated in her conviction for misdemeanor animal cruelty on October 31st, did not utter either a syllable of contrition or accept any responsibility for her heinous conduct. Rather, she put the time allotted her by Morrison to good use by groveling on the carpet for a new sinecure that will enable her to finance another feline killing spree.

"I plan to go back to the community and work to repair all the damage that has been done," she is quoted as telling the court in the December 14th edition of the Washington Post. (See "Former National Zoo Employee Placed on Probation, Ordered to Stay Away from All Cats for a Year.")

By community she sans doute is referring to that closely-knit gang of inveterate cat-haters and killers known as ornithologists and wildlife biologists. She also only refers to the damage that has been done to the cat killing movement as opposed to the damage that she has done to it.

She additionally told the court that she was "very ashamed" to have disappointed her supporters and colleagues and that she knew that she faced an "enormous task ahead" in regaining their esteem," CNN reported on December 15th. (See "Ex-National Zoo Employee Sentenced in Attempted Feral Cat Poisoning.")

Translated into plain and simple English, Dauphiné is not the least bit ashamed of attempting to poison the cats; au contraire, she is immensely proud of that. What she is embarrassed about is finally getting caught flagrante delicto and losing her job at the Smithsonian's National Zoo and the myriad of opportunities that it presented her to abuse and kill cats.

On that point even the loony Morrison is in agreement with her. "This is a serious offense, more serious than many misdemeanors," he gassed to the Washington Post in the article cited supra. "Her career is now in grave jeopardy and will never be what it was before she was prosecuted and convicted."

By blowing it out both ends like that Morrison was not only attempting to hoodwink the public but to excuse his irresponsible decision to let off Dauphiné scot-free. In fact, he has freely admitted that simply being convicted was punishment enough for her.

Much more importantly, both he and Dauphiné know only too well that her time in the unemployment line is destined to be exceedingly brief in that ornithologists and wildlife biologists comprise a criminal fraternity where cat killers are always welcomed with opened arms. It therefore would not be surprising if she has not already been flooded with job offers from universities and various other cat-hating groups.

After all, seemingly every university in the the country is chock-full of not only feline defamers, but professors who kill, cut up, and use cats as guinea pigs in order to collect data that they in turn employ in order to justify mass slaughters of them. Their specialty, however, lies in brainwashing feeble-minded cretins like Dauphiné into committing the criminal acts that they are too cowardly to commit themselves. (See Cat Defender post of July 18, 2011 entitled "Evil Professors Have Transformed College Campuses into Hotbeds of Hatred Where Cats Routinely Are Vilified, Horribly Abused, and Systematically Killed.")

Back during the 1980's, a conviction on an applicant's curriculum vitae was sufficient in order to secure a position as a vice president at the Wall Street investment bank of Drexel Burnham Lambert and ornithologists and wildlife biologists, being every bit as thick and totally unscrupulous as those inveterate thieves, look after their own in pretty much the same fashion. Only recently, serial cat killer James Munn Stevenson parlayed his atrocities into both fame and fortune. (See Cat Defender post of August 7, 2008 entitled "Crime Pays! Having Made Fools Out of Galveston Prosecutors, Serial Cat Killer James Munn Stevenson Is Now a Hero and Laughing All the Way to the Bank.")

That rosy assessment of Dauphiné's prospects is further buttressed by the many letters that her friends, colleagues, and supporters sent to Morrison arguing in favor of, not leniency, but rather her complete innocence. The Smithsonian, which employed, trained, and protected her right up until her conviction, may even eventually rehire her once the uproar generated by her criminal activities dies down.

It even is conceivable that it, which receives almost a billion dollars annually from the taxpayers, is footing the bill for her defense. If not, there certainly is not any shortage of bird and wildlife advocacy groups who would be more than willing to assume that responsibility.

If Morrison truly were concerned about the state of Dauphiné's finances, the proper thing for him to have done was to open up his silk purse and spot her a couple of hundred grand in order to tide her over this rough patch in her career. If, on the other hand, he was too cheap to have done that, he should have passed the hat for her.

On a much more fundamental level, Morrison's grave concern for the middle-class Dauphiné's financial well-being stands in stark contrast with how jurists treat the poor and working class. Instead of suspended sentences, kind words, and compassion, they are brusquely hustled off to the hoosegow and their families are left to fend for themselves as best they are able.

Once they are returned to society their jobs are long gone and sometimes their abodes and families as well. It is totally inconceivable that any jurist would cry out his peepers for them like Morrison has done for Dauphiné.

Added to that, Dauphiné's crimes are far more egregious than those of the average offender. Besides, she has enjoyed every advantage in life that most of them have been denied.

If Morrison were worth a hill of beans as a judge instead of behaving like the stench of the bench he would reserve his compassion for those offenders who truly are worthy of it instead of squandering it on a hate-filled cat killer. There is a place in sound jurisprudence for compassion and leniency but for one middle-class elite from the federal bureaucracy to bestow it on another as an act of professional courtesy is definitely not it.

Morrison also dishonestly argued that Dauphiné did not belong in jail because she did not have a prior criminal record. Although that is technically true, he surely was well aware that while she was a graduate student at the University of Georgia (UGA) she made quite a name for herself by illegally trapping dozens, if not indeed hundreds, of cats at apartment complexes in Athens and then handing them over to shelters to be killed. Furthermore, since UGA supplied her with the traps that makes it and, by extension, the state of Georgia complicit in her crimes.

She therefore has a long history of killing cats. The only thing that changed when she came north to Washington was her tactics and even that is problematic. For example, Assistant United States Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Chambers told the court that Dauphiné had pressured apartment managers in Washington to ban the feeding of cats on their grounds. It therefore is highly likely that in addition to poisoning cats in Meridian Hill Park she also may have reprised the tactics that she employed so successfully in Athens.

"She attempted to take a life," Chambers' colleague, Clare Pozos, told the court in arguing that Dauphiné should receive counseling as opposed to time in the clink. Morrison also vetoed that suggestion by, once again, arguing that her conviction alone was sufficient.

On that point he, uncustomarily, made the correct decision but for the wrong reason. Specifically, a career criminal such as Dauphiné is beyond any help that the field of psychology can provide. In dealing with low-life scumbags like her society can either lock her up permanently or idiotically turn her loose so that she can continue to kill cats with impunity; there is not any middle ground.

In one of those rare moments where they actually indulged in telling the truth, Pozos and Chambers admitted as much themselves. "Instead, the defendant has advocated for the elimination of feral cat populations through euthanasia," they wrote in court pleadings cited by CNN. "The government is concerned that by attempting to poison cats, the defendant intended to effectuate the message her public works and advocacy were unable to achieve."

The sentencing, which originally had been scheduled for November 21st, was pushed back to December 14 because on November 14th Dauphiné unceremoniously fired her attorneys, William R. "Billy" Martin and Kerry Brainard Verdi, from the high-powered Washington law firm of Dorsett and Whitney. In their stead she has retained Molly Cannon of O'Toole, Rothwell, Wassau and Steinbach.

In court pleadings posted online, Cannon has indicated that she plans to either seek a new trial or to appeal Dauphiné's conviction. So, in the end, Dauphiné may ultimately get to hold on to her beloved $100 and even be allowed to forgo performing the community service ordered by the court.

Despite the absurdity of Dauphine's sentence, the Washington Humane Society (WHS) has been salivating all over itself like the village idiot in the throes of an epileptic fit. "Justice was served today," the organization's Lisa LaFontaine chirruped in a December 14th press release. (See "Nico Dauphiné Sentenced to One-Hundred-Eighty Day Suspended Sentence, One-Hundred-Twenty Hours of Community Service.") "Every animal regardless of breed, age, condition or any other factor, deserves protection from cruelty and abuse."

After the poison was found in the cats' food dishes, the WHS, to its credit, used footage taken from surveillance cameras in Meridian Hill Park and outside Dauphiné's swanky digs on Fifteenth Street in the city's northwest quadrant in order to arrest her and it was that evidence which ultimately led to her conviction. (See photo above of her returning home after poisoning the cats' food.)

In hindsight it now appears clear that the WHS never would have arrested Dauphiné if it had known beforehand that she was a big shot Ph.D. working for the highfalutin Smithsonian. That is attested to by not only LaFontaine's sottise but the WHS's unwillingness to demand that Dauphiné be jailed and banned from ever going near another cat for so long as she continues to breathe and pollute the air all around her.

The WHS's categorical refusal to investigate the Smithsonian's systematic abuse and killing of cats also makes a barefaced liar out of both it and LaFontaine. That is because while she was employed there Dauphiné was fitting cats with surveillance cameras in order to study how they interact with birds.

Such systematic abuse raises a myriad of anti-cruelty issues that the WHS is too craven to touch even with a twenty-foot pole. First of all, where does the Smithsonian get its cats? Secondly, under what conditions are they kept? And, most important of all, what happens to them once the Smithsonian is finished with them? (See Cat Defender posts of November 18, 2011 and July 12, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Nico Dauphiné, Ph.D., Is Convicted of Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats but Questions Remain Concerning the Smithsonian's Role" and "The Arrest of Nico Dauphiné for Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats Unmasks the National Zoo as a Hideout for Ailurophobes and Criminals.")

Given Dauphiné's record in both Athens and Washington, there can be little doubt that she systematically killed every single cat that she got her slimy, blood-soaked tentacles on and that her crimes had the full support of the welfare bums at the Smithsonian. Yet, LaFontaine and the WHS, charged with upholding the anti-cruelty statues, have turned a blind eye to this continuing wholesale slaughter of totally innocent and defenseless cats.

"Without a doubt there is more work to be done to bring the District of Columbia's feral cat population under control, and we will continue that work in conjunction with District of Columbia law in a safe, responsible and humane manner," LaFontaine pontificated in the press release cited supra.

That is big talk to be sure but it has very little correlation with the actual work of the WHS. Not only is it too craven to go after the Smithsonian, but it completely ignores the dastardly deeds committed against cats and other animals every hour of the day by vivisectors at governmental and private research laboratories in and around the nation's capital.

It also stands idly by running off at the mouth while the National Zoo mistreats its inmates with impunity and it will not lift so much as a finger in order to protect circus and farm animals. Worst of all, it operates two notorious killing factories in Washington that systematically exterminate thousands of cats each year. Like PETA, it is so morally warped that it actually considers its mass slaughter of innocent cats to be humane.

Much more importantly, cats and their caretakers in Washington are playing against a stacked deck because the president of the United States appoints all judges and prosecutors, both local and federal, that serve in the District of Columbia. Since the Smithsonian is part of the federal government, the government actually was serving as both defendant and prosecutor in this case.

Under such a perverted arrangement there was not any way that the cats and their caretakers could have received anything remotely resembling a fair hearing. The situation is analogous to a rugby team being allowed to bring its own officiating crew to a match.

If the legal doctrine of standing still carried any weight, such a glaring conflict of interest never would have been permitted. Dauphiné instead would have been tried either in a state court or by a special prosecutor appointed from outside the federal bureaucracy.

Moreover, the litmus test for prosecutors in all animal cruelty cases is that they seek substantial jail time for those accused; otherwise, such efforts are merely for show. In this case, the meager outcome hardly justifies the time and money devoted to apprehending and trying Dauphiné.

Nor does the legal establishment's whitewashing of her crimes contribute anything positive toward curbing similar conduct in the future by either Dauphiné in particular or ornithologists and wildlife biologists in general. If Morrison had so much as a single brain in his gourd he, at the bare minimum, would have given Dauphiné a lifetime ban on coming within so much as a hundred yards of any cat.

Morrison's inexcusable conduct is further compounded by the fact that the United States Government, led by the thoroughly despicable United States Fish and Wildlife Service, commits a myriad of crimes against cats each year and therefore no representative of it can hardly be said to be a disinterested party in cases such as this one.

If the collusion of the WHS, prosecutors, and Morrison to spare Dauphiné any jail time sounds like a familiar refrain from a very old song it is because that is essentially what München prosecutor Beate Miksch and presiding judge Gerhard Simon did back in August in order to set free amateur ornithologist Ernst Bernhard K. after he tortured to death a cat named Rocco with pepper spray and water in December of 2010. (See Cat Defender posts of August 17, 2011, August 8, 2011, and January 19, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Ernst K. Walks Away Smelling Like a Rose as Both the Prosecutor and Judge Turn His Trial for Killing Rocco into a Lovefest for a Sadistic Killer," "Ernst K.'s Trial for Kidnapping, Torturing, and Murdering Rocco Nears Its Climax in a München Courtroom," and "Bird Lover in München Illegally Traps Rocco and Then Methodically Tortures Him to Death with Water and Pepper Spray over an Eleven-Day Period.")

Despite the severity of the crime and Ernst K.'s guilty plea, Simon fined him an outrageously paltry €1500, which was to be paid to Tierschutzverein München, and placed him on probation for three years. Like Chambers and Pozos, Miksch did not ask for any jail time.

Another thing that the two cases have in common is the misplaced sympathies and priorities of the judges and prosecutors who tried them. In Ernst K.', case, both Miksch and Simon lavished all of their concern on him because he was old, allegedly ailing, has a sick wife, and had received, as well as distributed, hate materials. Never once did either of them utter so much as a syllable of compassion for either Rocco or his aggrieved owners.

The same perverted morality was the order of the day in Morrison's courtroom as he and prosecutors were too preoccupied with salvaging Dauphiné's precious little career as a cat killer to dispense either a modicum of justice or to protect cats living in Washington and elsewhere.

In both cases, neither the prosecutors nor the judges had any intention of punishing the abusers. Instead, both trials were carefully choreographed charades designed to deceive the public into falsely believing that a semblance of justice had been meted out when instead a green light had been given to ornithologists and wildlife biologists to continue killing cats.

The one difference that distinguishes the cases in that Tierschutzverein München took its campaign to secure justice for Rocco to the streets and right up to the courthouse door; by contrast, WHS sold out to the feds and then ran away and hid.

The conclusion is every bit as unmistakable as it is undeniable. Simply put, judges and prosecutors in Washington and München place zero value on the lives of cats. Moreover, they could care less about the rights and sentiments of their owners and caretakers.

Since neither humane groups, prosecutors, nor judges are willing to protect the lives and rights of cats, that job falls by default to their caretakers. In particular, Dauphiné's activities must be closely monitored from here on by private citizens because it is a foregone conclusion that she will kill again in the near future.

Her lenient sentence is doubly tragic in that not only has another cat-killing ornithologist escaped justice but Morrison has passed up a golden opportunity to engage in a little worthwhile social science research. In particular, since Dauphiné so glories in shanghaiing cats into becoming her personal guinea pigs, Morrison could have repaid her in kind by for once turning the tables on her.

"We'll get a better grade of prisons when we get a better grade of prisoners," is how former governor of Georgia Lester G. Maddox responded to federal criticism about the abominable conditions that prevailed in his state's prisons back during the 1970's. Most critics scoffed at that idea but he possibly could have been on to something.

In particular, it would have been interesting to see if having a Ph.D. incarcerated in one of Washington's hellhole jails led to any measurable improvement in conditions there. Also, since Dauphiné attended school in the Peach State it would be almost as if she were doing the old segregationist a favor by putting one of his theories to the test.

Photos: Cornell (Dauphiné) and CNN (Dauphiné on the prowl).

With No Reason Left to Go on Living, Tredworth Resident Takes His Own Life after His Beloved Cat Disappears

2012-01-02T11:44:00.005-05:00

"Photographs and memories
All the love you gave to me
Somehow it just can't be true
That's all I've left of you."
-- Jim Croce

Although cats bring immeasurable joy to their human admirers, they also cause them considerable heartache. This is principally due to their brief life expectancies. For kittens, it is even a worse scenario since their tenures on this earth often are measured in days, weeks, and months.

Cats also have innumerable detractors who do not hesitate to kill tens of millions of them each year with impunity. That, too, is a constant source of considerable grief, not to mention outrage, for fans of the species.

Occasionally the loss of a beloved cat is enough to push an individual over the edge and that is precisely what happened to fifty-eight-year-old Alan Jordan of Daventry Terrace in Tredworth, Gloucester, who killed himself last March after his cat mysteriously disappeared. (See photo above of Daventry Terrace.)

The grisly discovery was made on March 28th by Graham Nicholson and his colleagues from the mental health crisis team of the 2gether National Health Service Foundation Trust. "I got around to the back of the house, and could see the shape of a body against a window upstairs and I realized it might be Alan hanging," he told The Citizen of Gloucester on June 17th. (See "Devastated Cat Owner Took His Own Life When Pet Went Missing -- Inquest.")

Having been made redundant three years earlier, Jordan lived alone and had been suffering from depression for some time. In fact, he previously had made multiple attempts on his life. "He had taken Paracetamol (acetaminophen) tablets, cut his wrists and tried to hang himself," his personal physician, Jonathan Unwin, confided to The Citizen.

As a consequence, the crisis team began paying daily visits to his home. For some unexplained reason, those life-saving visits were of short duration and the last contact that the mental health professionals had with him was on March 26th and even that was via the telephone.

Nicholson claims to have visited Jordan's house three times on March 27th but was unable to get an answer at the door. Instead of telephoning right then and there for emergency assistance, he inexplicably took no further action.

There is a good chance that Jordan already was dead by then but that in no way exonerates 2gether Trust's irresponsible behavior. It employs twenty-three-hundred professionals to serve the 761,000 residents of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire and although that averages out to a three-hundred-thirty to one ratio, it still should have been able to find some additional time for Jordan. If it had continued the daily visits, or perhaps even institutionalized him for a while, he very well still might be alive today.

Quite obviously the mental health crisis team dramatically underestimated the detrimental effect that losing his cat was going to have on him. Despite mounting evidence of the therapeutic value of living with and caring for animals, many health professionals still do not take these mutually dependent, close and loving relationships seriously. (See Cat Defender posts of April 18, 2009 and May 18, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Blackie Stays Up Nights Monitoring His Guardian's Breathing for Emphysema Attacks" and "Elijah Teaches Himself How to Detect Low Blood Sugar Levels in His Guardians and Others.")

Still other cat owners credit their beloved companions with saving their lives by detecting cancerous growths. (See Cat Defender posts of April 11, 2009 and March 27, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Tiger Saves His Owner's Life by Alerting Him to a Cancerous Growth on His Left Lung" and "Taken In Off the Street by a Compassionate Woman, Sumo Returns the Favor by Alerting Her to a Cancerous Growth on Her Bosom.")

At Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, a cat named Oscar not only has taken it upon himself to comfort the dying but has astounded the medical profession by being able to far more accurately predict when a patient is going to die than modern science. (See Cat Defender posts of July 30, 2007 and May 27, 2010 entitled, respectively, "A Visit from Oscar the Cat Means the Grim Reaper Cannot Be Far Behind for the Terminally Ill at Rhode Island Nursing Home" and "When Lovers, Friends, Health, and All Hope Have Vanished, Oscar Is There for Those Who Have No One and Nothing Left.")

Mark Twain, who arguably was the greatest talent ever produced by this country, readily would have comprehended what Jordan's cat meant to him. "For where women and children are not, men of kindly impulses take up with pets, for they must love something," he sagely observed in Roughing It.

Unwin also was acutely aware of how deeply Jordan cared for his cat. "He was severely depressed, a problem which had come to a head three weeks before when he lost his cat," he told an inquest held in Cheltenham according to the June 16th edition of the Daily Mail. (See "Man, Fifty-Eight, Hangs Himself after His Cat Goes Missing...") "I contacted the mental health crisis team, who arranged to see him at home, and started him on antidepressant tablets."

In a modern retelling of O. Henry's famous short story, "The Gift of the Magi," Jordan's cat was found near his home a fortnight after his unfortunate suicide. Although disheveled, the cat is believed to have been otherwise unharmed.

Since no additional information has been made public, it is impossible to say what has become of it. Hopefully, its life has been spared and it has been placed in another loving home because it would be doubly tragic if society failed it the way 2gether Trust so obviously failed its distraught owner.

It is easy to understand why cats and other animals make such wonderful companions. "Animals are such agreeable friends," novelist George Eliot (née Mary Ann Evans) once said. "They ask no questions; they pass no criticisms."

Cats, unlike women, could care less whether a bloke is as rich as Croesus or as poor as a beggar in the street. Likewise, whether an individual is as handsome as Adonis or as ugly as a mud fence daubed with misery means absolutely nothing to them.

They furthermore are unconcerned about what position a person occupies in society's perverted pecking order. All that matters is how they are treated.

As an added bonus for sheltering, feeding, and medicating cats, individuals often discover previously unknown insights into themselves and the world around them. "Jusqu' à qu'on a aimé un amimal, une partie de son âme reste non-éveillé," Antatole France once observed.

Carl Van Vechten put the matter in even more forceful terms. "There is, indeed, no single quality of the cat that man could not emulate to his advantage," he wrote in The Tiger in the House. Poet Christopher Smart even postulated that simply "staring at one's cat will fertilize the mind."

The late celebrated cat writer Lilian Jackson Braun also was well aware of the edifying potential of cats. "These intelligent, peace-loving, four-footed friends -- who are without hate, without greed -- may someday teach us something," she once predicted. (See photo of her above on the right.)

For all these reasons and more, it is easy to understand how the disappearance of his beloved cat led Jordan to take his own life. Even for those individuals who are more mentally resilient losing a cat is never easy.

In such cases, little remains except the pain and memories. Songwriter and performer Jim Croce summed up the poverty of losing a loved one with the following lyrics:

"Photographs and memories
All the love you gave to me
Somehow it just can't be true
That's all I've left of you."

Sometimes cats leave behind a few other traces of their lives, such as paw prints and the telltale signs of cat typing indelibly etched into the fabric of old yellowed and unpublished manuscripts. Broken-down toys, bite marks on a favorite pen, and scratches on the wall from fighting with shadows are a few other precious mementos that only appreciate in value as the years slip away.

The big easy chair in the corner is, for the first time in years, now vacant but strangely enough one does not have any desire to sit in it. Then there is the half-empty bottle of fish oil capsules tucked away in a corner of the medicine cabinet. A mere rattling of it used to drive the beloved wild but now such behavior evokes only a deathly silence.

Whenever any of these sacred relics are stumbled upon time stops for a brief moment, the eyes mist up, and the sutured-up soul of a cat lover once again is torn asunder by the enormity of what has been lost and, tant pis, can never be reclaimed. If there is any consolation it lies in the grudging acceptance of the harsh reality that true love cannot exist without excruciating pain just as there cannot be May flowers without April showers.

Still, to have known the love of one or more cats during a lifetime is, despite all the sorrow, something pretty spectacular and more than sufficient a reward for having lived. That is no doubt what Charles Dickens had in mind when he once poignantly asked, "What greater gift than the love of a cat?"

Photos: Google (Daventry Terrace) and Fantastic Fiction (Braun).

Rogue TNR Practitioner and Three Unscrupulous Veterinarians Kill at Least Sixty-Two Cats with the Complicity of the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals

2011-12-22T13:26:00.003-05:00

"He (Anthony) was sweet, mellow and very laid back. Nothing bothered him. I called him the Rastafarian cat. One of my other cats, Parker, keeps looking for him and crying. Our hearts are broken."
-- Marie Nasta

Serial cat killers come in as many guises as the protagonist in Herman Melville's The Confidence Man and employ an equal number of ruses. For Paul Zhang, the public facade that he hid behind in order to mask his outrageous atrocities was that of a dedicated practitioner of TNR. (See photo of him above on the right.)

His modus operandi, although hardly novel, was every bit as mundane as it was diabolical. He borrowed traps from the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals and other unidentified groups, trapped at least sixty-two cats from colonies that he claims to have managed in Ridgewood, Queens, and Bushwick, Brooklyn, and then took them to at least three money-hungry, totally unscrupulous veterinarians in Queens who were only too happy to do his killing for him in return for, quite naturally, a hefty fee.

Since his recent unmasking, the forty-one-year-old Zhang has made more pirouettes around the truth than a dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet does during a season of performances. If each verbal revolution has proven anything, it is that he is not only a ruthless killer but an inveterate liar to boot.

For whatever it is worth, he claims to have been feeding and sterilizing cats at nine colonies in Ridgewood and Bushwick for the "past few years" but out of the blue one day decided to become their executioner because he could no longer go on feeding them. Other than indicating that he has relocated from Queens to Manhattan, Zhang has not provided any clue as to why he no longer was able to continue caring for the cats.

Since his claim to have been a humane practitioner of TNR never has been independently verified, it is conceivable that he has been trapping and killing cats all along. If that is true, the number of cats that he has had killed could be astronomical because he boldly claims to have assisted the Mayor's Alliance in trapping thousands of them. Besides, there are other nefarious ways in which to kill cats other than taking them to a veterinarian.

In categorically rejecting all humane alternatives, Zhang has sought sanctuary in the often repeated lie that he did not want to see the cats suffer. "I can't bear the thought of my animals getting out or being abandoned," he told The Gothamist on December 13th. (See "Sixty-Two Cats and Counting: Confessions of a Serial Cat Killer.") "So I did the best thing I can consider for them to never experience suffering. So I put them all down."

Although morally abhorrent and patently dishonest, such sophistry has many adherents. In particular, countless cat and dog owners scarcely think twice about killing off their companions once they become either elderly or incontinent.

In doing so they wallow in the same lies as Zhang when in reality they simply are too cheap to provide them with proper veterinary care and too lazy to clean up after them. (See Cat Defender posts of October 27, 2008 and March 12, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Loved and Admired All over the World, Feline Heroine Scarlett Is Killed Off by Her Owner after She Becomes Ill" and "Too Cheap and Lazy to Care for Him During His Final Days, Betty Currie Has Socks Killed Off and His Corpse Burned.")

That also is the gospel that disreputable PETA trumpets from the rooftops. Although the organization uncharacteristically has not publicly commented on Zhang's crimes, it surely must be thrilled to its rotten back teeth to have found such an ardent acolyte. (See Cat Defender posts of October 7, 2011, January 29, 2007, and February 9, 2007 entitled, respectively, "PETA Traps and Kills a Cat and Then Shamelessly Goes Online in Order to Brag about Its Criminal and Foul Deed," "PETA's Long History of Killing Cats and Dogs Is Finally Exposed in North Carolina Courtroom," and "Verdict in PETA Trial: Littering Is a Crime but Not the Mass Slaughter of Innocent Cats and Dogs.")

There are numerous rebuttals to such a morally repugnant and dishonest philosophy but none perhaps more pertinent than to point out that a cat is not a human. Whereas individuals can freely choose to have their lives extinguished by Dignitas and the likes of Jack Kevorkian, no cats ever have made such requests and inveterate cat-haters like Zhang and PETA do not have any right making them for them.

Even if cats were capable of talking, like Saki's fictional Tobermory, it is highly unlikely that any of them would freely choose to take the Roman way out of this vale of tears. In perhaps no species is the will to live any stronger than in cats. After all, it is not without reason that they are said to have nine lives.

As far as the argument about suffering is concerned, it is first of all patently untrue that homeless cats suffer far more than domesticated ones. Their lives sometimes are marred by pain and deprivations but they are free and lead fuller, more vibrant existences than do their house-bound cousins who often only grow fat and lazy.

Moreover, indoor cats are subject to a variety of ailments and toxins that do not affect those that live exclusively outdoors. (See Cat Defender posts of August 22, 2007 and October 19, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Indoor Cats Are Dying from Diabetes, Hyperthyroidism, and Various Toxins in the Home" and "Smokers Are Killing Their Cats, Dogs, Birds, and Infants by Continuing to Light Up in Their Presence.")

Much more poignantly, all life involves a far amount of suffering and that is true for cats as well as humans. It is impossible to have one without the other. The fact that cretins like Zhang and PETA exult in committing mass exterminations exposes their crocodile tears about suffering to be nothing but a self-serving fabrication.

It additionally is the very epitome of anthropomorphism run amuck for them to maintain that the lives of homeless cats do not have any value. "Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it," Henry David Thoreau once said. That is especially the case where the animals and Mother Earth are concerned but when it comes to cats some individuals and groups have gotten it into their desiccated gourds that they have a God-given right to kill them with impunity.

Before arriving at his abominable decision to have the cats liquidated, Zhang claims first to have sought out the assistance of multiple animal welfare organizations to take over their care but none would give him so much as the time of day. Ordinarily that is par for the course in that rescue groups, like social workers and theologians, blow long and hard about how much they love cats but whenever they actually are presented with live, breathing animals in need they suddenly become as deaf as adders and run for cover.

In Zhang's case, however, his claim is contradicted not only by two veterinarians but, much more importantly, his own words and deeds. In particular, he admits categorically refusing to hand over the cats to the city's Animal Care and Control (ACC), not out of a legitimate fear that they would be killed, but rather just the opposite.

"Because I also think Animal Care and Control does shit adoptions," he told The Gothamist in the article cited supra. "I'm sorry, I'm a little prejudiced but I've seen the people that come in to adopt there and I would never let my cats go with them."

On that point Zhang's fears were groundless because ACC either cannot or will not put up homeless cats for adoption. "There's no point in a feral cat going into Animal Care and Control because they can't adopt them out," Jane Hoffman of the Mayor's Alliance told The Gothamist on December 15th. (See "Don't Let Crazies Kill Kittens, Get Trap-Neuter-Release Certified.")

Since he undoubtedly was as well aware of that as everyone else, his choice to pay veterinarians in order to kill off the cats must have been undertaken solely in order to avoid detection.

The case against Zhang comes into sharper focus once the testimony of veterinarians who cooperated with him in his diabolical scheme is examined. In particular, an unidentified practitioner claims to have wanted to adopt out one of his cats but he would not permit it.

"I wanted to help him put it up for adoption since it was healthy and didn't show any aggression," the veterinarian told The Gothamist in the December 13th article cited supra. "It was against our ethics to put that to sleep, I wouldn't do it."

It is nice to know that the veterinarian belatedly located either his or her moral compass even if it was only after, according to Zhang, killing twenty-six other cats for him. The veterinarian's reference to the cat as "that" additionally demonstrates either an inability or an unwillingness to recognize a difference between animate and inanimate objects.

The only veterinary clinic so far to be publicly identified as willingly participating in Zhang's mass slaughter is Antelyes Animal Hospital at 6209 Fresh Pond Road in Middle Village, Queens. It was opened in 1985 by Patricia Squillace who was joined in practice in 1994 by Satomi Ueda.

"At Antelyes Animal Hospital, we know how much your pet means to you. After all, they are part of the family. And, because they're part of the family, your pets deserve the best medical care available," Squillace and Ueda proclaim on their web site. "Whether it's an emergency or regular preventative treatment, Antelyes Animal Hospital is Middle Village's best choice for quality veterinary services." (See photo above that appears on the surgery's web site.)

In addition to all of that it surely must be Middle Village's number one cat killing factory because it acknowledges killing at least ten cats for Zhang. "We did euthanize several cats for him, believing that we were doing the right thing. We scanned them for microchips but none had them," the surgery told The Gothamist on December 12th. (See "Meet the Proud Cat Killer of Brooklyn and Queens.")

After a while even the unscrupulous moneygrubbing slugs at Antelyes got cold feet and began to offer Zhang other alternatives. "We offered to take in some to use as barn cats. He refused. We offered to spay-neuter and release at low cost. He refused. We offered to find good homes for these cats. He refused," Antelyes told The Gothamist.

It was, however, when the surgery steadfastly refused to kill any more cats for him that Zhang finally showed his true colors. "He threatened to drown the cats at home," Antelyes told The Gothamist. "This was when his true sick nature was finally displayed to us. We deeply regret that we even helped him for a short time."

Even in admitting that much Antelyes is being considerably less than candid because instead of immediately reporting Zhang to the police it merely instructed him to find another veterinarian to do his dirty work for him. It therefore is not only guilty of murdering ten totally innocent cats but complicit in Zhang's other monstrous crimes.

His profuse anti-feline rhetoric also exposes him as an inveterate cat-hater. "Not wanting to put cats to sleep is an emotional response, not a logical one if you really know what's going on out there," he pontificated to The Gothamist in the December 13th article cited supra. "I wish there was a service where we can trap these outside cats and put them to sleep, but it's not available since it's considered politically incorrect."

First of all, life for cats and humans alike is all emotion; reason merely aids the passions in achieving their objectives. For example, some individuals, such as Zhang, hate cats whereas other love them.

Secondly, with Animal Control, conventional shelters, rescue groups, veterinarians, fraudulent no-kill operations, the various departments of the United States Government, ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and others killing tens of millions of cats each year Zhang's vigilanteism is neither needed nor warranted.

No one is willing to disclose either how long or how many cats Zhang has killed. Even more disturbing, his killing spree easily could have gone on seemingly forever if he had not mistakenly trapped Marie Nasta's cat, Anthony, on November 20th and taken him to Antelyes to be killed. (See photos of him below.)

Eternally devoted to the orange stray that she took into her Bushwick apartment in 2008, Nasta made inquiries around her neighborhood after he disappeared that eventually led her to Zhang. "He denied it at first. He was very lucid and polite. But the timing and the fact of the cat's personality didn't sound right," she confided to The Gothamist in the December 12th article cited supra. "So when I called him back I asked him again. And finally he admitted he'd taken him to a vet."

"I feel very sad for what happened because Anthony did have a loving home. Please don't feel insulted by my saying this: Too many pets get lost and many of them have a worse fate out there than to be humanely euthanized," Zhang halfheartedly apologized to Nasta according to the December 12th edition of The Gothamist. "I don't know why this happened but it did. If I could bring Anthony back, I would. I could feel how much you loved him. Perhaps because so many people abandon their animals in the Bushwick area, I just made a wrong decision thinking, like all other cats, no one would look for them (sic)."

After all of his other explanations had been exposed as lies, Zhang next turned to religion in order to justify his complete lack of morality. "Many people have made physical threats against me. You (Nasta) may have read my posting (on Craigslist) that I do not fear death at all and look forward to it because I have a firm belief in the beauty of the afterlife," he told The Gothamist. "If it's any consolation, you will see Anthony again just as I will reunite with all of my animals again."

If Zhang's appeal to religion sounds familiar it is because Ken White of the Peninsula Humane Society in San Mateo recently indulged in the same self-serving baloney in order to justify killing Marvin of Half Moon Bay. (See Cat Defender post of September 28, 2011 entitled "Marvin Is Betrayed, Abducted, and Murdered by a Journalist and a Shelter Who Preposterously Maintain That They Were Doing Him a Favor.")

The more that religion is delved into the clearer it becomes that it is not only a particularly unsavory business but anti-life as well. Not only do adherents use it as a convenient excuse in order to absolve themselves of all moral responsibility toward their fellow man, the animals, and Mother Earth, but they additionally invoke it as a justification to commit all sorts of heinous crimes. (See Cat Defender posts of May 1, 2010 and December 23, 2010 entitled, respectively, "When It Comes to Cats, Acts of Faith Count for Absolutely Nothing with the Good Christians of Northside Baptist" and "Tavia's Desperate Pleas for Help Fall Upon the Deaf Ears of the Evangelical Who Abandoned Her and the Heartless Officials and Citizens of Kissimmee.")

If Zhang and those who think like him truly hate this life and world as much as they pretend the proper thing for them to do is to free themselves from it by jumping off of a bridge. They do not, however, have any right to take out their hatred of it on cats by denying them the right to exist.

"People keep calling me crazy now and won't talk about my solution but I told the three vets I used exactly what it is," Zhang told The Gothamist in the December 13th article cited supra. "I am trying to prevent or reduce colony cat suffering. Why would I go through this trouble, to do this? What sick reason could I have?"

No, Zhang definitely is not crazy. Rather, he is an evil cat-hating fiend and should be treated as such.

In addition to Anthony, Zhang also has killed several other cats that Nasta regularly fed. She since has sent out missives to area veterinarians warning them about Zhang's tactics but it is highly unlikely that any of them will be willing to pass up an opportunity to line their pockets at the expense of innocent cats.

Since the part-time instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan is not planning on instigating civil action against Zhang, she has been left to her grief and the bitter realization that Anthony's cold-blooded killer is destined to go unpunished. "He was sweet, mellow and very laid back. Nothing bothered him. I called him the Rastafarian cat," she told The Gothamist on December 12th. "One of my other cats, Parker, keeps looking for him and crying. Our hearts are broken."

Anyone who ever has loved and lost a cat knows only too well the heartbreak and pain that she now is experiencing. For some individuals there is no greater tragedy in life than losing a beloved cat.

The deafening silence of animal protection groups in New York City in the wake of Zhang's unmasking has been almost as revealing as his twisted thinking. "It's a shame that this has happened and I hate to have one bad apple spoil the whole barrel, because there are a lot of good people out there doing good TNR and we're really beginning to gain traction," Hoffman of the Mayor's Alliance declared to The Gothamist in the December 15th article cited supra. "We in no way, shape, or form condone what he was doing and emphasize it is not trap-neuter-return."

That is a debatable point in that no one other than the volunteers knows for certain what goes on in managed colonies. For example, Alley Cat Allies admits to returning to the Boardwalk only forty per cent of the cats that it traps in Atlantic City.

It accordingly could be killing off the other sixty per cent. (See Cat Defender post of December 10, 2011 entitled "Snowball Succumbs to the Inevitable after Toughing It Out for Two Decades at Atlantic City's Dangerous Underwood Hotel.")

It therefore is impossible to truly gauge the humaneness of TNR without knowing the kill rate of each managed colony. In furtherance of that goal, veterinarians and so-called no-kill operations also should be compelled to disclose their kill rates.

Any TNR program that does not respect the right of all cats to live is therefore completely illegitimate. Furthermore, implicit in that right is the right to competent veterinary care and, in particular, cats that suffer from such common maladies as FeLV and FIV must be treated as opposed to being killed.

Even more telling, Hoffman's organization not only categorically has refused to investigate Zhang and his accomplices within the veterinary medical profession but it aided and abetted his crimes by, at the very minimum, lending him traps. Besides running for cover, all the Alliance has done is to demand that he return the traps lent to him.

"That's fine. They can take their traps and shove it," Zhang retorted to The Gothamist on December 12th. "They have no idea what they are going to lose. They want five or six back? That's fine, I (have) bought more of my own."

As far as it is known, Zhang is still in control of all of his colonies except those in Bushwich which he claims to be too afraid to go near any longer. He therefore could very well still be either taking cats to various veterinarians to be killed or, as he has threatened, drowning them.

For some time now the Mayor's Alliance, working hand in glove with Neighborhood Cats and the Humane Society of the United States, has been attempting to bring all colonies and their caretakers under its thumb. Its complicity with Zhang, however, exposes that plot not only to be folly but also casts considerable doubt on the wisdom of allowing the Alliance to be involved with cats in any fashion. (See Cat Defender post of June 15, 2009 entitled "American Bird Conservancy, The New York Times, and the Humane Society Unite to Form as Achse des Bösen Against Cats.")

Not only has the Alliance refused to take action against Zhang and his accomplices, but New York City is not much closer to achieving no-kill status than it was a decade ago when Mayor Mike "Dirty Bloomers" Bloomberg established that lofty goal. More generally speaking, although Gotham is by far the wealthiest city in the country its spending on animal welfare routinely ranks near the bottom year after year.

New York harbors many filthy secrets in its malignant bosom but none is dirtier than its abysmal treatment of cats, geese, carriage horses, and other animals. The pockets of New Yorkers may be deep but their arms are awfully short.

Moreover, the Alliance stood idly by in 2007 when the Port Authority of New York and New York liquidated the cats at JFK. (See Cat Defender post of November 5, 2007 entitled "Port Authority Gives JFK's Long-Term Resident Felines the Boot and Rescue Groups Are Too Impotent To Save Them.")

Earlier this year it failed to act when Gracie's life came under threat at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island. (See Cat Defender post of August 11, 2011 entitled "Gracie's Life Is Placed in Grave Danger after the Snug Harbor Cultural Center Attempts to Drown Her and Steals Her Food Bowls.")

Only recently the city's Department of Health went after Matilda III of the Algonquin and, once again, rescue groups did absolutely nothing when hotel management responded by trussing her up and subjecting her to electrical shock. (See Cat Defender post of December 5, 2011 entitled "The Algonquin Cruelly Responds to Threats Made by New York City by Trussing Up Matilda III and Bombarding Her with Shock Therapy.")

Stealing cats and employing veterinarians to kill them is only a slight variation from the age-old practice of abducting them and giving them to shelters to slaughter. Back in 2006, amateur ornithologist Richard DeSantis of West Islip on Long Island used that modus operandi in order to get rid of his neighbors' cats. (See Cat Defender posts of June 15, 2006 and March 9, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Serial Cat Killer on Long Island Traps Neighbors' Cats and Then Gives Them to Shelter to Exterminate" and "Long Island Serial Cat Killer Guilty of Only Disorderly Conduct, Corrupt Court Rules.")

Real estate tycoon and gardener Mark J. Oberschmidt of Saginaw, Michigan, did the exact thing to his neighbors' cats last year. (See Cat Defender post of August 19, 2010 entitled "Music Lessons and Buggsey Are Murdered by a Cat-Hating Gardener and an Extermination Factory Posing as an Animal Shelter in Saginaw.")

Bird advocates Robert and Debbie McCallum of Edmonds, Washington, attempted to do likewise to Laura Martin's two-year-old cat, Turbo, in 2006 but were foiled in their attempt. (See Cat Defender post of October 30, 2006 entitled "Collar Saves a Cat Named Turbo from Extermination After He Is Illegally Trapped by Bird-Loving Psychopaths.")

Cat-hating vigilantes are not the only ones who steal and kill cats. The RSPCA, for example, has a nasty habit of doing the same thing. (See Cat Defender posts of June 5, 2007 and October 23, 2010 entitled, respectively, "RSPCA's Unlawful Seizure and Senseless Killing of Mork Leaves His Sister, Mindy, Brokenhearted and His Caretakers Devastated" and "RSPCA Steals and Executes Nighshift Who Was His Elderly Caretaker's Last Surviving Link to Her Dead Husband.")

Private exterminators and policemen also are allowed to kill cats with impunity. (See Cat Defender posts of August 30, 2007 and September 22, 2010 entitled "Texas Couple Files Lawsuit Against Pest Control Company for Trapping and Gassing Their Cat, Butty" and "Neanderthaloid Politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, Wholeheartedly Sanction the Illegal and Cold-Blooded Murder of Haze by a Trigger-Happy Cop.")

Not much attention is paid to them but it is conceivable that veterinarians kill nearly as many cats as shelters. Since all of them charge fees that they know most individuals either cannot or will not pay, they aggressively push murder as a cheaper alternative.

Pro bono work is practically unheard of and most of them categorically refuse to extend any form of credit to pet owners. Most of them are in practice only for the money and could care less about what they have to do in order to get it.

As a consequence, saving lives means absolutely nothing to them. As professionals, they are the scum-of-the-earth! (See Cat Defender post of July 16, 2010 entitled "Tossed Out the Window of a Car Like an Empty Beer Can, Injured Chattanooga Kitten Is Left to Die after at Least Two Veterinarians Refused to Treat It.")

Even on those rare occasions when they can be prevailed upon, for a fee of course, to stir themselves they quickly distinguish themselves by their gross incompetence. For example, Wrekin View Vets of Wallington in Shropshire is so negligent that earlier this year it killed the wrong cat. (See Cat Defender post of July 28, 2011 entitled "Tammy and Maddy Are Forced to Pay the Ultimate Price after Their Owner and an Incompetent Veterinarian Elect to Play Russian Roulette with Their Lives.")

Other are are so incompetent that they are unable to either properly set broken legs or to recognize the difference between an eye infection and a ball bearing. (See Cat Defender posts of June 17, 2010 and July 19, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Veterinarian Gets Away with Almost Killing Felix but Is Nailed by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons for Not Paying Her Dues" and "Molly Loses an Eye to an Assailant with a Ball Bearing Gun Only Later to Be Victimized by an Incompetent Veterinarian.")

They even quite often botch routine sterilizations. (See Cat Defender posts of July 2, 2010 and February 26, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Lexi Was By No Means the First Cat to Be Lost by Woosehill Vets Any More Than Angel Was Their Last Victim of a Botched Sterilization" and "The Dark Side of Spay and Neuter: Veterinarian Botched Surgeries and Back Alley Castrations Claim the Lives of Numerous Cats.")

The implantation of cancer-causing microchips and the administration of unnecessary and often harmful vaccinations are two more of the profession's favorite scams. (See Cat Defender post of November 6, 2010 entitled "Bulkin Contracts Cancer from an Implanted Microchip and Now It Is Time for Digital Angel and Merck to Answer for Their Crimes in a Court of Law.")

There are many loopholes in the law that allow all sorts of groups and agencies to kill cats with impunity but perhaps none is more egregious than the one that allows veterinarians to decide which animals are to live. No physician ever could get away with deliberately killing patients and veterinarians should be held to the same standard. Moreover, if they were banned from killing, they eventually might be forced into lowering the exorbitant fees that they charge and, for once, actually treating sick and injured animals.

Even those cat owners who do not care one whit about the homeless should be astute enough to realize that even domesticated cats that live indoors sometimes either get lost or stolen. They in turn often wind up in the clutches of monsters like Zhang who hand them over to veterinarians and shelters to be liquidated.

In the final analysis, the only sure-fire way to stop the mischief is to impose an across the board ban on the killing of cats under all circumstances with mandatory lengthy jail terms for all violators. Otherwise unscrupulous veterinarians, monsters like Zhang, shelters, and phony-baloney animal rights groups like the Mayor's Alliance and PETA are destined to continue committing their dastardly crimes.

Photos: The Gothamist (Zhang), Antelyes Animal Hospital (veterinarians with a dog), and Marie Nasta (Anthony).

Snowball Succumbs to the Inevitable after Toughing It Out for Two Decades at Atlantic City's Dangerous Underwood Hotel

2011-12-10T13:33:00.006-05:00

"When it came her time to pass, she went back to her original colony and curled up in one of the houses there."
-- Amanda Casazza

Snowball, the gray and white doyenne of Atlantic City's world famous Boardwalk cats, has died. She lived beneath the pines for close to twenty years and is believed to have given up the ghost sometime in August. (See photo of her above.)

"When it came her time to pass, she went back to her original colony and curled up in one of the houses there," Amanda Casazza of Alley Cat Allies (ACA) announced in the organization's September newsletter. (See "Remembering Grandmom: The Long Life of a Boardwalk Cat.")

By that she means that Snowball, also known as Grandmom, returned to her original colony at New Jersey Avenue to die after having resided for years with a colony of cats who live in front of the Taj Mahal.

Since ACA has not disclosed exactly when she died, it is unclear what role, if any, Hurricane Irene may have played in her death when she blew through the evacuated city in late August. High tides used to routinely inundate the so-called Underwood Hotel at New Jersey Avenue until Revel, which has built a new megaresort there with the aid of millions of taxpayer dollars, restored both the beach and eleven-hundred feet of Boardwalk complete with reinforced pilings and decking.

The beach, which used to be less than one-hundred feet wide at low tide, now has grown to an estimated three-hundred-feet of sand and appears to have weathered Irene's wrath rather well. None of that, unfortunately, completely rules out the remote possibility that Snowball may have drowned. (See Philadelphia Inquirer, October 5, 2011, "Casino Embraces Its Environment.")

Even to have died of natural causes at the Underwood is tragic enough in its own right. The beach is windblown and the surf violent even on the best of days and the forbidding Underwood can only be characterized as grimy, gloomy, claustrophobic, and dangerous.

Regardless of what killed her, it nonetheless was a sad and lonely end for an extremely courageous cat who defied all the odds by holding on for as long as she did. Perhaps the best that can be said about her demise is that it was far preferable to being either annihilated at one of Atlantic County's hellhole shelters or unconscionably killed off by a moneygrubbing veterinarian. (See Cat Defender post of September 28, 2011 entitled "Marvin Is Betrayed, Abducted, and Murdered by a Journalist and a Shelter Who Preposterously Maintain That They Were Doing Him a Favor.")

It can only be assumed from ACA's silence that it did not even have the common decency to provide her with either a funeral or a proper burial. As a consequence, her corpse likely was thrown out with the trash.

Not much is known about her other than that she distinguished herself early on as being adept at evading ACA's traps. "She was one of the hardest cats to trap," Casazza added in the article cited supra.

Otherwise, Snowball usually could be found sleeping on the beach during the warm summer months and inside the winterized shelters underneath the Boardwalk during Atlantic City's rugged winters. She additionally could be seen occasionally inching her way down the boards alongside the handrail.

Sterilization relieved her of the tiresome and debilitating chore of giving birth to litter after litter of kittens and once ACA took over management of the cats in 2000 food no longer was a problem in that the volunteers always made sure that she had plenty of meat, kibble, and water.

"Grandmom's nearly twenty-year life at the Boardwalk proves that feral cats can live long, healthy lives outdoors and that there is nothing humane or necessary about killing them in shelters," ACA declared in the article cited supra. "While she will be deeply missed, Grandmom's long life continues to inspire us to advocate for policies and programs like the Boardwalk Cats Project nationwide, humane programs that allow feral cats to live out their lives in the outdoor homes they love."

All of that certainly is true and the volunteers have done a yeomanly job in caring for them. None of that in any way alters the salient fact, however, that the Underwood Hotel is a perilous haunt for cats.

As the hotel of last resort for Atlantic City's large homeless contingent, the Underwood averages about one homicide and several fires per year. The resort's fascist police, working hand in glove with The Press of Atlantic City, the Philadelphia media, and predatory Christian and Jewish groups, get their perverted kicks by staging periodic nocturnal raids in order to rouse the impecunious.

The loud, nauseating music and endless array of promotional announcements cranked out by the casinos twenty-four hours a day also surely must take its toll on the cats' delicate ears. Some of the volunteers add insult to injury by bringing along their portable radios with them when they feed the cats.

If all of that were not egregious enough, the cats are forced to contend with the din and chaos churned up by dredging on the beach and the replacement of rotting planks on the Boardwalk. All of these activities sans doute disrupt their repose and, at times, leave them traumatized.

Given all the dangers involved, it is not surprising that ACA has a difficult time recruiting a sufficient number of volunteers and this is attested to by the advertisements that it is forced to constantly run in local rags. Of late, it even has run into problems recruiting individuals to construct and install winterized shelters.

All of that is in addition to the financial drain associated with feeding, medicating, sterilizing, and sheltering up to two-hundred cats. Periodically the cats come under attack from either some individual or group that wants them trapped and killed and defending them costs the volunteers a pretty penny.

That is what originally led to ACA's involvement when the city attempted to have the cats killed back in 2000. It occurred again in 2003 and 2004 when Margate resident Doug Donato lobbied the City Council to have them killed by ludicrously alleging that they were capable of transmitting SARS to individuals. Dr. Eddy Bresnitz, an epidemiologist with the State of New Jersey, quickly put the kibosh to that sottise by categorically stating that there was not a scintilla of evidence that the cats are capable of so infecting humans. (See Cat Defender post of July 5, 2007 entitled "Bird and Wildlife Proponents, Ably Assisted by The Press of Atlantic City, Launch Malicious Libel Campaign Against Feral Cats.")

The growing popularity of gambling dens in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, and New York has siphoned off a good deal of Atlantic City's business but it is unclear how the resort's downward spiral is going to affect the Boardwalk cats. Since they have grown into such a huge tourist attraction, fewer gamblers conceivably could lead to their being either neglected or forgotten about altogether. On the other hand, a reversal in the city's gaming fortunes could not only provide them with a measure of much needed tranquility but also lead to a marked decline in the number of cats cruelly abandoned along the pines each year.

It is estimated that there now are three-hundred fewer of them residing in the eighteen colonies that stretch from Albany Avenue in the south to the Inlet in the north than there were when ACA took over eleven years ago. Most important of all, the cats are large, friendly, and their coats glossy. They cannot accurately be described as anything other than the very epitome of feline health and well-being.

That is far from being the whole story, however, in that there is no way of knowing how many other cats have met with either foul play or other calamities over the years. Of far greater concern is ACA's own admission that it returns to the Boardwalk only forty per cent of the cats that it traps. It never has disclosed what it does with the remaining sixty per cent but it is a fair assumption that it kills off the lion's share of them under one fabrication or another.

Other practitioners of TNR are known to warehouse up to two-hundred cats in cages in their basements. Since there is absolutely no oversight of these private shelters, it is impossible to assess either what conditions these cats are kept or ultimately what becomes of them. It is difficult to imagine, however, that such an arrangement could be beneficial for them.

No TNR program can be accurately evaluated unless it first is known how many cats enter and leave a particular colony and how they are treated. As practiced by ACA and others, TNR is not altogether different from the trap and kill policies of conventional shelters and the leger de main fobbed off on a gullible public by so-called no-kill operations.

"They (the volunteers) have done a wonderful job of fixing the problem and saving the animals," Ron Cash on the city's Health and Human Services Department was obliged to admit to the Philadelphia Inquirer on July 24, 2010. (See "Groups Make Progress with Feral Cats in Atlantic City.")

"The cats in this city are cared for better than most people's pets," volunteer Deborah Calvert proclaimed in the same article. "They're famous."

Caring for that many cats in a perilous environment, quite obviously, requires more manpower than even ACA is able to muster. "Homeless people, casino workers, shop owners -- they are our eyes and ears," Calvert added. "They tell us if someone's sick. They tell us who they haven't seen around for a while. They know the cats."

That is refreshing to hear in that the homeless have not always been known for their humane treatment of the species. (See Cat Defender posts of May 6, 2009 and August 17, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Resident at Church-Run Homeless Shelter in Seattle Uses a Box Cutter in Order to Gut Scatt from Collarbone to Tail" and "America's Insane Love Affair with Criminals Continues as Drunkard Who Sliced Open Scatt with a Box Cutter Gets Off with Time on the Water Wagon.")

That is in spite of the fact that the staff at Grace House Emergency Shelter for Women in Fredericton, New Brunswick, long ago recognized the therapeutic value of having felines on the premises. (See Cat Defender post of May 5, 2009 entitled "Gracie Brings a Ray of Hope and Good Cheer to the Down-and-Out at Women's Shelter in Fredericton.")

Members of the public also have helped out by adopting some of the colonies in much the same fashion as citizens adopt highways. For instance, a plaque in front of the Wild Wild West Casino and the old Dennis Hotel states that the nearby "Slot Machines" colony has been adopted by Glen, Cindy, Doug, and Greg Myers.

In addition to sterilization and attrition, ACA has relied to some extent upon adoptions in order to halve the population. That in itself amounts to a startling contradiction in that the organization's head honcho, Becky Robinson, continues to publicly maintain that homeless cats are unadoptable.

Since ACA never has released any statistics, it is impossible to gauge how successful its adoption efforts have been. It does, however, charge $75 per cat and its adoption application is a staggering four pages in length!

For example, those interested in adopting its cats are required to disclose, inter alia, their landlords' and veterinarians' names, addresses, and telephone numbers, three personal references, the names of all persons living in the household, plus a slew of data relating to any companion animals that they have owned both now and in the past. Since charging an arm and a leg apparently is insufficient, it would not be surprising if the organization one day started expecting a semen sample and a testicle as a demonstration of good faith.

Furthermore, these stringent requirements would tend to mitigate against many of the cats finding new homes in that there are so many other cats and kittens that readily can be had gratis and with no question asked. In fact, individuals sometimes can be spotted giving away kittens outside of supermarkets.

ACA's real Achilles heel, however, lies in the fact that its arrangement with the city is limited to the Boardwalk. Animal Control therefore is still allowed to trap and kill cats with impunity elsewhere in the city. Worst still, uncorroborated reports maintain that some of these cats are shot in the head and never even make it to a shelter.

This odious and lawless practice needs to be exposed and immediately stopped with a legitimate TNR program that respects the lives of all cats substituted in its stead. ACA's grotesque failure to stand up for these equally deserving felines not only dims the luster of its successes with those living at the Underwood but exposes it to charges of being hypocritical and heartless as well.

Its unexplained collusion with the Humane Society of Atlantic County (HSAC) also is disquieting. Not only does it operate a killing factory adjacent to the Borgata but it charges almost sixty dollars to spay a female and fifty dollars to neuter a tom.

If it were willing to offer free sterilizations, HSAC could single-handedly solve the homeless cat dilemma in Atlantic County. It much prefers, however, to apply the money that it rakes in from paid sterilizations to the purchase of sodium pentobarbital and to line the pockets of its bloodthirsty staffers.

The area's other shelter, located in Pleasantville, is far worse, For instance, its staffers are so obstinate that they even refuse to disclose what cats and dogs they are holding. As a consequence, reclaiming a lost or stolen companion is an impossibility.

This utterly deplorable situation is compounded by the fact that Animal Control officers throughout the county can only be reached, if at all, by telephone. Accordingly, no significant improvement in the welfare of cats in Atlantic County can be expected until both shelters are permanently closed and all local Animal Control officers are summarily fired.

If ACA is truly serious about expanding TNR nationwide it could find no better place to start than in Atlantic City. Likewise, it desperately needs to redouble its efforts in order to get as many cats as possible out from the Underwood and into good homes as quickly as possible.

Following the 1964 Democratic National Convention which nominated Lyndon Baines Johnson, historian Theodore White labeled Atlantic City as the "original Bay of Pigs" and the quality of life in the resort has not improved much since then. Abject poverty is every bit as endemic as corruption, alcohol and drug abuse are the norm, and violent crime is rampant.

Beyond the neon glitter of the casinos, the resort remains a city filled with despair and hopelessness. Hustlers, gangsters, crooked politicians, and assorted other shady characters are the only ones flourishing in this overgrown clip joint. Even more distressing, no improvement is even remotely possible given the greedy and superficial nature of New Jerseyans who at this very moment are in the midst of massacring another six-hundred black bears.

That is the major reason why it is so uplifting to see the cats pussyfooting down the planking. Nevertheless, Snowball certainly deserved better than a lifetime that was spent rubbing elbows with hustlers and riffraff.

It is too late to magically transform her dreams into a better life but that most definitely is not the case as far as Farrah Fawcett, Jane Fonda, One-Eyed Willie, and the rest of the Boardwalk gang are concerned. It may be axiomatic but it nonetheless bears repeating that any environment that is unsuitable for humans could hardly be ideal for cats.

Photo: Alley Cat Allies.

The Algonquin Cruelly Responds to Threats Made by New York City by Trussing Up Matilda III and Bombarding Her with Shock Therapy

2011-12-05T12:30:00.002-05:00

"People miss seeing Matilda moving around the lobby. They miss that part of the connection they've previously enjoyed. But this is the right thing to do. As we know, everything changes."
-- Gary Budge of the Algonquin

Ever since a waif known as Rusty wandered in the front door on West Forty-Fourth Street way back in 1932, cats had always been welcome in the Algonquin Hotel's ornate front lobby. The good times came to an abrupt end recently when New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOH) banished the current resident feline, a four-year-old, blue-eyed Ragdoll named Matilda III, from the area because food is served there at the famous Round Table restaurant and lounge.

Matilda, who arrived on the scene in early 2011 courtesy of the North Shore Animal League (NSAL) in Port Washington on Long Island, is now restricted to the arrival area, front desk, and coat room. Tant pis, she has been tethered to a leash. (See photo above.)

The Algonquin further claims to have installed an invisible electronic fence in order to curtail her rambles. Although no particulars have been disclosed, it is impossible to regard such an odious device as being anything other than the very epitome of cruel and inhumane.

Compounding the deplorable situation, the hotel initially lied to the public about being leaned on by the DOH and instead tried to pack off the blame on poor Matilida. "People seem more aggressive toward her, and she's responding in a way that's not helpful," general manager Gary Budge told the New York Post on November 23rd. (See "'Meow' Trage at Algonquin.")

If true, that would have been a first since, as far as it is known, none of Matilda's nine predecessors over the past eighty years ever was assaulted by guests. Likewise, none of the Algonquin's illustrious felines ever have been accused of harming any of the tony hotel's guests.

Next up, Matilida's publicist, Alice de Almeida, scandalously accused her of behaving like a voyeur. "She was going everywhere, including the men's restroom, so now she is on a strict training schedule," she told the Daily Mail on November 23rd. (See "Cat-astrophe! Algonquin Hotel's Famous Pet Put on a Tight Leash after Health and Safety Warning.")

Her interest in the men's toilet can be easily explained by cats' inherent distrust of standing water and corresponding preference for running water. Moreover, Matilda is a female and, unlike former United States Senator Larry Craig, never has been accused of doing any toe tapping.

When pressed, Budge finally made a clean chin of matters. "The (Health) Department in the past months suggested to us that pets in food service facilities are no longer commingled," he confessed to the New York Post in the article cited supra. "The lobby is an area where we serve food and beverage. We always want to be respectful of the Department of Health."

For whatever it is worth, the hotel insists that Matilda has adjusted well to what Charles Dickens euphemistically would have called her reduced circumstances. "Much to my surprise she doesn't mind (the leash)," de Almeida confided to People Magazine on November 23rd. (See "Matilda the Algonquin Cat Loses Special Privileges.") "Matilda is getting used to her new areas and was very happy posing this morning for the press. She is a quick learner and soon we will be able to take the leash off. (See photo below of her at the computer.)

Like her boss, de Almeida most likely is shading the truth. As former governor of Illinois Adlai E. Stevenson once observed, "It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming."

To their eternal credit, cats additionally do not have any use whatsoever for silly property laws that have been established by individuals and corporate entities who, at one time or another, have stolen at the barrel of a gun everything that they now claim an exclusive right to own and occupy. Just as importantly, it is difficult to restrict the behavior of cats once they have grown accustomed to coming and going as they please and having the run of the premises.

What de Almeida probably meant but was too timed to say is that the Algonquin is planning on relying upon a combination of shock therapy and police tactics in order to bend Matilda to its will. "She is closer to a watchable eye from the team that works here, and they happen to like that," Budge admitted to MSNBC on November 23rd. (See "Me-Out! Famed Hotel Cat Evicted from Lobby.")

Although her eviction from the lobby marks an end to one of the Algonquin's and Gotham's most cherished traditions, Budge not only is categorically refusing to put up a fight but he is not shedding any tears either. "People miss seeing Matilda moving around the lobby," he told MSNBC. "They miss that part of the connection they've previously enjoyed. But this is the right thing to do. As we know, everything changes."

Whereas change may be inevitable, it is not always for the best, especially where the animals and Mother Earth are concerned. The goal therefore should be to embrace only those changes that are beneficial as opposed to running willy-nilly after every new fad that happens to be temporarily en vogue.

As a consolation, de Almeida points out that Matilda still is able to receive her many admirers both at the hotel and online. "She has a little bed with her food and water where people come in to see her, not just those who are staying at the hotel but those who pass by on the street," she told the Daily Mail in the article cited supra. "Matilda gets plenty of e-mails too."

Inmates at Rikers Island in the East River also are free to receive guests but no one in either his or her right mind ever would want to exchange places with any of them. What de Almeida is so unwilling to acknowledge is that there is a huge difference between having guests visit and true freedom.

The latter additionally would allow Matilda to get out from underneath the thumbs of both staffers and guests alike whenever she chooses but under the regimen now in place she is held hostage to the whims of others. Her life no longer belongs to her and cats desperately crave their freedom and space.

"Acquérir l'amitié d'un chat est chose difficile. Il est une bête philosophique qui ne place pas ses affections à l'étourdie," Théophile Gautier once observed. "Si vous êtes digne de son affection, un chat deviendra votre ami mais jamais votre esclave."

As far as her multitudinous e-mail correspondence is concerned, it is important to bear in mind that is only a cute public relations gimmick. Matilda does not have the capacity to surf the web and therefore is unable to derive any intellectual stimulation from that technology. The peephole to the world therefore remains every bit as closed off to her as the Algonquin's front lobby.

From what little has been revealed about Matilda's predilections, she apparently also likes cadging rides in the service elevator to the thirteenth floor in addition to hanging out in the lobby and men's room. "I don't know why it's always that floor," de Almeida confessed her ignorance on that matter to the New York Post on April 4th. (See "Hotel Mascot Has Ten Lives.") "I've gotten several calls to come get her and bring her back downstairs."

Hopefully such activity will not reignite all that ancient tomfoolery about cats and the occult. (See photo below of Matilda in the hall.)

Although Matilda had not been doing anything different than her predecessors, she unwittingly became a pawn in Mayor Mike "Dirty Bloomers" Bloomberg and DOH Commissioner Thomas Farley's halfhearted attempt to clean up New York's notoriously filthy restaurants.

Although the city's health code always has banned animals from most eating establishments, it nonetheless allows the presence of live edible fish, shellfish, and crustaceans as well as service dogs. While no one ever would wish to deprive the visually impaired of their surrogate eyes, it is difficult to understand how the presence of canines ever could be considered to be hygienic while cats routinely continue to be labeled as unhygienic.

Much more to the point, DOH inspectors have a long history of being corrupt to the bone. In a celebrated case dating back to the 1980's, one of them longed to ask a Chinese restaurateur for a small token of his appreciation but, unfortunately, did not speak a work of Guangdong hua whereas the proprietor only spoke a few words of English.

From the file labeled "Where There Is a Will There Is a Way," the quick-witted inspector grabbed a napkin and hurriedly sketched a picture of a mouse. Demonstrating that he, too, was equally quick on the uptake, the restaurateur immediately understood and reached for his wallet.

To make a long story short, the restaurant inspection business in New York City is so thoroughly corrupt that, as Ecclesiastes 1:15 teaches, it can never be made straight. New Yorkers simply accept the fact that every meal consumed contains a certain amount of dirt and grime, spittle, snot, rat turds, ground-up cockroaches, and God only knows what other unsavory ingredients.

The latest crackdown is the byproduct of a letter grading system inaugurated in July of 2010 by the DOH. Individuals who have spent their entire lives in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere where sanitary conditions are either lax or nonexistent do not realize that in states where public health is taken seriously restaurants always have been graded by letters. For example, in North Carolina anything except a grade A posting on the window is tantamount to a coup de grâce for any restaurant.

When DOH inspectors visited the Algonquin on November 10th they assessed its twenty points, which is more than sufficient for a grade B rating unless the violations are promptly ameliorated before the next once-over. Interestingly enough, none of the violations had anything to do with Matilda.

It is assumed, however, that if the Algonquin had not complied with its directive and removed her from the lobby that the DOH would have assessed the hotel additional points. Without having either read the inspectors' report or been inside the hotel's kitchen it is impossible to gauge sanitary conditions at the Algonquin but, given the large number of violations cited, it would be fair to conclude that diners have considerably more to be concerned about than cat hairs.

It is even more astounding that soup runs, of which New York City has more than four-hundred, mobile food vendors, temporary food service establishments, primary and secondary schools, hospital cafeterias, jails, charities, and food services operated by not-for-profit membership organizations are exempted from the letter grading system. That is absurd in that those institutions and establishments are precisely the ones that cater to what is largely a captive clientele.

If the chow served up at the Algonquin and other similarly situated restaurants is not to the liking of their well-heeled patrons they are free to express their dissatisfaction by taking their business elsewhere, but that option is foreclosed to the majority of those who regularly dine at the exempted food providers. Also, should they become sickened by the cuisine they, unlike captive diners, doubtless have plenty of moola in order to procure qualified medical treatment.

Soup kitchens, in particular, are notorious for poisoning and, perhaps, even killing people. Old food that is improperly refrigerated and inexpertly prepared by untrained, filthy-as-a-dog personnel who do not know the difference between a spatula and a suppository is the norm. Likewise, the memory alone of schoolhouse chow consumed half a century ago is sufficient to make many a bloke nauseous whereas the slop served up to jailbirds has been known to spark deadly riots.

When viewed against that backdrop, the DOH's going after Matilda seems to be not only petty but frivolous as well. "Dirty Bloomers" sans doute hopes to derive some political mileage out of the effort as is the case with his siccing of the DOH's on Sardi's in the Theater District for handing out cheese at its bar.

"Thus do two more New York traditions fall victim to Health Commissioner Tom Farley's food fascists," the New York Post blasted both the DOH and "Dirty Bloomers" in a November 25th editorial. (See "Mike Hates Cats.")
"It's all about the power, don't you know? Free cheese! Free Matilda!"

The Post's defense of Matilda is made all the more amazing in light of the fact that its resident cat-hater, Andrea Peyser, rarely passes up an opportunity to express her antipathy for the species. (See New York Post, October 31, 2011, "Beating a Dead Horse.")

If the tone of several letters received by the Post is any indication of public sentiment on this matter, the Algonquin's steadfast refusal to come to Matilda's aid in her time of greatest need may boomerang and wind up costing it some business. (See New York Post, November 30, 2011, "Algonquin's Furry Fury: Bloomy's in the Doghouse.")

Another famed Manhattan establishment to run afoul of the DOH was McSorley's Old Ale House in the East Village which in August of 2009 was fined a whopping $1,000 for allowing Minnie II to pussyfoot across the bar. Since then she has been confined to the back rooms during business hours. (See Cat Defender post of August 24, 2011 entitled "Self-Defense Is Against the Law in Australia after a Woman Who Attacked a Cat Gets Away with Her Crime Whereas Her Victim Is Trapped and Executed.")

Since restaurants, bodegas, and other establishments that sell food are fined if mouse droppings and urine are found on the premises, some of them have elected to cut their losses by keeping cats and paying twice yearly fines that can range from between $300 and $2,000. That is, for example, what Peter Myers of Myers of Keswick at 634 Hudson Street in the West Village has elected to do. (See Cat Defender post of April 20, 2006 entitled "Molly Is Finally Rescued After Spending Two Weeks Trapped Inside the Walls of an English Deli in Greenwich Village.")

"It's hard for bodega owners because they're not supposed to have a cat, but they're also not supposed to have rats," is how Jose Fernandez of the Bodega Association of the United States summed up the dilemma faced by members of his trade group to The New York Times on November 21, 2007. (See "To the Dismay of Inspectors, Prowling Cats Cats Keep Rodents on the Run at City Delis.")

He then went on to drive the final nail into the coffin of the DOH's faulty reasoning. "If cats live in homes and apartment where people have food, a cat shouldn't be a threat in a store if it's well-maintained," he sagely told The Times.

New York City certainly is not alone in banning cats from establishments that serve food. In recent years, Comma Coffee in Carson City and the Blunsdon Arms in Swindon have gotten into hot water with health inspectors for keeping cats. (See Cat Defender posts of February 17, 2009 and October 23, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Health Department Banishes Smallcat from Popular Carson City Restaurant but Her Feisty Owner Is Putting Up Quite a Fight" and "Pecksniffian Management at Swindon Pub Plies Ember with Food and Then Gives Her the Bum's Rush.")

The Clipper Ship Inn in Salem, Massachusetts, even lost its food license because it had cats on the premises. (See Cat Defender post of May 21, 2007 entitled "Salem, Massachusetts, Is Going After Cats Again Much Like It Did During 1692 Witch Trials.")

Despite all the draconian legislation in situ, many enterprising cats still are able to procure gainful employment as mousers and mascots at various eating and drinking emporiums around the world. It is unclear, however, whether this is due to either tolerance, lax code enforcement, or baksheesh. (See Cat Defender posts of December 13, 2007, December 15, 2006, and December 12, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Tanker Ray Survives Being Abandoned as a Kitten in Order to Become the World Famous Mascot of a Tampa Bar," "Minnesota Cat Named Baby Celebrates His Thirty-Sixth Birthday; English Pub Cat Named Daisy Turns Twenty-Two," and "Bored with Conditions at Home, Carlsberg Stows Away on a Beer Lorry for the Adventure of a Lifetime.")

Despite the tribulations suffered by the cats at the Clipper Ship Inn, others have found homes, albeit not necessarily humane ones, at the Anderson Inn in Wabasha, Minnesota, and Hôtel Le Bristol in Paris. (See Cat Defender posts of May 15, 2008 and December 14, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Predatory Capitalism Rears Its Ugly Head as Minnesota Bed and Breakfast Sacks 'Overnight' Cats, Morris and Fred" and "Hôtel Le Bristol Saddles Fa-raon with the Odious Task of Playing Nursemaid to the Spoiled Brats of the Rich.")

Returning to the matter at hand, Matilda's deteriorating situation at the Algonquin is not only untenable but should not be allowed to continue. That is first and foremost due to the hotel's utterly barbaric use of electrical shock in order to control her.

If so much as one legitimate animal rights group existed in Gotham it would have immediately instructed the Algonquin to either stop this inhumane abuse or face the prospect of losing custody of Matilda. The fact that this sordid business is allowed to continue is an indictment of not only all animal welfare personnel in the city but of NSAL as well.

Secondly, although accustoming a cat to walk on a leash outdoors is regarded by some as acceptable behavior, keeping Matilda so tethered indoors is surely almost as cruel as administering jolts of electricity to her. Since the Algonquin is willing to go to such lengths in order to avoid paying a fine, it is highly likely that it also is segregating her in rooms by herself and confining her to a cage as well.

The simplest solution would be for the hotel to follow Myers' example by paying the DOH's fine and thus restoring Matilda's freedom to her. Failing that, it is incumbent upon management to find some other method of keeping her out of the lobby that does not include electrical shock, leashes, cages, and segregation.

At the very minimum, she deserves her own living quarters and access to an area, ideally either a garden or a yard, where there is intellectual stimulation, fresh air, and sufficient space for her to stretch her legs. Whereas these requirements possibly could be satisfied by the hotel's allowing her free access to most public areas, they most assuredly cannot be met by keeping her tied up like a hostage behind the front desk.

If management is so unwilling to respect Matilda's prerogatives as a cat, she should be removed from the hotel and placed in a good home. In England, for example, Cats Protection will only allow individuals with either yards or gardens to adopt its cats. It is, after all, Matilda's well-being that should come first and not the hotel's bottom line. (See close-up photo of her above.)

All of this could be a moot point by the time that New Year's Day rolls around and the Algonquin closes for four months in order to accommodate $15 million worth of renovations. Since the hotel has not said one way or another, it is unclear whether Matilda will remain on the premises or be relocated elsewhere. After all, it is not possible to simply store her in a display case like the Savoy in London did with its resident feline, Kaspar, a few years back when it closed for renovations.

It she stays, she faces many dangers. For example, Hamlet IV, who graced the hotel's corridors from 1968 until 1982, disappeared during renovations and is believed to have been accidentally sealed up alive inside one of its walls much like Fortunato in Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The Cask of Amontillado." If there is any credence to that story, it is a staggering indictment of the hotel's uncaring attitude toward him.

Easily frightened by both loud noises and the hustle and bustle churned up by loutish construction workers, cats often seek refuge in small places that easily are transformed into death traps. (See Cat Defender post of September 8, 2008 entitled "Bonny Is Rescued at the Last Minute after Spending Seven Weeks Entombed Underneath a Bathtub.")

Should management elect to relocate her elsewhere, that very well could be the last that the public ever hears of her. Under such a scenario, she could wind up either back at NASL, in another home, or on death row at any one of Gotham's notorious hellhole shelters.

The numerous problems relating to the DOH, procuring a suitable temporary home for her, and retraining her even if she is brought back to the hotel are conspiring to make her tenure a brief one indeed. Like McSorley's and no doubt countless other establishments in the city, the Algonquin is far too cheap to pony up for any fines that Matilda might incur as well as being totally unwilling to be hassled by the city on the other hand.

Finally, and on a somber note, Matilda owes her position to the untimely demise of her illustrious predecessor, Matilda II. (See photo of her immediately above.)

For reasons that never have been made public, the fifteen-year-old Ragdoll was unceremoniously dismissed by the hotel last year during the holidays. Her abrupt departure came despite the fact that as late as September the hotel had been lauding her as its most valuable asset.

"She stays, of course!" the Algonquin's Marissa Mastellone pledged at that time. "She is what makes us unique and signature enough to make the (Marriott's) Autograph Collection. Matilda is imperative!" (See Cat Defender post of October 16, 2010 entitled "The Algonquin Undergoes Changes at the Top but Management Wisely Decides to Retain Its Most Loyal and Beloved Employee, Matilda.")

In particular, she had been immortalized in Val Schaffner's 2001 tome, The Algonquin Cat, as well as being the recipient of the Westchester Cat Show's prestigious "Cat of the Year" award in 2006. Plus, the Diva, as she was known, had been charming guests and visitors alike since 1998.

Unless Mastellone was just blowing it out both ends for the sake of having something to do with herself, something surely must have gone terribly wrong between September and Christmas. Her age could have been a factor but so too could have been her penchant of transforming the lobby into a race course each evening. Even her tendency to venture out into the street in order to chase pigeons during the summer months could have gotten on management's nerves.

It is even conceivable that the DOH already may have been breathing down the hotel's neck and it deduced that a newer, younger cat would be more pliable to its whims. Since the hotel is not saying, the public likely never will know why she was removed.

The official word from the hotel is that she was adopted by a staffer and spent the last year of her life watching the birds, squirrels, and leaves fall through the window of an apartment in Brooklyn. Tragically, she died of cancer in September.

What role, if any, her work environment contributed to the onset of that deadly killer is unknown. (See Cat Defender post of October 19, 2007 entitled "Smokers Are Killing Their Cats, Dogs, Birds, and Infants by Continuing to Light Up in Their Presence.")

The Algonquin is not, and never will be, the same without her. During her tenure she became its heart and soul and without her, and her successor trussed up and out of sight, it is just another hotel out for the almighty dollar.

If he were still alive today, Oliver Herford might have eulogized her as follows:

"Gather kittens while you may
Time brings only sorrow;
And the kittens of day
Will be old cats tomorrow."

Photos: Chad Rachman of the New York Post (Matilda on a leash), Jonathan D. Woods of MSNBC (Matilda at the computer), Gothamist (Matilda in the hall), J.C. Rice of the New York Post (Matilda up close), and the Algonquin (Matilda II).

Larry Is Persevering as Best He Can Despite Being Constantly Maligned by Both Fleet Street and the Prime Minister's Duplicitous Staff

2011-11-28T12:34:00.002-05:00

"The two (Larry and Maisy) appear to be content with each other's company, sometimes enjoying meals together. An occasional mouse has been left on the doorstep, perhaps as a thank you."
-- a Royal Parks spokeswoman

Larry can scarcely get a moment's peace! In fact, the long knives have been out for him ever since his celebrated arrival at 10 Downing Street on February 16th and the drumbeat of disparaging remarks directed at him only has grown louder over the course of the summer and autumn. (See photo above of him looking forlornly out the window.)

The four-year-old brown and white castrated tom's tribulations began right off the bat when Prime Minister David Cameron, instead of giving him time to adjust to his new rôle and surroundings, immediately threw him to the wolves who howl both day and night on Fleet Street. Specifically, when ITV news reporter Lucy Manning tried to force him to pose for her he, predictably, scratched her arm. (See Cat Defender post of July 21, 2011 entitled "Larry Faces Many Challenges and Dangers in His New Rôle as 10 Downing Street's Resident Feline.")

Although her wounds were superficial, she afterwards carried on as if she had been hit over the head and robbed of her maidenhood. If she had read Carl Van Vechten's 1922 classic, The Tiger in the House, she would have known from the outset that "no self-respecting cat has any leanings toward a career as an artist's (or photographer's) model."

Shortly thereafter Larry was unceremoniously kicked in the posterior by a bobby posted outside the prime minister's residence. Instead of coming to his defense as any devoted cat owner would have done, Cameron shrugged off the blatant abuse as a nonevent.

"Someone showed me the picture of that, but I'm reliably informed that it was a nudge, not anything firmer," he insouciantly told the Daily Mail on June 12th. (See "Larry the Cat Makes First Kill at Downing Street...So at Least One of Cameron's Policies Is Working.")

Of late, Larry has been accused of sleeping on the job and thus allowing the mice to run amuck. (See photo below of him catching a few winks.)

Even on those occasions when he has thrown himself whole hog into the task at hand the Fleet Street crowd has belittled his prowess. "The mouse got away and was bouncing around trying to escape," an unidentified photographer, who recorded for posterity one such encounter, told the Daily Mail on September 9th. (See "Larry the Number Ten Cat Fails His First Test as Prime Mouser.") "The cat was jumping around too, trying to catch it. It kept leaping out of Larry's claws and managed to get down into a little gully."

That should not have come as any surprise to anyone even remotely familiar with the subject. Catching mice is a difficult task even for an animal as nimble and agile as a cat.

In fact, most mice escape. The value of cats lies in their ability not only to occasionally catch a few of them but to scare off an even greater number of them.

"Larry took a swipe and missed," the photographer continued. "Then the mouse ran into a bush and got away. The cat did follow but he didn't come out again with a mouse between his teeth." À bon chat, bon rat.

Since rodents spend the majority of their time below ground, it is virtually impossible for cats to even locate them let alone catch all of them. Even when they venture out of hiding they must be nabbed in the open otherwise they will scurry into tiny holes, drains, and other tight quarters where cats cannot venture. (See photo below of Larry and the mouse.)

Conditions at Number Ten apparently have deteriorated to the point that Cameron now has resorted to throwing silverware at the intruders. At least that is what Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith claims to have witnessed firsthand earlier this month at a dinner held for cabinet ministers. "Where is Larry when you need him?" he screeched afterwards to the Daily Mail on November 16th. (See "Where's Larry When You Need Him? Prime Minister Throws Cutlery at Downing Street Mice as Moggy Boycotts Rat-Catching Duties.")

Smith's verbal salvo is not only a classic example of piling on but completely unjustified as well. If he and Cameron expect Larry to keep the dining room free of rodents the very least that they could do would be to invite him to break bread with them.

The incident nonetheless demonstrates that Cameron has graduated from being a passive observer to a man of action. "I actually took a picture of one in my flat on my mobile phone, because it was looking at me," he confessed to the Daily Mail in the June 12th article cited supra. "Rats, I'm frightened of, but I haven't seen any of those."

What he has seen, if tattlers and malicious gossips at Ten Downing Street are to be believed, is cat hairs on his expensive suits. Furthermore, staffers are said to be peeved at Larry for scratching them after they have sat down on top of him.

Petty inanities of that caliber should prompt the English public to question the compos mentis of those calling the shots. First of all, most all cats shed and therefore are destined to leave behind cat hairs.

Secondly, anyone so thoughtless as to sit down on top of a cat is richly deserving of whatever they receive in return. Under such circumstances cats do not use their claws in a vindictive manner, but rather their response is more of a reflexive and defensive action.

Larry also has been accused of shirking his duties at Ten Downing Street so as to enable him to round around Westminster with a temptress named Maisy who lives in nearby St. James's Park with its manager Mark Wasilewski. (See photo of her at the bottom of the page.)

A hypocritical allegation such as that recalls to mind a scene from Hector H. Munro's short story, "Tobermory," wherein Major Barfield and others considered it great fun to call attention to Toby's amorous liaisons but responded with malice aforethought when he turned the tables on them and pointed out theirs. Besides, all work and no play would make Larry a dull cat just as it makes Jack a dull boy.

"The two appear to be content with each other's company, sometimes enjoying meals together," an unidentified spokeswoman for the Royal Parks told The Sun on September 8th. (See "When Larry Met Maisy.") "An occasional mouse has been left on the doorstep, perhaps as a thank you."

Therein lies a possible explanation as to Larry's lack of alleged productivity at Cameron's residence. Perhaps he is too busy keeping the mice at bay in St. James's Park in order to have much energy left for dealing with those at home.

It does seem odd, however, that Ten Downing Street always seems to be as overrun with mice as Three Skeleton Key was in a classic episode of "Escape" from the golden age of radio. Since mice do not live on thin air, the only logical conclusion is that there must be plenty of food left unattended for them to eat.

The Palace of Westminster has an identical problem but at least Lord Barbizon is forthright enough to place the blame squarely where it belongs. "If you were a mouse, you would rather eat the crumbs of a smoked salmon sandwich than poisonous bait," he testified to the Daily Mail on March 5, 2010. (See "More Parliamentary Fat Cats Needed Fast.")

C'est-à-dire, Cameron, his family, and cabinet ministers could very well be every bit as sloppy in their bowls and cups as their counterparts in parliament. After all, the rich and powerful never have been known for either their fastidiousness or frugality.

Just as importantly, custodians at Ten Downing Street need to be doing a far better job of cleaning up after the self-important slobs as opposed to packing off all the blame on Larry. As everyone surely knows by now, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

In Manhattan, for example, the problem is not so much mice as it is cockroaches and conscientious apartment dwellers soon learn never to leave so much as a crumb lying around and to promptly remove all unwanted leftovers to the curb outside before retiring for the evening. That is the only way that those pests can be kept under reasonable control.

Perhaps most revolting of all, Ten Downing Street is continuing to behave as if it begrudges Larry his daily rations of kibble, tuna, and milk. For instance, the prime minister's staff never seems to waste an opportunity in order to inform the public that not so much as one pence of its hard-earned money is being spent on his upkeep.

The only thing that rather obvious public relations ploy accomplishes is to make the prime minister and his subalterns look cheap and silly. That is especially the case in light of how all governments piss the lion's share of their citizens' money against the wall without so much as a second thought. Doubtless to say, many English citizens would much rather pay to feed a cat than to pony up for some of their government's numskull spending extravagances.

Most shocking of all, however, is Cameron's notorious cheapness. Anybody with his money easily could afford to feed, shelter, and medicate a hundred cats without feeling so much as a twinge of financial uneasiness.

Since neither Cameron nor the Exchequer have shown any willingness to foot the bill for Larry's minimalist needs, that deplorable impasse has necessitated the tapping of other resources. According to the November 16th edition of the Daily Mail cited supra, it is actually the prime minister's staff that has been saddled with the job of purchasing Larry's food. If that is true, they then would have an ulterior motive for conspiring to undermine his credibility with both Cameron and the public.

The Daily Mail may have gotten it all wrong in that a fundraiser held on September 7th reportedly took in enough money in order to satisfy Larry's nutritional needs for a year. The event also raised an additional £300 for the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in south London which back in January rescued Larry from the streets. (See The Independent, September 7, 2011, "Diary: May's XXX-Rated Problem.")

Costumier Angels of Shaftesbury Avenue also has volunteered to donate an unspecified portion of the proceeds from the rental of its feline outfits toward Larry's upkeep. It additionally is planning on honoring Maisy with a costume that resembles her.

It probably is not worth very much but at least for the time being Cameron is standing by Larry. "I'm a big Larry fan," he proclaimed to the Daily Mail in the June 12th article cited supra. "We have got a big mouse infestation in Downing Street and Larry has caught some mice."

Even if the rodent problem ultimately proves to be too much for him to handle, it always is possible that Larry's value as a political prop may save his job. "I'm sure he will be a great addition to Downing Street and will charm our many visitors," Cameron predicted to the Daily Mail on February 17th. (See "Don't Mess with Me! Downing Street Ratcatcher Takes over Cabinet after Seeing Off ITV Reporter.")

Nevertheless, it is disconcerting that neither Cameron nor his staff view Larry as anything other than a ratcatcher and a bargain basement public relations prop. All cats are sentient beings with their own individualized personalities and lives. They accordingly deserve to be treated as such and not as objects to be disposed of as soon as they have outlived their usefulness to their owners.

Perhaps Larry will be able to not only continue to swim with the sharks but, more importantly, to win over Cameron and his family. Historically speaking, however, prime ministers have not always been kind to cats.

The legendary Humphrey, who found favor with both Maggie Thatcher and John Major, was unceremoniously given the sack by Cherie Blair. (See Cat Defender post of April 6, 2006 entitled "Humphrey, the Cat from 10 Downing Street Who Once 'Read' His Own Obituary, Passes Away at 18.")

Due to Gordon Brown's alleged antipathy toward all animals, a cat named Sybil, owned by Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, was treated even more shabbily. (See Cat Defender posts of September 19, 2007 and August 13, 2009 entitled, respectively, "After a Dreary Ten-Year Absence, Number 10 Downing Street Has a New Resident Feline and Her Name Is Sybil" and "Sybil, 10 Downing Street's Former First Feline, Dies Unexpectedly from an Undisclosed Illness.")

Another thing that Larry has going for himself is Cameron's political affiliation. Generally speaking, conservative prime ministers have tended to be more predisposed toward cats than their counterparts in the Labor Party.

It is precisely their utter disdain for both the animals and Mother Earth that exposes the so-called more liberal members of the ruling classes around the world to be utter frauds. After all, it was the communist Mao Zedong who declared the South China Tiger to be an enemy of the people.

Photos: Daily Mail via the Press Association (Larry at the window), Daily Mail via the Associated Press (Larry sleeping), Daily Mail (Larry hunting a mouse), and Politics Home (Maisy).

Nico Dauphiné, Ph.D., Is Convicted of Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats but Questions Remain Concerning the Smithsonian's Role

2011-11-18T13:59:00.003-05:00

"Wild animals are just as important as companion animals. This case shows that whether or not an animal is in someone's lap or in the alley, they (sic) are entitled to the same protections."
-- Scott Giacoppo of the Washington Humane Society

Cat-hating ornithologist Nico Dauphiné of the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo hired a big-shot Washington shyster in order to defend her and, once in the dock, lied her ugly little face off but in the end none of that saved her. Judge Truman Morrison of the District of Columbia Superior Court did not fall for her blatant denials and instead convicted her on October 31st of attempting to poison a colony of homeless cats living in Meridian Hill Park with antifreeze and rat poison. (See photo of her above.)

"Absolutely not!" the thirty-eight-year-old Dauphiné, defiant to the very end, swore from the witness box when asked if she indeed had committed the foul act. When confronted with a surveillance video shot by the Washington Humane Society (WHS) wherein she clearly can be seen removing an object from her purse and depositing it in the cats' food fishes she countered by ludicrously claiming that she instead was stealing the cats' food so as to starve them to death.

Since ornithologists and wildlife biologists justifiably can lay claim to the title of being some of the biggest liars on the planet, it is by no means surprising that Dauphiné perjured herself on the stand. It is odd, however, that she opted for a bench trial as opposed to one by jury.

If she had chosen the latter option, she surely would have walked because it is virtually impossible to impanel a jury that is totally devoid of rabid cat haters. That is precisely how amateur ornithologist and serial cat killer James Munn Stevenson was able to get away scot-free with his heinous crimes. (See Cat Defender posts of November 22, 2006 and November 20, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Evil Galveston Bird Lover Is Finally Arrested After Having Gunned Down Hundreds of Cats" and "Bird Lovers All Over the World Rejoice as Serial Killer James M. Stevenson Is Rewarded by Galveston Court for Gunning Down Hundreds of Cats.")

Her decision is all the more puzzling in that she was represented by William R. "Billy" Martin of the high-powered Washington law firm of Dorsey and Whitney. (See photo of him on the right below.)

Martin, it might be recalled, is infamous for defending footballer Michael Vick against charges of operating a dog fighting ring. It accordingly perhaps would not be unfair to deduce that since birds of a feather flock together, that dog killers, cat poisoners, and their shysters stick together like a rich man and his money.

Since Martin formerly worked for Sutherland Asbill and Brennan in Atlanta, it is conceivable that Dauphiné already knew him from her days at the University of Georgia (UGA) where she distinguished herself as an avid opponent of cats in general and TNR in particular. Perhaps she even was involved in poisoning cats back then but somehow managed to escape apprehension. Although very few of them ever are caught flagrante delicto, those ornithologists and wildlife biologists that are arrested usually turn out to be serial offenders.

Martin, who is married to reporter Michel Martin of National Public Radio, also has represented basketball player Jayson Williams who shotgunned to death his chauffeur as some sort of a party prank and public toilet toe tapper Larry Craig of the United States Senate. All that therefore is lacking in his portfolio is a pederastic priest, a mass murderer, and Junior Gotti in order for him to cement his reputation as counsel of last resort to every low-life and scumbag in the country.

The WHS began its investigation of Dauphiné in March after the cats' conscientious caretakers discovered that poison had been placed in their food dishes. For a month, the organization not only electronically monitored the cats' feeding station but also Dauphiné's comings and goings from her nearby apartment on Fifteenth Street in the northwest quadrant of the city.

That in turn led to her arrest on May 11th. (See Cat Defender post of July 12, 2011 entitled "The Arrest of Nico Dauphiné for Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats Unmasks the National Zoo as a Hideout for Ailurophobes and Criminals.")

Sentencing is scheduled for this coming Monday and although Dauphiné could be fined as much as $1,000 and sentenced to serve one-hundred-eighty days in jail, it is a foregone conclusion that is not about to happen. In fact, it would come as a tremendous shock if she is given so much as one night behind bars and fined a solitary sou.

A suspended sentence, community service, perhaps court costs, and a tongue lashing tacked on at the end as a public relations gimmick is about all that she is likely to receive. She then will prance out of court dancing a merry little jig all the while laughing up her sleeve a la Stevenson. (See Cat Defender post of August 7, 2008 entitled "Crime Pays! Having Made Fools Out of Galveston Prosecutors, Serial Cat Killer James Munn Stevenson Is Now a Hero and Laughing All the Way to the Bank.")

In the unlikely event that she should receive any jail time, she surely will turn around and appeal her conviction and the matter could drag on for years. Besides, with a sharp operator like Martin in her corner she undoubtedly has plenty more legal cards to play.

"Wild animals are just as important as companion animals," Scott Giacoppo of the WHS told the Athens Banner-Herald on November 3rd. (See "Former University of Georgia Researcher Convicted in District of Columbia for Lacing Cat Food with Poison.") "This case shows that whether or not an animal is in someone's lap or in the alley, they (sic) are entitled to the same protections."

His colleague, Lisa LaFontaine, jumped the gun a bit, however, by declaring victory. "Our Humane Law Enforcement Department works hard to bring justice to abused animals in our city, and we can say with confidence that justice was served today," she told the DCist on October 31st. (See "Zoo Researcher Found Guilty in Feral Cat Poisoning Case.")

That is hardly the case since she has not been sentenced yet and, much more importantly, many questions remain unaddressed. Only when she is locked up and these outstanding issues are dealt with can it ever be so much as intimated that a semblance of justice has been meted out.

All is not lost, however, in that she has resigned her position as a postdoctoral researcher at the zoo's Migratory Bird Center although she did not even have the professionalism to do that until after she was convicted. Like all inveterate cat-haters, she quite obviously is so far gone in both the morality and decency departments that she is beyond salvage.

She is by no means alone in her depravity in that her employer had repeatedly brushed aside calls to fire her ever since her arrest. "We know what she's doing would in no way jeopardize our animal collection at the National Zoo or jeopardize wildlife, so we feel perfectly comfortable that she continue her research," Pamela Baker-Masson, who serves as zoo director Dennis Kelly's mouthpiece, declared with a straight face immediately after Dauphiné's arrest.

Even after her conviction the zoo still was standing firmly behind that lamebrained decision. "She did not work with any of the Smithsonian's animals, and we do not feel that she posed any threat to the animals in the Smithsonian's collection," Jen Zoon, another gasbag employed by the zoo, told the Los Angeles Times on November 1st. (See "Smithsonian Bird Researcher Is Convicted of Trying to Poison Cats.")

The very best that can be said for mesdames Baker-Masson and Zoon is that they surely have missed their calling and perhaps should try their dirty hands in the political arena. At least in politics their forte for evading and obfuscating the truth would, sans doute, find a considerably more appreciative audience.

As both of these highly paid professional four-flushers understand only too well, this case never has had anything to do with Dauphiné's treatment of the hundreds of animals that the zoo has incarcerated. Furthermore, as recent revelations have demonstrated, her colleagues are so proficient in abusing and killing the inmates that her participation would be superfluous.

On the contrary, it concerns a entity of the national government maintaining an employee on its payroll that has been indicted for attempting to poison cats. That is a criminal offense and by virtue of its continued support of her has implicated the Smithsonian in her dastardly deeds.

Much more importantly, there is the safety of all cats in Washington to be taken into account. As far as it is known, no dead cats have turned up in Meridian Hill Park but that in itself does not mean that Dauphiné has not poisoned cats there and elsewhere around the city. That is because poisoned cats often crawl off to die in remote places and for that reason their bodies seldom are discovered and even when they are necropsies rarely are performed on them.

Regardless of who is responsible, cats are continuing to be poisoned around the city. For example, the Washington Post reported on October 20th that two homeless cats were found dead on October 11th in the 1000 block of Hamilton Street in the northeast section of the city and that several more are missing. (See "DC Animal Watch.")

"If she did do this, then we naturally would be concerned about her being around all animals," Giacoppo told ABC-TV on May 24th. (See "District of Columbia Zoo Employee Denies Charge She Tried to Poison Feral Cats.") "Whoever would do such a thing is a threat to all animals. It is a slow and painful death. It was callous and complete disregard for animals' well-being."

Becky Robinson of Alley Cat Allies (ACA) summed up the deplorable situation in even blunter terms in a letter sent to Kelly on May 25th. "In standing by Dr. Dauphiné and her alleged acts of animal cruelty the National Zoo and the Smithsonian are sending a message to the Washington, DC, community and all of America that the lives of cats have no value," she wrote.

That without a doubt is exactly how "smelly" Kelly and his gang of inveterate cat-haters at the National Zoo feel. In the final analysis, it is totally irrelevant what ornithologists and wildlife biologists think about cats. They are welcome to think anything that they bloody well please but once they cross the line that separates thought from action and take the law into their hands they promptly should be arrested and thrown in jail for a very long time.

Although the high-muck-a-mucks at the Smithsonian categorically rejected its earlier demand that it dismiss Dauphiné, that has not deterred ACA from pressuring it to both discontinue her research and to never hire her again in any capacity. "Any research Nico Dauphiné was involved in should be considered tainted and biased," Robinson stated in a November 2nd press release. (See "Alley Cat Allies Calls on Smithsonian to Halt Accused Cat Poisoner's Research.") "We know one of her research projects studied the behavior of cats by 'mounting small cameras on domestic cats that roam outdoors to see how they affect wild bird populations.' Given this conviction, that research should not be allowed to continue. In fact, it should be dismissed entirely."

There is little chance of that ever occurring. If the Smithsonian does not pull a fast one and rehire Dauphiné on the sly, it surely will go out and get another ornithologist in order to continue her work.

In even saying that much Robinson is grossly understating the crimes committed against cats by both Dauphiné and the Smithsonian. First of all, where did Dauphiné obtain the cats that she so horribly abused? Secondly, under what conditions were they kept at the zoo?

Thirdly, and most important of all, what became of them once Dauphiné and the Smithsonian had finished with them? Based upon her behavior in Meridian Hill Park, there can be little doubt that she killed every one of them.

Consequently, although the WHS did a tremendous job in apprehending and prosecuting Dauphiné, now certainly is not the time for it to rest on its laurels because there is still much more work for it to do. It first of all should procure a search warrant and raid the zoo unannounced in a belated effort to save the lives of any cats being held there and to secure evidence relating to past abuse.

Secondly, it should ask for a grand jury investigation into feline abuse at the Smithsonian. Toward that objective, Dauphiné, Kelly, and others should be subpoenaed and forced to provide testimony under oath.

"A person convicted of attempted animal cruelty should never be allowed to work at an organization whose stated mission includes 'demonstrating leadership in animal care'," Robinson continued in the press release cited supra.

Palaver such as that is a complete waste of time in that Robinson knows as well as other knowledgeable individuals that the only use that the Smithsonian has for animals of any species is to exploit them. Instead of attempting to appeal to the better natures of the phonies in the organization's hierarchy, ACA needs to be using its considerable political clout in order to persuade Congress to reconsider the nearly one-billion dollars that it annually doles out to these cat-hating fiends.

Ideally, it should be stripped of all public funding and ordered to release the animals that are wasting away in its cages. Failing that, at the very least it should be precluded from using taxpayer dollars in order to shanghai, abuse, and kill cats in flagrant violation of every anti-cruelty statute on the books.

That is, admittedly, a tall order considering that seemingly every agency within the national government has a budget dedicated to defaming and killing cats. The most egregious offender of all is the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) which in recent years has extirpated cats, inter alia, on San Nicolas Island and in the Florida Keys.

It also gallivants around the country denouncing TNR. For instance, on November 5th it treated itself to a late autumn holiday in Hawaii in order to stage an anti-TNR workshop entitled "Influencing Local Scale Feral Cat Trap-Neuter-Release Decisions." Not surprisingly, the workshop was the pièce de résistance of the ultra-ailurophobic Wildlife Society's annual convention in Waikoloa. (See Care2.com, November 3, 2011, "USFWS to Hold Anti-TNR Workshop.")

In addition to the Smithsonian and the USFWS, the USDA, Pentagon, United States Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, the United States Forest Service, and governmental research laboratories all abuse and kill cats with impunity. Not about to be left out of the cat killing craze, all fifty states likewise have their own wildlife departments who share the feds' prejudices.

Furthermore, the anti-cat indoctrination process begins at an early age in the classrooms presided over by ornithologists and wildlife biologists at public universities. (See Cat Defender post of July 18, 2011 entitled "Evil Professors Have Transformed College Campuses into Hotbeds of Hatred Where Cats Routinely Are Vilified, Horribly Abused, and Systematically Killed.")

That segues into the matter of Dauphiné's not inconsiderable legal bill. It is a good bet that the Smithsonian is footing either part or all of it. Should that not be the case, it is a distinct possibility that the American Bird Conservancy, the National Audubon Society, and any number of wildlife groups are assisting her in meeting her financial obligations.

In a November 1st entry to his blog, Science 2.0, Hank Campbell raised several thought provoking issues. "How did Dauphiné, in the world of well-documented science publishing culture (well, her field is not science, it is advocacy) get a job, when a 2009 paper that she co-wrote incredulously claimed that cats killed a billion birds a year?" (See "When Postdocs Attack.")

First of all, although so-called scientific research may be accompanied by copious footnotes and lengthy bibliographies that does not mean that it necessarily is any less biased, contrived, and polemical than, say, either talk radio or the New York Post. In fact, all research and policy statements issued by ornithologists and wildlife biologists amount to little more than anti-cat screeds.

Speaking more fundamentally, bias never can be completely eliminated even by honest scholars but ornithologists and wildlife biologists are so dishonest that they do not make even a token effort to overcome their prejudices. That is quite remarkable given that even third-rate scholars are adept at camouflaging their ulterior motives.

"...I am not sure philosophers are so different from the lay public (that relies upon intuition), it's just that the former are trained to cover their tracks with an impressive edifice of arguments and logic," Tom Shakespeare, a geneticist and sociologist with the World Health Organization, told the New Scientist on July 23, 2008. (See "A World Based on Reason.") "It is hard to be truly objective, to eliminate our history and culture and psychology from thinking."

As far as Dauphiné is concerned, the Smithsonian probably hired her precisely because she had established a track record at UGA as a cat-hater. Not only did she vociferously oppose TNR when it was proposed in Athens and surrounding Clarke County in 2009 but her polemical, "Apocalypse Meow: Free-Roaming Cats and the Destruction of American Wildlife," is every bit as contrived and fanciful as Stanley Temple' rantings of a few years earlier.

Dauphiné also carved out a reputation for herself while at UGA as being an apostle of death. "There's very little or, arguably, no evidence at all that it's (TNR) effective," she howled to the Athens Banner-Herald in 2009 but referenced in the article cited supra. "To me, it's just a lot about people's discomfort with death and people not wanting to deal with it."

C'est-à-dire, homeless cats and, by extension, their caretakers do not have any right to live and she has anointed herself as their executioner. The only species therefore that are entitled to flourish are songbirds; even certain unprofitable avian species must perish.

She certainly is not alone in feeling that way. For example, both the Connecticut and New Jersey chapters of the National Audubon Society have gone on record in recent years as favoring such a Hitler-inspired agenda. (See Cat Defender posts of March 15, 2007 and May 6, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Connecticut Audubon Society Shows Its True Colors by Calling for the Slaughter of Feral Cats, Mute Swans, Mallards, Canada Geese, and Deer" and "National Audubon Society Wins the Right for Invasive Species of Shorebirds to Prey Upon Unborn Horseshoe Crabs.")

Since Dauphiné is so enamored with death it would be interesting to see how she would fare if, against all odds, she is forced to spend some time in the clink with a few of Washington's hardened criminals. The first thing that this puffed-up Ph.D., who has spent her entire life bumming around universities and the Smithsonian, would soon realize is that her fellow inmates are not defenseless cats; they have both the means and savior-faire to not only take care of themselves but a cowardly little Scheißkopf like her to boot.

Photos: Examiner.com (Dauphiné) and Law Crossing (Martin.)

The Multiple Attempts Made Upon Andrea's Life Graphically Demonstrate the Urgent Need for an Immediate Ban on the Killing of All Shelter Animals

2011-11-12T14:25:00.002-05:00

"While this story about an animal's tremendous will to live is extraordinary, the practice of euthanizing animals in a gas chamber is all too ordinary. It is very disturbing to realize how many other animals have survived the gas chamber, only to be gassed again or, worse, placed in a plastic bag alive and left to suffocate in a cold cooler."
-- Community Animal Welfare Society

Pretty little Andrea with her luxuriant black fur and dainty white paws was minding her own business one day in September when she was set upon and abducted off the mean streets of West Valley City, Utah. She then cruelly was incarcerated without either trial or legal representation for the next thirty days at the West Valley City Animal Shelter (WVCAS).

Since she was house trained and especially friendly, it was obvious from the outset that she at one time had been someone's companion. Most likely she either had been abandoned or became separated from her guardian for some unknown reason.

Totally unwilling to even consider either her past history or her inalienable right to live, WVCAS decided on October 13th to do away with her in its carbon monoxide gas chamber. After all, a little gas is considerably easier on the wallet than feeding, housing, and medicating a cat. Moreover, procuring a new home for her was totally out of the question because that would have required time and work as well as money.

Without either further ado or so much as an inkling of compassion, WVCAS locked her inside its death house along with several other cats and turned on the gas. When against all odds she somehow survived that attempt on her life, the diabolical monsters who operate WVCAS turned around and gave her another dousing. Satisfied that she now finally was dead, an unidentified employee wrapped her up tight in a black plastic trash bag and stowed her corpse in a 37° Fahrenheit freezer.

Andrea had proven to be harder to kill than the vast majority of the tens of millions of cats that routinely are exterminated each year in the United States but the staff at WVCAS was able to take satisfaction in knowing that she finally was done for and that her corpse soon would be reduced to ashes. Since out of sight is equivalent to being out of mind, it would be as if she never had existed.

Besides, she meant absolutely nothing to her cold-blooded killers who think no more of gassing a cat than they do of passing gas. Killing and abusing defenseless animals is, after all, how they earn their daily bread and, in some cases, get their perverted kicks.

Imagine then the shock when her killer, returning to the freezer forty-five minutes later in order to deposit the corpse of a fourteen-year-old dog, heard a meow. Tearing open the plastic bag, the employee found Andrea trembling and covered in vomit and poop but very much alive. As Charles Dickens said of Dr. Alexandre Manette in his novel A Tale of Two Cities, she had been recalled to life.(See photo of her above shortly after being gassed and the one below of her later in foster care.)

While it is extremely rare for an animal to survive even one gassing, it is almost unheard of for one to survive two such attempts. In most cases, survival depends upon there being a leak in the chamber which allows some of the gas to escape.

Other factors impacting survival rates include, inter alia, the number of animals being gassed, the concentration of the carbon monoxide, and the health of the animals. Generally speaking, young and healthy animals stand a significantly better chance of surviving than do their opposites and since carbon monoxide is heavier than air it tends to sink to the floor thus favoring tall dogs and those animals able to climb on top of their doomed companions.

For its part, WVCAS insists that there was nothing awry with its gas chamber . "The chamber was working properly," the organization's Aaron Crim told The Salt Lake City Tribune on October 17th. (See "Death Can't Catch This West Valley City Cat.") "In fact, several other cats were euthanized at the same time, and this cat is the only one that survived."

Perhaps then Andrea survived by either avoiding the higher concentrations of gas at the bottom of the chamber or by somehow not inhaling very much of it. Even if that were the case, it does not explain either how she was able to survive in an airtight trash bag for almost an hour or to ward off the numbing effects of hypothermia.

In defense of WVCAS's unconscionable and abhorrent behavior, Crim claims that gassing is an effective way of exterminating animals. "This is actually a recommended method by the American Veterinarian Association (sic) and we follow all the procedural guidelines that they give us," he blew long and hard to WPTV of West Palm Beach on October 17th. (See "Andrea the Cat Survives Multiple Euthanization Attempts at Utah Shelter.") "We've never had an instance like this since we started using this method so it does work."

To rely upon the cruel and inhumane pronouncements of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) in regard to killing animals is tantamount to sanctioning almost any kind of barbarism. For example, the AVMA not only sanctions the use of almost any drug but also wholeheartedly approves of, inter alia, gunshots, electrocution, decapitation, maceration, blows to the head, cervical dislocation, microwave irradiation, thoracic compression, kill traps, exsanguination, stunning, pithing, and captive bolts as acceptable means of killing animals.

The AVMA's inveterate hatred of homeless cats is well documented but its abhorrent killing policies reveal it to be a thoroughly reprehensible moneygrubbing fraud. That is not even taking into consideration its naked collaboration with factory farmers, slaughterhouses, vivisectors, and sportsmen and entertainers who exploit and abuse animals. In short, anyone who would rely upon it for guidance on how shelter animals should be treated also no doubt would find the minimalist protections afforded laboratory animals under the feeble Animal Welfare Act as worthy of praise.

Crim is such a no-good rotter that he did not even have the bon sens to stop there, but instead went on to ludicrously claim that gassing animals is humane. "It's actually very humane and it's very quick," he declared to WPTV. "This is just an anomaly."

He also apparently believes in resurrections. "There were no vital signs and for whatever reason as time went on the cat came back to life," he told The Salt Lake Tribune in the article cited supra. That puts him in the same class as evangelist Oral Roberts who during his lifetime claims to have raised the dead.

Unfortunately, there is not any way of verifying Crim's claim as to the efficacy of his killing chamber but, generally speaking, killing animals with carbon monoxide is far from being foolproof. That is why some shelters are on record as admitting to wringing the necks of cats and dogs that have survived gassing attempts as well as drowning others in buckets of water.

In Andrea's case, WVCAS actually made four separate attempts on her life. Besides gassing her twice, it not only attempted to suffocate her in a plastic bag but also to freeze her to death in an icebox.

After that, the shelter finally gave up and threw in the towel. "It was just one of those things where they (sic) thought this cat obviously wants to live," Crim told the Daily Mail on October 19th. (See "The Cat That Wouldn't Die!") "Let's give it a chance to find a permanent home."

A statement such as that is difficult to believe because if Crim and WVCAS were serious about placing Andrea in a new home they would have done so weeks ago instead of electing to take the cheap and easy route by snuffing out her life.

Secondly, anyone so callous as to nonchalantly refer to the taking of an innocent life as "just one of those things" quite obviously would not have felt ill at ease at either Treblinka or Buchenwald. More than likely, WVCAS ultimately spared Andrea's life simply because it was too cheap and miserly to spend any more time and money killing her.

Crim's comments expose WVCAS as fervently believing the en masse eradication of cats, dogs, and other helpless animals to be little more than a sadistic game designed for its own amusement and livelihood. Such behavior is reminiscent of drunken louts who, while beating their spouses to a bloody pulp, never stop out of compassion but rather only once their arms grow too tired to inflict any more damage.

Andrea may have survived WVCAS's multiple attempts on her life but she did not come away unscathed. The double exposure to the deadly carbon monoxide has left her with undetermined neurological damage that is reflected in an unsteady gait.

It additionally is feared that she may have suffered serious liver and kidney damage. She initially was taken to Orchard Animal Clinic in Centerville for emergency treatment and later transferred to the Community Animal Welfare Society's (CAWS) no-kill shelter in Clearfield.

She since has been placed in foster care with CAWS' volunteer Janita Coombs of Syracuse. (See photo above of Andrea treating Coombs to a game of catch the string.)

At last report, she is said to be eating and drinking but having some difficulties using the litter box. Blood and urine samples taken from her are said to be mostly normal. Nevertheless, attending veterinarians have recommended to Coombs and CAWS that she remain in foster care for a few more weeks before being spayed and placed with another family.

In the meantime, her caretakers and well-wishers from around the world remain on tenterhooks hoping against hope that she did not suffer any significant damage from the carbon monoxide. Nevertheless, she certainly is faring considerably better than she was at WVCAS.

"When we first got her, she had some difficulty walking. When they found her hypothermic in the freezer she had vomited and defecated on herself, but she has since seemed to recover quite well," Coombs told The Salt Lake Tribune in the article cited supra. "If you just look at her she looks perfectly healthy."

Like everyone else, Coombs has been impressed with Andrea's will to live. "She's pretty tough, obviously," she marveled to the Daily Mail in the article cited supra. "She's definitely got some will to live."

Since carbon monoxide gas chambers are perfectly legal in Utah, it is going to be difficult for CAWS to hold WVCAS accountable. Undeterred nonetheless, it is planning on putting in a request under the Government Records Access Management Act (GRAMA) for Andrea's shelter file and it may also file a complaint against the shelter. At the very least, WVCAS should be held liable for Andrea's veterinary treatment for as long as she lives.

More generally speaking, CAWS has placed itself in the untenable position of advocating on the one hand for the abolition of gas chambers while simultaneously continuing to support traditional shelters on the other hand. It is, however, its wrongheaded policy of blaming the public for the hideous crimes that shelters and Animal Control officers voluntarily choose to commit that is the most revolting. After all, no society exterminates orphans and abandoned children just because their parents have failed to fulfill their obligations to them.

"But it must be recognized that the animal shelters have a very difficult task of dealing with the unwanted animals in our communities," the organization complained October 18th on its web site. (See "Andrea's Story.") "Ultimately, the practice of euthanizing animals is a tragic result of pet overpopulation caused in general by people who do not spay or neuter their pets or abandon them."

That is pure baloney! Shelters and Animal Control officers kill cats and dogs because, first of all, they get paid for doing so and, secondly, that is how they get their perverted kicks. These monsters should not be pitied; au contraire, they belong in jail!

Even though CAWS blows considerable smoke about sterilization, its does not give any indication on its web site that it provides this valuable service to the community. More to the point, organizations that are serious about reducing the number of unwanted cats and dogs, such as PetSmart and the Toby Project in New York City, offer this service gratis.

CAWS also is remiss in limiting its advocacy to the abolition of gas chambers. "While this story about an animal's tremendous will to live is extraordinary, the practice of euthanizing animals in a gas chamber is all too ordinary," the organization stated on its web site in the October 18th article cited supra. "It's very disturbing to realize how many other animals have survived the gas chamber, only to be gassed again or, worse, placed in a plastic bag alive and left to suffocate in a cold cooler."

Gassing, suffocation, and hypothermia are sans doute horrible ways for an animal to die, but so too are sodium pentobarbital, gunshot wounds to the head, and electrocution. CAWS and other organizations should be advocating for the inalienable right of all animals to live and for the abolition of traditional shelters instead of sucking up to them.

Since shelters are not about to disclose how many animals survive trips to the gas chamber, they likewise are not about to reveal how many of them later either suffocate in trash bags or freeze to death in refrigeration facilities. The little information that exists on this taboo subject is therefore anecdotal.

For example, a few years back a puppy named Davie was found alive in a Dumpster after having been gassed at a shelter in North Carolina. (See Mooresville Tribune, February 3, 2009, "Animal Gassing May Be Stopped.")

Ten days prior to WVCAS's pulling out all of the stops in its failed attempt to kill Andrea, a five-year-old, twenty-pound beagle-mix named Daniel underwent an almost identical ordeal at Animal Control's killing factory in Florence, Alabama. (See photo of him stretched out on a rug above.)

Cruelly abandoned outside the pound, he was gassed along with eighteen other dogs on October 3rd but amazingly not only survived but, unlike Andrea, escaped without incurring any permanent damage. Although frightened and malnourished, he still was able to wag his tail after being freed from the gas chamber.

"It may be that his breathing was shallow because of a cold or something," Phil Stevenson, a spokesman for the city, theorized to the New York Daily News on October 29th. (See "Lucky Dog Survives Gas Chamber, Up for Adoption.")

Sure enough, Daniel had contracted an upper respiratory infection as the result of being confined in the cramped and unsanitary shelter. He also sustained a minor skin infection.

Not completely satisfied with that explanation, Stevenson next turned to the Almighty in a belated effort to make sense of how any good could possibly come out of such a heinous act. "Maybe God just had a better plan for this one," he blowed to the Daily News.

It does seem odd, however, that Stevenson's god would elect to intervene in order to spare Daniel's life while simultaneously standing idly by while millions of other totally innocent animals are vanquished each year by shelters. In fact, only two other dogs have survived Florence's gas chamber in the past dozen years.

Thanks to the timely and compassionate intervention of Eleventh Hour Rescue (EHR) in Rockaway, New Jersey, Daniel was flown out of Florence on October 26th and immediately placed in foster care with the charity's Jill Pavlik. "He's absolutely fabulous!" the northern New Jersey hairdresser gushed to the Daily News in the article cited supra. "He walked in the house like he had always lived there. He's very sweet, happy and outgoing."

Even though EHR has received inquiries from several hundred individuals wanting to give Daniel a home, Pavlik is not in any hurry to make a decision on that point just yet. "We're going to be very careful," she confided to the Daily News. "He's a dog; he's a lucky dog, but he's a dog. And there are a lot of nutty people out there."

That undoubtedly is true to a certain extent but the real monsters are those who kill cats and dogs as a livelihood. That certainly is the case with unrepentant Vinny Grosso who operates Florence's pound.

"It's just very, very rare," is how he calmly described Daniel's amazing survival to the Daily News. "It (Daniel's relocation to Rockaway) was a great ending to a kind of bizarre story."

Something is terribly wrong whenever a dog's salvation is termed as bizarre whereas mass exterminations simply are accepted as the norm. Nonetheless, that is the kind of thinking that prevails not only in shelters but throughout societies everywhere.

"It is criminal that wonderful, loving animals just like Daniel are killed every day in this country," EHR stated recently on its web site in an undated article. (See "From the President.") "If we refuse to use euthanasia as a tool to manage our pet problem then we will be forced to find a different and hopefully more humane way to deal with this problem."

Daniel's plight has prompted Andy Dinniman, who represents Pennsylvania's nineteenth senatorial district, to introduce a bill that would ban the use of gas chambers in the Keystone State. The law, appropriately enough, will be called Daniel's Law.

A rally in support of the proposed legislation will be held tomorrow between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. at the Thorncroft Equestrian Center at 190 Line Road in Malvern, thirty-one kilometers outside of Philadelphia in Chester County. Best of all, Daniel will be on hand in order to lend his support to the legislation. (See notice advertising the rally above.)

Pavlik has since handed over custody of Daniel to Linda Schiller and he is said to be getting on famously with two other dogs that are under her care. (See photo above of him with his new playmates.)

No matter who ultimately adopts him, Daniel never will have to enter another gas chamber so long as he remains in the Garden State because those barbaric killing devices wisely and humanely have been banned there as well as in fourteen other states. He will, however, be divested of his manhood before he is put up for adoption.

While a ban on the gassing of cats and dogs by the authorities would be a step in the right direction it would not completely eliminate the menace. That is because private exterminators also round up and gas animals.

That was the terrible tragedy visited upon Patrick Boland and Shelley Bolek of League City, Texas, in March of 2007 when ABC Pest and Lawn of Houston trapped and gassed their cat, Butty. (See Cat Defender post of August 30, 2007 entitled "Texas Couple Files Lawsuit Against Pest Control Company for Trapping and Gassing Their Cat, Butty.")

In June of 2008, Fox-35 of 1925 Westmoreland Road in Richmond, Virginia, hired thirty-seven-year-old Keith Copi of Critter Control to trap and remove several dozen cats from its property. In the process, he gassed at least three of them in his truck and later disposed of their corpses in a Dumpster.

Convicted on August 14, 2008 in Henrico County District Court on three charges of misdemeanor animal cruelty, he escaped with a paltry $750 fine. Since he received $409 from Fox for killing the cats, in the end he was out of pocket only $341.

Based upon that, the court equated the lives of his victims to be worth only $113.66 apiece. (See Cat Defender posts of July 7, 2008 and August 21, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Fox Affiliate in Richmond Murders at Least Three Cats and Then Sends in the Bulldozers to Destroy Their Homes" and "Justice Denied: Exterminator Who Gassed Three Cats at the Behest of Fox-35 in Richmond Gets Off with a Minuscule Fine.")

Although it never has been disclosed what method PETA uses in order to kill cats and dogs, its death vans very well could be equipped with carbon monoxide gas chambers. (See Cat Defender posts of January 29, 2007 and February 9, 2007 entitled, respectively, "PETA's Long History of Killing Cats and Dogs Finally Is Exposed in a North Carolina Courtroom" and "Verdict in PETA Trial: Littering Is a Crime but Not the Mass Slaughter of Innocent Cats and Dogs.")

The ludicrous assertion made by Crim and others that gassing an animal is painless, quick, and humane is refuted by knowledgeable individuals outside the extermination racket. "I will never forget what I saw," Alice Singh of the North Carolina Coalition for Humane Euthanasia told the Mooresville Tribune in the article cited supra after watching a group of dogs gassed at a shelter in Yadkin County. "The dogs were trying to jump out of the large metal box, only to fail with many other dogs in the chamber with them. The screams from the box will never escape my memory, nor will the many scratches inside of the box, or the blood in the bottom left after removing the dogs." (See photo above of a gas chamber.)

Her colleague at the Coalition, Michele King, also has heard the harrowing cries emitted by doomed animals and seen the scratches that they leave behind on the walls in their futile attempts to save themselves. "It doesn't appear to be a peaceful death," she declared to the Star News of Wilmington on February 6, 2009. (See "Bills Aim to Shut Down Animal Gas Chambers.") "We can do better for these animals."

Animal rights activist Barbara Mansfield of Pasquotank County in North Carolina has witnessed fights between animals that were being gassed en masse. "Gassing is not a pretty way to die," she told the Daily Advance of Elizabeth City on January 28, 2009. (See "Bill to Be Introduced Would Stop Gassings.") "The animals aren't always separated when they're put in and they can end up fighting each other before the gas kills them."

Gassed animals also suffer convulsions, seizures, and innumerable other horrors during their final minutes on this earth. In fact, their lives are nothing short of a living Hell even before they are gassed in that some shelters have their own death rows in the form of constraint containers where large numbers of cats are lumped together in order to wait their turns to be killed. (See photo above of one such box used at the Tri-County Animal Shelter in Tyner, North Carolina.)

In addition to being anything but painless, gassing an animal to death takes considerable time. "Having them gasping for breath for five or ten minutes seems a particularly cruel method of euthanizing an animal," South Carolina state politician Jeff Kessler told the Charleston Daily Mail on March 10, 2009. (See "Bill Would Ban Gas Chambers for Animal Euthanasia.")

Kessler actually is understating the case according to a November 2nd posting on Dinniman's web site that claims it can take twenty-five minutes or longer for carbon monoxide to kill an animal. (See "Rally to Ban Animal Gassing Set for November 13th.")

Even more outrageously, a few shelters still rely upon the exhaust fumes from idling motor vehicles in order to gas animals. They simply run a hose from the tailpipe to either the box or cage where the animals are incarcerated.

In particular, the Humane Society of the United States has been accused of using this method in order to extirpate hundreds of fighting cocks that were seized during a raid in Tennessee. On that occasion, the already horribly abused birds were stuffed into a barrel that had a hose leading from it to the exhaust pipe of a truck.

The gassing of animals is an equally controversial subject north of the border where compressed carbon dioxide often is used instead of carbon monoxide. "It's graphic. The animals struggle inside their cages," Michael O'Sullivan of the Humane Society of Canada told The Province of Vancouver on September 9, 2009. (See "Groups Protest Gassing Stray Cats in Duncan, North Cowichan.") "There's a lot of saliva, banging around."

Cat activist Jean Ballard also flatly rejects the often repeated notion that if gassing were painful an animal would exhibit distress. "If it was a wild cat, it's possible it was malnourished and too weak to fight," she told The Province.

In particular, she went on to point out that when carbon dioxide mixes with the mucus in a cat's respiratory system it generates carbonic acid which in turn causes the cat intense pain. Even more staggering, if any penal institution ever so much as contemplated using either carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide in order to execute condemned prisoners there would be widespread outrage but when it comes to totally innocent animals such barbarism is merely accepted.

The only time that voices are raised against it is when the system fails and animals, such as Andrea, Davie, and Daniel somehow survive. The same holds true for other extermination methods, none of which work one-hundred per cent of the time.

Even much ballyhooed jabs of sodium pentobarbital are not always effective. For example, in October of 2010 Matt Olivarez of Redford Township in Michigan took his ailing eleven-year-old Rottweiler, Mia, to Westcott Veterinary Care Center in Detroit to be killed.

Afterwards, he collected her corpse and took it home. The following day when he went to bury her he was shocked to discover that she had revived and was standing on all four legs. (See photo above of them together in happier days.)

No explanation ever was presented as to what went wrong and Mia since has been adopted by a family in Hillsdale. Originally, Olivarez had elected to have her killed off because he was too miserly and uncaring to pay for her upkeep and veterinary needs. (See The Detroit News, November 9, 2010, "Euthanized Dog Who Wouldn't Die Will Be Going to New Home.")

Even gunshot wounds to the head, endorsed by the AVMA and favored by law enforcement personnel, have their limitations. For instance, on April 15, 2003 an unidentified police officer in Clearlake, California, shot a ten-month-old pit bull-mix named Dosha in the head after she was run down and injured by a motorist. (See photo of her directly above.)

She next was taken to Animal Control and deposited in a freezer. Two hours later, the morgue attendant was startled to learn that she had regained consciousness.

The bullet was removed but, like Andrea, she had to be treated for hypothermia. (See People Magazine, May 12, 2003, "Dosha the Wonder Dog.")

Recent medical research has revealed that it takes some individuals up to three hours in order to die. Therefore, the old Victorian fear of being buried alive is every bit as much of a concern for individuals as it is for animals.

It thus follows that all of this consternation over gas chambers not only is selective but totally misses the point as well. That is because it is morally reprehensible to kill any animal except in extreme cases of self-defense. An animal's inalienable right to live is in no way diminished by the method of execution employed.

No method is either humane or painless and those who claim the contrary are being dishonest. Much more poignantly, there never can be any justice in vanquishing the innocent and powerless regardless of whether they are animals or individuals. Such aberrant behavior stinks and it tarnishes all individuals and societies who engage in it.

It is way past time that societies stopped shillyshallying around and wallowing in the minutiae of extermination methodology and for once took the bull by the horns and outlawed without exception the killing of all shelter animals. Since both shelter personnel and veterinarians alike have proven themselves to be unwilling to respect life, no discretion should be permitted under any circumstances.

The sickly should receive treatment and hospice care, the unsocialized should either be released into the wild or tamed, and the vicious placed in secure sanctuaries. Above all, the emphasis should be away from warehousing and killing and directed instead on adoption and sterilization.

Contrary to the lies spread by critics, this is preeminently an achievable objective. It will require, however, the closing of all traditional shelters, the abolition of Animal Control officers, and a revocation of the right of veterinarians and policemen to kill animals.

In order to achieve that lofty goal, people of good conscience who not only recognize a difference between right and wrong but are willing to speak up on behalf of the innocent are desperately needed. Suck-ups are of absolutely no use and individuals and groups who falsely claim that they can reform the current moribund regime and make it more humane are out of their skulls.

Photos: WPTV (Andrea), CAWS (Andrea), Djamila Grossman of The Salt Lake Tribune (Andrea and Coombs), ABC-TV via the New York Daily News (Daniel), Andy Dinniman (Daniel with his new playmates and rally notice), Mooresville Tribune (gas chamber), Justin Falls of The Daily Advance (cat constraint container), David Guralnick of The Detroit News (Mia and Olivarez), and People Magazine (Dosha).

Sheriff Matt Lutz Settles an Old Score by Staging a Great Safari Hunt That Claims the Lives of Eighteen Tigers and Seventeen Lions in Zanesville

2011-11-03T17:44:00.003-04:00

"I've been out there and walked past the pens and had those cats become aggressive. I knew if those animals were running loose, they were out of control."
-- Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz

The cold-blooded and senseless massacre of forty-nine large carnivores, most of them rare and endangered, by officers of the Muskingum County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) in Zanesville, Ohio, on October 18th and 19th will, in due time, be regarded as one of the most egregious crimes than man ever has committed against animals. (See photos above and below of some of the victims.)

Once the shooting finally stopped, no less than eighteen Bengal tigers, seventeen lions, six black bears, two brown bears, three cougars, two gray wolves, and a baboon lay dead. Ambushed initially in the twilight and later in the darkness by deputies armed with night vision glasses, assault rifles, and automatic pistols, the defenseless animals never had a chance. (See chart below tallying up the horrific slaughter.)

Thanks once again to the capitalist media's sworn duty to always serve as the propagandists for the authorities, no one in the general public ever will know exactly what transpired on that fatal evening which dragged into the early hours of the following day. As best the story can be pieced together from sketchy press reports, sixty-two-year-old Terry Thompson, owner of the Muskingum County Animal Farm (MCAF), turned the forty-nine animals loose earlier that afternoon before shooting himself to death.

Four deputies armed with assault rifles initially were dispatched to 270 Kopchak Road in Falls Township where they promptly gunned down twenty-five of the animals right off the bat. The great safari hunt continued throughout the night as the MCSO, determined that no animal be left alive, was joined by the Licking County Sheriff's Office, the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, the Ohio Division of Wildlife, the Muskingum County Emergency Management Agency, and several nearby fire brigades. It is by no means certain, but it appears that just about all the killing was done by the MCSO.

The often repeated justification for this massacre is that the animals posed an imminent threat to the public. That rationale has been bandied about as if it were manna from heaven despite the fact that no credible evidence has been produced that any of them either came within so much as a country mile of any citizen or, for that matter, even made it off of Thompson's seventy-three acre spread.

One big cat reportedly did come close to escaping but it was hit by a motorist and then promptly dispatched to the devil by the MCSO. The reckless manner in which most motorists operate their vehicles in this country precludes the notion that any of the animals would have lasted for very long even if they had made it off the grounds. Furthermore, with Thompson dead there apparently were not any other individuals on the property and thus in harm's way at the time of the safari hunt.

That assessment of the situation is vouched for not only by the fact that all of the animals later were buried on the farm but also because it is highly improbable that the lazy and cheap MCSO would have gone to the trouble of transporting their bodies back to the farm for burial if they had been killed elsewhere. (See photo below of some of the animals lined up outside the barn.)

The quick burials also precluded necropsies being performed on the vanquished. Such an inquiry would have revealed not only how many times each victim was shot but also at what range and the type of slug used.

Such an inquiry just as importantly would have provided some indication as to the physical and, perhaps, mental state of the victims. That is particularly important in light of unconfirmed allegations that they lived in filth and were malnourished.

It additionally would have been interesting to know if any of them had been either defanged or declawed. In the end, lawmen, like physicians and veterinarians, cover up the evidence of their despicable crimes underneath six feet of earth.

Even if the animals had strayed it would not have been the end of the world in that the private zoo is located in a rural area with neighboring houses some distance away and spread out over an extended area. The largest nearby city is Columbus and it is fifty-five miles in the distance.

Moreover, only the tigers and lions posed any real threat to humans. In many parts of the country residents have learned to live in peace with bears, wolves, and cougars. Baboons and other primates normally are not considered to present much of a danger to humans although Charla Nash of Connecticut did lose her eyesight, hands, and face back in 2009 as the result of an altercation with a chimp named Travis. (See New York Post, October 28, 2011, "'Chimp' Gal: I'm Beautiful.")

If any of the animals belatedly did exhibit any aggression it was because they were being systematically stalked and mercilessly exterminated one by one by the MCSO. That is a fact that even loudmouthed, bloodthirsty Sheriff Matt Lutz candidly admits.

"These animals were on the move and showing aggressive behavior," he neatly turned the truth on its head in an interview with ABC-TV on October 19th. (See "Zanesville Animal Massacre Included Eighteen Rare Bengal Tigers.") "There were some very close calls" and at times it was "almost hand-to-hand" combat with the animals. (See photo further down the page of him putting on a show for the benefit of his apologists in the media.)

According to Lutz and all those who think like him, man has an unqualified right to slaughter animals with impunity but they on the other hand are not even entitled to the right of self-defense. (See Cat Defender post of August 24, 2011 entitled "Self-Defense Is Against the Law in Australia after a Woman Who Attacked a Cat Gets Away with Her Crime Whereas Her Victim Is Trapped and Executed.")

Lutz furthermore maintains that the lions and bears were charging at horses kept at the preserve. If that indeed were the case, the MCSO should have rounded them up along with all farm and companion animals and temporarily secured them in the cages vacated by the carnivores. Instead, Lutz has used that as another excuse in order to justify the killing spree.

Although it is unclear exactly how long Thompson and his estranged wife, Vivian, had operated MCAF, Lutz and other public officials had made dozens of trips to the farm since 2004 in order to investigate, inter alia, alleged animal cruelty, unsanitary conditions, and insecure cages and fences. In hindsight it thus seems clear that Lutz had developed a grudge against the Bengals and lions and was just lying in wait like a viper in the grass in order to strike when the right opportunity presented itself.

"I've been out there and walked past the pens and had those cats become aggressive," he confessed to the Zanesville Times Recorder on October 23rd. (See "Sheriff Matt Lutz Reacts to Rumors, the Spotlight and Those Second-Guessing the Choice He Was Forced to Make.") "I knew if those animals were running loose, they were out of control."

That thought provoking admission raises the possibility that Lutz may have been threatening and menacing either the tigers and lions or Thompson in some manner during those visits. Another possibility is that the cats sensed the hatred and fear that emanated from his person and instinctively knew that he was out to get them. Animals are not nearly as stupid as some individuals believe them to be.

The butcher of Zanesville additionally makes no bones about wanting the animals dead. "Public safety was my number one concern," Lutz proclaimed to The Columbus Dispatch on October 19th. (See "Sheriff: Fifty-Six Exotic Animals Escaped from Farm Near Zanesville; Forty-Nine Killed by Authorities.") "I gave the order that if the animals looked like they were going to get out, they were going down."

C'est-à-dire, the thought of saving their lives never entered into his malignant, cat-hating gourd. "When I gave that order, I wasn't thinking about animals," he told the Zanesville Times Recorder in the article cited supra. "I was thinking about the public and their safety."

An assertion such as that is more laughable than anything else, especially coming as it does from someone in dog-eat-dog America where scarcely a soul can be found who gives so much as a rat's ass about the welfare of his fellow citizens. That is even more so the case with public officials who divide their time between being welfare bums, liars, and thieves on the one hand and stooging for the money men on the other hand.

If any public official really cared about people and wanted to make this society just a little bit more livable he or she would, at the minimum, make the highways safe for pedestrians, animals, bicyclists, and law-abiding motorists, lock up all violent offenders, protect the environment and the animals, promote the establishment of a fair and equitable economic system that actually worked, provide affordable health and veterinary care to all individuals and animals, and get the money out of both politics and the media. To pass off the cold-blooded murder of these defenseless animals as a crude substitute for public service not only rings hollow but exposes Lutz and his supporters to be not only outrageous liars but delusional as well.

In typically American fashion, Lutz is especially proud of his diabolical crimes. "If I had to do it over, I'd do the same thing," he pledged to the Zanesville Times Recorder in the article cited supra.

That brings to mind what comedian Stephen Colbert said of Bush II at the White House Correspondents' Dinner back in 2005. "When the president decides something on Monday he still believes it on Wednesday -- no matter what happened on Tuesday," he declared to those assembled.

The task for both individuals and societies alike is to learn from their mistakes and to strive to do better in the future, not to wallow in lawlessness and prejudice. As Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once observed, "History leads the wise man and drags the fool."

Much more importantly, the behavior and words of this latter-day Bungalow Bill display an appalling indifference to all morality and the sacredness of animal life. If John Lennon were alive today, he instantly would recognize Lutz as a carbon copy of Richard A. Cooke III whom he immortalized with these choice words:

"Hey, Bungalow Bill
What did you kill,
Bungalow Bill?

He went out tiger hunting with his elephant and gun.
In case of accidents he always took his mom.
He's the all-American bullet-headed Saxon mother's son...

Deep in the jungle where the mighty tiger lies
Bill and his elephants were taken by surprise.
So Captain Marvel zapped him right between the eyes...

The children asked him if to kill was not a sin.
"Not when he looked so fierce," his mommy butted in.
"If looks could kill it would have been us instead of him."

As was the case with White and his mom, all it took was one cross-eyed look from the cats coupled with the right opportunity to unleash all the pent-up hatred and savagery that lay hidden in Lutz's black heart. After all, it is not often that a lawman is given the opportunity to engage in what he has been trained to do with impunity.

After having conveniently exonerated both himself and his subalterns Lutz turned around and, once again in typically American fashion, placed all the blame for the massacre on Thompson. "It didn't have to happen, but that was a decision Mr. Thompson made," Lutz swore with a straight face to the Zanesville Times Recorder in the article cited supra. "There was no reason for these animals to have to be killed or my deputies put in the positions they were put in. But that was his decision, and I had to do what I had to do to protect my people and this community."

Such silliness always has had a substantial following in the land of the dollar bill but it really became en vogue during the reign of Americans' beloved four-flusher, Ronald Wilson Reagan. In brief, it maintains that the poor and unsuccessful are degenerates whereas the rich and successful, no matter how predatory and criminal, are the salt of the earth and therefore can do no wrong.

It is precisely that sort of thinking that has led to trillion-dollar bailouts of Wall Street crooks, the automakers, and others while simultaneously abandoning the masses to freeze to death in the streets and to die from a lack of affordable health care. The one constant running throughout all of these policies is that the malignant and corrupt-as-hell establishment is never to blame in any way, shape, form, or fashion for any of society's ills; au contraire, it is all the fault of individuals.

Thompson, quite obviously, was a troubled man. The former Vietnam veteran, who once owned a Harley Davidson franchise, had just gotten out of the slammer on September 30th after having served a year for possession of a machine gun and short firearms with filed-off serial numbers. In fact, when the mass murderers of Ruby Ridge and Waco, the notorious Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), raided his farm in June of 2008 they seized more than one-hundred weapons.

Adding insult to injury, his wife recently had left him and he reportedly owed $68,000 in federal and state taxes. It does not take any genius to realize that the residual effects of Vietnam, the ATF, jail, money woes, marital difficulties, a trigger-happy sheriff, and exotic animals all formed a volatile mix that was apt to explode at any given time.

"I think people don't fully understand the situation," Thompson told the Zanesville Times Recorder in 2008 according to its October 21st edition. (See "Exotic Animal Tragedy: Search Ends Near Zanesville, Questions Remain.") "People are quick to scrutinize me when they really have no idea of what I'm about or why I have chosen to have these animals." (See photo of him on the right below.)

Considering the conflicting opinions of him that have emerged since his death, that does indeed appear to have been the case. He was "a guy who kind of kept to himself, was always willing to push the envelope a little bit," is how Lutz characterized him to ABC-TV in the article cited supra.

As far as his neighbor Fred Polk was concerned, Thompson simply loved animals. "He liked animals more than he did people," he testified to the Philadelphia Inquirer on October 21st. (See "A Sad Acceptance on Lost Animals.") "He really did."

As far as Kenny Hetrick, who keeps tigers at a preserve outside of Toledo, is concerned, Thompson simply bit off more than he could chew. "He really had more there than what he could do," he told the Daily Mail on October 22nd. (See "Did Wild Animal Owner 'Bait' Himself Before Committing Suicide?") "I don't know what his deal was, but he was in over his head."

It is not clear where Thompson acquired the animals. Apparently some of them were given to him by owners who had purchased them as infants but no longer wanted to care for them once they reached adulthood.

He also bought and sold them at so-called exotic animal auctions. It is even conceivable that he may have been a breeder and possibly even an importer in violation of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

All of that buggers the question of how he was able to remain afloat financially. After all, it can cost as much as $10,00 per annum in order to feed and medicate some large animals.

In addition to whatever he raked in through trafficking in wild animals, he also occasionally hired himself out as a wildlife expert. For example, he once took a trio of lion cubs to New York City for a fashion shoot with German supermodel Heidi Klum. In 2008, he served as an animal handler for a zoologist who was appearing on the Rachel Ray Show.

He also relied, in part, on dead cows that he got from neighbor Kate Riley in order to feed his animals. MCAF therefore looks to have been operated on a shoestring.

"I don't let my animals run loose," Thompson once told the Zanesville Times Recorder according to the October 21st article cited supra. "I'm not going to put anyone else, including myself and my wife, in danger or put my animals at risk."

Unfortunately, that is precisely what he turned around and did on October 18th and that calls into question his alleged love of them. It is one thing for him to have taken his own life but to have condemned these beautiful animals to die in a hail of bullets was totally unconscionable. Anyone about to check out of this vale of tears and who truly loved animals would have made provisions for their continued care instead of initialing their death warrants.

In the final analysis perhaps neighbor Angie McElfresh came the closest to the truth when she suggested that Thompson released the animals in order to get back at his detractors. It "could have been a 'fuck you' to everyone around him," she theorized to London's Independent on October 21st. (See "Scandal of the Private Zoo That Ended in Slaughter.")

As egregious as Thompson's conduct was, it nevertheless pales in comparison with Lutz's barbarism and crocodile tears. "None of us were happy about what we had to do out there," he vowed to the Zanesville Times Recorder in the October 23rd article cited supra. "None of us."

If by any chance that sounds familiar it is because that is exactly what Dori Stone received from the police and politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, a couple of months earlier after a still unidentified police officer executed her cat, Haze. (See Cat Defender post of September 22, 2011 entitled "Neanderthaloid Politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, Wholeheartedly Sanction the Illegal and Cold-Blooded Murder of Haze by a Trigger-Happy Cop.")

In addition to gunning down cats, both big and small ones alike, Ohioans have, inter alia, evicted domestic ones from the statehouse in Columbus, threatened to shoot them with Tasers, and killed them with crossbows. (See Cat Defender posts of October 20, 2005, April 8, 2008, and August 2, 2007 entitled, respectively, "After Ridding Ohio Statehouse of Rats, Cats Now Find Themselves Facing Eviction," "Ohio Politician Proposes Adding Cats to the Growing List of Pigs, Other Animals, and Humans Killed by Tasers," and "Ohio Cat Shot in the Leg with an Arrow Is Forced to Endure a Long-Drawn-Out and Excruciating Death.")

It likewise never must be forgotten that although the Vietnam War spawned demonstrations on college campuses all across the nation, it was only at Kent State University in Kent that members of the Ohio National Guard trained their rifles on students and shot four of them to death and wounded nine others on May 4, 1970. It very well may be a new millennium but when it comes to respecting the rights of animals Ohioans of the twenty-first century are every bit as backward and barbaric as their predecessors of the last century were when it came to respecting human rights and free expression.

Representatives of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium belatedly showed up on the scene armed with either four or five tranquilizer guns. As far as it has been reported, only one attempt was made to tranquilize any of the animals and that half-hearted effort was undertaken by veterinarian Barb Wolfe who shot a tiger. Instead of allowing the sedative time to work its magic, the MSCO promptly gunned it down when it attempted to flee.

"What a tragedy!" Wolfe later exclaimed to the Philadelphia Inquirer in the October 21st article cited supra. "We knew that...there were so many dangerous animals at this place that eventually something bad would happen, but I don't think anybody really knew it would be this bad."

Included in Wolfe's entourage was veteran zookeeper Jack Hanna who wasted no time in lending his unqualified support to the slaughter. "Human life has to come first but that's what we have to look out for," he declared to ABC-TV in the article cited supra. He then gratuitously added, "We have to take care of our animal life."

He even went so far as to defend MCSO's decision not to tranquilize the animals. "You can't tranquilize at night. It upsets them. It's like if you get popped with a shot," he declared to WKYC-TV of Cleveland on October 19th. (See "Jack Hanna: Human Life Comes First in Search for Escaped Animals.") "They settle in, hunker down, go to sleep. We can't find them in the dark. What had to be done had to be done."

That is pure baloney. The MCSO, Columbus Zoo, and their affiliated services had more than enough lighting capacity at their disposal in order to transform the darkest night into the brightest day. Plus, they were equipped with night vision glasses.

Accordingly, locating the animals, whether they were on the move or lying sedated on the ground, would not have posed an insurmountable obstacle. Nevertheless, Hanna would have the world to believe that although there was sufficient lighting in order to gun down the animals there was neither enough to tranquilize them nor to locate them once they were on the ground. Anyone who finds that contorted logic compelling is welcome to it.

Even if they had gotten too close for comfort before those manning the tranquilizer guns were in position, traditional means of controlling crowds and animals could have been resorted to in order to have frightened them away. These include, inter alia, the firing of warning shots in the air, the use of tear gas, bean bags, and water cannons, and non-lethal explosives which currently are being used to unjustly prevent migrating sea lions from eating salmon and steelhead on the Columbia and Willamette rivers in Oregon.

Once the animals had been tranquilized, nets, cages, and shackles could have been rushed in to have secured them. The humane recapture of these animals would have required patience, time, money, and some risk of human life but it would have been far preferable to the orgy of senseless killing that ensued. Besides, officers of the law are supposed to occasionally put their lives on the line in order to save other lives, but chicken-hearted, maniacal killers do not have any business carrying guns and wearing badges.

It is not surprising that Hanna supported the extirpation in light of the fact that he has been exploiting and abusing animals all of his life. In addition to serving as head zookeeper at the Columbus Zoo for more than twenty years, he over the years has lent his support to Sea World's flagrant abuse of orcas, defended Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey's Circus, and lauded whale abusers. (See photo of the big phony directly above on the right.)

Lions, chimpanzees, foxes, and cougars that he has schlepped all across the country in order to make public appearances have retaliated by biting bystanders. Even an organization as thoroughly hypocritical as PETA has labeled him as a "professional wildlife pimp." (See PETA.org, March 1, 2010, "You Don't Know Jack (Hanna).")

Not surprisingly, he is one of the capitalist media's darlings and appeared, inter alia, on "Good Morning America" and "Late Night with David Letterman" in order to defend the massacre. Calling upon an unrepentant zookeeper to speak up for wild animals is tantamount to the media asking David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan to put in a good word for black-Americans.

As an added incentive, Lutz may have wanted to prevent area residents from joining in the fun and therefore instructed his deputies to promptly liquidate all of the animals. Even with the expeditiousness with which the mass killing was carried out, some residents were caught trying to make off with the carcasses. (See photo below of a dead lion.)

As difficult as it is to believe, lions are raised for slaughter on a farm outside of Chicago and their flesh is then butchered and distributed from coast to coast for retail sale by Czimer's Game and Seafood of the Windy City. Most astonishing of all, this odious practice is perfectly legal and not regulated by either the United States Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), or CITES. (See Living on Earth, May 20, 2011, "Lion Meat, Anyone?")

It therefore is likely that the scavengers were intent upon selling not only the flesh of the lions and tigers but also their other valuable parts which can fetch a fortune from the purveyors of traditional Chinese medicines. Reports that some residents even went so far as to enter the compound and attempt to unearth the corpses have been denied by Lutz.

Since Lutz, Hanna, Wolfe, Thompson's neighbors, and seemingly everyone else in Ohio had known about the myriad of problems affecting MCAF in general and Thompson in particular for considerable time it simply is mind-boggling that contingency plans were not put in place long ago that would have safely remedied just the type of catastrophe that occurred on October 18th. There are only two conceivable explanations for that glaring oversight: either nobody cared what happened to the animals or Lutz's massacre was premeditated. As things eventually turned out, he was able to get rid of both Thompson and his animals in one fell swoop on October 18th.

"There were plenty of warning signs in this case, but they were ignored by those who had the authority to prevent this tragedy," Lynn Culver of the Feline Conservation Federation (FCF) of Myrtle Beach wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 20th. (See "Feline Conservation Federation Outraged over Ohio Man' Release of Lions, Pumas, and Tigers.")

Even more damning, the FCF was rebuffed when it contacted Lutz and other unidentified wildlife officials in the area in a futile effort to get the animals moved out of MCAF. That is in spite of the fact that FCC even offered to relocate them free of charge to one of its facilities.

FCF member Tim Stark also refutes Polk's assertion that Thompson was an animal lover. "Terry was a hoarder," he is quoted as alleging in the Chronicle. "His animals were emaciated, and the place reeked from dead and rotting carcasses."

Others, such as Patty Finch of the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS) in Washington, an accrediting body, flatly contradict Culver's assertion that there always is plenty of space available at the inn for large cats. "If you want to place a big cat, I would tell you that every reputable sanctuary is full and more than full," she averred to The Press of Atlantic City on October 23rd. (See "Ohio Case Highlights Issues Around Keeping Exotic Pets.")

Obviously someone is either lying or GFAS does not consider FCF to be a reputable sanctuary. About all that can be said for certain is that the Wild Animal Orphanage in San Antonio closed its doors last year due to having too many animals to care for and not enough moola. Meanwhile, East Coast Exotic Animal Rescue in Fairfield, Pennsylvania, has been forced to scale back its operation due to financial constraints.

The glaring failure of any major animal rights group to either condemn the killings or to defend the animals' inalienable right to live demonstrated once again that the mainstream animal rights movement is every bit as phony and corrupt as the environmental movement. (See The Independent, May 21, 2010, "Polluted for Profit: Johann Hari on the Real Climategate.")

As per usual, PETA played it nice and safe by continuing to suck up to those in power without having the guts to condemn the slaughter. "For years, PETA has called upon Ohio officials to ban the private ownership of exotic and wild animals, but those calls have gone unheeded," the organization groused on its web site in an undated post. (See "Tragedy in Ohio -- Forty-Eight Wild Animals Shot and Killed. Urge Officials to Ban Private Ownership Now.")

The organization's Jennifer O'Connor offered up more of the same gibberish in an op-ed piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer on October 26th. (See "Massacre Supports a Ban on Exotic 'Pets'.")

The best that the inveterate moneygrubbers at the Humane Society of the United States could come up with was to parrot PETA. "These animals should not be kept in people's backyards, their basements, or bedrooms," the organization's Wayne Pacelle told the Philadelphia Inquirer on October 21st. (See "Pennsylvania Is Not Ohio on Exotic Pet Laws.")

Choosing instead to selectively ignore the plight of thousands of animals unjustly incarcerated at zoos and captive breeding facilities as well as those nakedly exploited by circuses and the entertainment industry, Pacelle saved all of his venom for private zoos. "There's an epidemic of private ownership of dangerous exotic animals in the United States," he complained to The Independent in the October 21st article cited supra. "There are thousands of exotic animal menageries across the nation."

Even Will Travers, head of Born Free USA, came out wholeheartedly in support of the mass extermination. "It's a tragedy for these particular animals, for no fault of their own they've been shot, and I can see how difficult that decision was for the police," he opined to the Philadelphia Inquirer in the October 21st article cited supra.

A statement such as that exposes him as either a fool, a liar, or someone who does not care one way or the other. After all, by his own admission, Lutz did not agonize a single second over his shoot to kill order; on the contrary, his mind had been made up a long time ago.

Travers' subaltern, Adam Roberts, was a good deal more forthcoming. "What we saw this week should never, ever happen again. It is our job to stop this madness, protect animals, and to keep the public safe," he wrote October 21st on the organization's web site. (See "Born Free USA Ready to Work with Ohio Governor, Offers Model Legislation on Exotic Pet Ownership Following Today's Executive Order.") "Wild animals belong in the wild. This was a recipe for disaster -- and a disaster it was. These animals were innocent victims and we must move forward to protect others."

Those sentiments mirror the ones that he expressed to Salon on January 5, 2008 although his organization does not appear to be making much headway, except in isolated cases, of either protecting big cats in the wild or securing the release of the thousands unjustly incarcerated. (See "Tigers Don't Belong in Zoos.")

The World Wildlife Fund joined FCF, PETA, HSUS, and Born Free USA in crying its eyes out for the MCSO and the public in addition to calling for a ban on individuals owning tigers. "The tragedy in Ohio was a public safety nightmare and highlights the need for a ban on privately owned tigers in this country," the organization's Leigh Henry stated October 20th on its web site. (See "WWF Calls for Ban on Pet Tigers.") "We have a responsibility to close these loopholes, protect the public and save one of the most magnificent species on the planet."

She also drew a causal connection between the practice of keeping captive tigers and poaching in the wild. "In addition to safety issues, captive tiger populations can have a direct effect on demand for illegal tiger parts around the world, resulting in increased poaching," she added.

By that obscure reference she no doubt has places like the Xiongshen Tiger and Bear Mountain Village in Guilin, China, in mind. Owned and operated by multimillionaire Zhou Weisen, the wildlife park incarcerates fifteen-hundred, mostly Amur, tigers.

The animals are bred for their bones which are used in the making of tiger wine that retails for between £185 and £600 per bottle and is alleged to cure rheumatism, arthritis, and to prolong life. Since it is technically illegal to kill tigers in China, Weisen simply allows them to either starve to death or to die from unattended ailments and wounds. (See photo above of one emaciated bag of bones.)

"It is inevitable that wild tiger parts will get drawn into a market created by farmed tiger parts," Steve Broad of TRAFFIC, a wildlife monitoring network, echoed Henry's concerns in an interview with the Daily Mail on February 20, 2010. (See "Exposed: Dark Secrets of the Farm Where Tigers' Bodies Are Plundered to Make £185 Wine.") "These business people are creating a market that could be catastrophic for the wild tiger population."

Being an unscrupulous, cutthroat capitalist, Weisen is not about to limit his trafficking in tigers to their valuable bones. The animals' eyeballs are used to treat epilepsy, their bile to stop convulsions, their whiskers to assuage toothaches, and their joy sticks to make aphrodisiacs.

Broad certainly talks a good game of conservation but when confronted with the awful massacre in Zanesville neither he nor his organization had anything worthwhile to say. "Four years ago, following the publication of (our report) "Paper Tigers," we alerted United States officials to the dangers posed through unregulated ownership of tigers," the organization's Crawford Allan bellyached October 25th on its web site. (See "Tigers and Lions on the Loose in Ohio: An Inevitable Tragedy That Should Have Been Avoided.") "The authorities explained that a lack of resources meant they could not implement the report's recommendations at a national level. We hope they are reviewing that decision now."

Other than calling attention to the connection between the naked exploitation of captive tigers and the poaching of their few remaining cousins in the wild, the WWF has not offered up any concrete plan to save either of them. Equally disturbing, its omission of any reference to leopards, lions, wolves, bears, and primates can only be construed as an indication that it does not feel that they are worth saving. Even more outrageously, the WWF kills countless wild animals each year by relentlessly hounding them down over and over again so that it can affix satellite tracking devices around their necks and steal tissue samples from them while they are sedated.

Rounding out the roll call of shame, Michael "Ph.D." Hutchins (he insists upon being identified as a savant) of The Wildlife Society, the USFWS, the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Resources Defense Council, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the National Wildlife Federation, and the American Humane Society have not posted any notices on their web sites either supporting or condemning the massacre. Apparently, none of them have been able to figure out any financial advantage to be derived in taking a stand one way or the other on this issue.

David Cantor of Responsible Policies for Animals in Glenside, Pennsylvania, broke from the pack in order to defend the animals. "Undesirable as it is, the recent Ohio 'exotic animal' slaughter does not indicate the need for stricter laws, but for unalienable equal autonomy, ecology, and dignity rights of all animals," he wrote October 26th in a letter to the editors of the Philadelphia Inquirer (See "Accept Basic Rights for Animals.") "The human-supremacist endeavor of recent millennia must end. Long-term well-being will include all -- or it will exclude 'us'."

A considerably more forceful and poignant condemnation of the massacre came from Glen Hurowitz of the Center for International Policy. "Lutz's ignorant savagery and Hanna's defense of it is the reflexive attitude of too many police and public officials in this country, and not just when it comes to exotic animals," he wrote October 19th in the Huffington Post. (See "Jack Hanna Defends Wildlife Slaughter.") "Police too often respond to one complaint with a hail of bullets -- even when it's native wildlife like black bears, wolves or mountain lions."

A recent example of such patently criminal and barbaric behavior on the part of the law enforcement community occurred on Christmas Day of 2007 when the San Francisco Police shot and killed an Amur tigress named Tatiana after she had been assaulted by a trio of doped and boozed up young men. (See Cat Defender post of January 28, 2008 entitled "Hopped Up on Vodka and Pot, Trio Taunted Tatiana Prior to Attacks That Led to Her Being Killed by Police.")

A few months later on April 14, 2008 Chicago Police pumped between eighteen and sixty bullets into a two-year-old forever nameless male cougar who had the temerity to stray into the city's North Side. (See Cat Defender post of May 5, 2008 entitled "Chicago's Rambo-Style Cops Corner and Execute a Cougar to the Delight of the Hoi Polloi and Capitalist Media.")

In both instances the police had plenty of time in order to have tranquilized the animals but they instead consciously chose to snuff out their lives. That is exactly what occurred in Zanesville but only on a significantly larger scale.

"Even when it comes to exotics, the reality is that this kind of slaughter is unnecessary -- a little patience and the occasional tranquilizer gun can usually get animals back together," Hurowitz continued. "Lethal measures should only be used as a last resort -- and especially in cases like this, where police are dealing with highly endangered animals like tigers (3,000 left in the wild) and lions (23,000). We need to do everything we can to keep these animals alive and reintroduce them into the wild where possible to bolster wild populations."

Wild animals, especially big cats, belong in protected habitats that have been wiped clean of capitalists, poachers, and phony-baloney wildlife biologists with their snares, camera traps, and radio collars. Sadly, that goal remains as elusive as ever.

"If you are not going to set aside habitat where there are no humans you cannot have tigers," noted Indian conservationist Valmik Thapar told The Independent on November 2, 2007. (See "The Face of a Doomed Species.")

Even by saying that much he knew full well that the deck is stacked against tigers and other species. "But all the (Indian) government cares about now is call centers, shopping malls, and apartments. That leaves the tiger situation in a miserable mess," he told The Independent a few weeks earlier on October 16, 2007. (See "Poaching and Population Threaten India's Tigers.") "So why save the tigers? Because saving the tigers means saving every insect in the forest, and the forest itself, and that's important not to just India, but to the world."

That is a fair enough statement but the tragic reality is that few governmental officials and conservationists can be trusted to do the right thing by tigers and other animals. That by default places the burden of saving not only endangered species but all animals as well squarely on the shoulders of private citizens. Some of them will in turn take their sacred obligations to heart while others, such as Weisen and Thompson, never will amount to anything other than abusers and exploiters.

There is not any easy solution to this dilemma but more and more it is beginning to look like that the choice is going to come down to either captive wild animals or none at all. Should that ever come to pass, it truly will be a shame because the animals are the one thing in all of creation that is noble, beautiful, and worth saving.

Instead of divesting them of their land, food sources, and lives, man should be cherishing and protecting them with all of his might. No price is too high to pay if doing so will both save their lives and ensure their freedom and dignity.

In order for that to occur, man for once must place the animals and Mother Earth first. In that respect, it is nothing short of revolting that no major animal rights group is willing to do even that much.

As long as man and his needs remain paramount, the animals do not stand a chance of surviving. In his poem, "Two Tramps in Mud Time," Robert Frost demonstrated considerable insight into the breadth of this dilemma when he wrote:

"...Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night
But not long since the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handed an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And when the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right -- agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation.
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one.
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes."

For whatever reason, Thompson spared three leopards, a pair of monkeys, and a brown bear by allowing them to remain in their cages. (See photo directly above of a spotted leopard that survived.)

They immediately were relocated to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium although Vivian is advocating for their eventual return to MCAF. "We are happy to report they all seem to be doing well," Patti Peters of the zoo told the Daily Mail in the October 22nd article cited supra.

The fifty-sixth animal, a macaque suffering from Herpes B, never has been accounted for and is presumed to have been eaten by one of the cats.

The future of MCAF remains in doubt and its huge tax liability remains unsatisfied. Lutz meanwhile has graduated from slaughtering rare and endangered species to going after Polk and others who recorded his handiwork for posterity and then sold the photographs to the media.

That, however, is small potatoes as far as he is concerned. Most of his time nowadays is devoted instead to basking in the glory of the carnage that he inflicted upon these forty-nine beautiful animals. "I have to give a huge thank you to this community who supported us in so many ways," he averred to the Zanesville Times Recorder in the October 23rd article cited supra. "I just can't tell you how that makes me feel when there's that support for you and your office. It's good."

Photos: Daily Mail (dead tigers, chart, and Thompson), Fred Polk (slain animals and dead lion), Associated Press (carcasses near barn and spotted leopard), Zanesville Times Recorder (Lutz), Phil Konstantin of Wikipedia (Hanna), and Sinopix and Daily Mail (tiger in Guilin).

Cats on the Cross: Crucifixions in Ghana and Illinois Confirm That Civilization Has Not Advanced Much Since the Medieval Crimes of Catholics

2011-10-22T14:19:00.002-04:00

"There is only one way to kill a cat and indeed to all animals and this is humane slaughter."
-- David Nyoagbe and Amasaba Adul-Yakeen Aluizah of GSPCA

There are numerous reasons to be thankful to the Internet but the use of it as a forum in order for cat-haters to showcase the end products of their unspeakable cruelty and moral depravity is not one of them. The recent posting on Facebook of a photograph of a bound, black and white cat that was crucified by Ghanaian youths is a good case in point. (See photo above.)

Whereas the fate of big cats, elephants, primates, and other endangered and abused animals justifiably garners widespread attention from conservationists around the world, little attention is paid as to how companion and farm animals are treated on the "Dark Continent." It therefore is difficult to gauge from afar whether the shocking manner in which this particular cat was abused is indicative of how most cats in Ghana are treated or whether this is merely as isolated case of moral degenerates seeking worldwide acclaim.

The photograph was posted online by someone who calls himself Kwabina Daniels, a.k.a. Popkon Sika-one. He possibly could be one of the youths shown in the photo but even that has been called into question by the Ghana Society for the Protection and Care of Animals' (GSPCA) plea for the public's assistance in identifying those pictured.

"To Facebookers and friends of the supposed perpetrator of this cruel act, it was fun and perhaps the most award-winning picture," David Nyoagbe and Amasaba Adul-Yakeen Aluizah of the GSPCA said in a joint statement released to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on October 5th. (See "Society for Animal Protection Decries Crucifixion of a Cat.") "It took friends of animals all over the world who begun (sic) criticizing this dastardly act for the picture on (the) Facebook page to be taken off."

To its credit, the GSPCA promptly condemned the killing and even went so far as to add that cats should be fed regularly, provided with veterinary care and sufficient space in which to exercise, and not be subjected to either threats or molestation. Beyond that, however, its position is a good deal more ambiguous.

For starters, the organization categorically states that it does not object to the use of animals for food, farm work, security, and in sports. Rather, its only concern is that when an animal is to be killed that the Islamic (and Jewish) tradition of slitting its throat be followed.

"There is only one way to kill a cat and indeed to all animals and this is humane slaughter," Nyoagbe and Aluizah avowed to GNA in the article cited supra. On the surface, that admission seems to negate not only what the GSPCA has to say about proper cat care but leaves open the possibility that it approves of the odious Ghanaian practice of consuming feline flesh.

After all, there could not be any valid reason for slaughtering cats in the Islamic tradition except to consume their flesh. If that were not the accepted practice in Ghana, the GSPCA surely would have issued a blanket condemnation of the torture and killing of cats under all circumstances.

The GSPCA concluded by accusing the youths of insulting Christianity. "If this is not blasphemy, then what is?" it plaintively asked in the GNA article cited supra.

For whatever it is worth, the CIA World Factbook claims that nearly sixty-eight per cent of Ghanaians profess to the Christians as opposed to only sixteen per cent who claim to be Muslims. It therefore is conceivable that this totally innocent cat became a pawn in the age-old conflict between these two mutually antagonistic and bloodthirsty rivals.

If the refrain of that old saw sounds familiar it is because that in medieval Europe cats were condemned and extirpated en masse by the Roman Catholic Church in its totally barbaric attempt to stamp out what it slandered and libeled as paganistic religions. Even in an industrial center like Ieper cats were rewarded for safeguarding the merchants' valuable textiles from rodents by having their brains splattered on the cobblestones of Grote Markt after they were flung from the belfry of Cloth Hall, two-hundred-thirty feet above. (See Cat Defender posts of August 6, 2009 and May 22, 2006 entitled, respectively, " Unrepentant and Totally Shameless, Ieper Once Again Makes a Mockery of Its Past Crimes Against Cats by Staging Kattenstoet" and "Belgian Festival of Tossing Stuffed Cats from Belfry Makes Jest of Hideous Crimes of Capitalists and Catholics.")

The dates on the calendar and the geographic location may have changed but that does not make what was done to this cat any less hideous and unjust. The same logic is equally applicable to the eating of cats.

Due to the elliptical nature of the GNA's reporting, it is not known either where the crucifixion occurred or if any halfway serious attempt is being made to bring those responsible to justice. More than likely, little or nothing is being done because the GSPCA seems to be more concerned with the youths "for dragging Ghana's reputation to scorn in the face of international animal lovers and organizations" than with apprehending them.

That is not only wrongheaded but shortsighted as well. Ghanaian authorities can best repair the damage done to their nation's reputation by acting swiftly to identify and arrest those responsible.

Although the gory details have not been disclosed, this totally innocent and defenseless cat was corralled and tortured, most likely over an extended period of time, and then nailed to a cross. Unlike with Jesus however, no miraculous resurrection is expected.

Even more alarming, the barbaric practice of crucifying cats cannot be blamed on either a lack of education, the backwardness of a nation, or an absence of anti-cruelty statutes. That assessment is vouched for by its persistence in the so-called enlightened West.

For instance on April 5, 2010, Andrea Bristol was on her way home to tiny Geneseo in rural northwest Illinois when on Ropp Road near Dutch Bottom Road she spotted what she auf den ersten Blick mistook for a raccoon stuck to a utility pole. Once she pulled over to investigate, she was sickened by what she discovered.

"It was a cat, and a nail had been pounded through its hind foot," she related to the Geneseo Republic on April 6, 2010. (See "Cat Found Tortured, Nailed to Pole.") "I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I kept trying to tell myself that maybe it had just gotten caught but, no, the nail was pounded right through its foot."

As it later was to be revealed, the nail in his foot was the least of his injuries. "There was blood coming from its mouth and hair was missing, like it had been beaten up."

An Animal Control officer from Henry County arrived on the scene and used something akin to a wrecking bar in order to pry the striped male American Shorthair from the pole. It is a small wonder that thoroughly beastly act did not finish off the cat on the spot.

A far less painful alternative would have been to use a saw and chisel in order to have separated the nail from the pole. Surgeons later on could have removed the nail while the cat was under sedation.

Rushed to Miller Veterinary Service in Atkinson, twelve kilometers away, attending veterinarian Dana Miller confirmed Bristol's worst fears. The cat, dubbed Dutch in reference to where he was found, had been severely beaten about the head and as the result had developed swelling around his brain. (See photos of him above and below.)

"Breaks your heart," Miller told WQAD-TV of Moline on April 6, 2010. (See "Cat Found Nailed to Post.") "You just wonder why?"

Miller bandaged Dutch's paw and placed him on intravenous fluids and, although he initially was given only a fifty per cent chance of making it, he rallied gallantly and by April 7th the veterinarians had upgraded his prospects to eighty per cent. In fact, by that time he was purring again and leaping into the arms of his caregivers.

Sadly, he was unable to sustain the momentum that he had built up over the course of the previous forty-eight hours and died unexpectedly either later that night or early the next morning. As things eventually turned out, the blood that he shed on the utility pole outlasted him by about a day in that it was still visible for up to a day after his death.

Since neither Miller nor the media have speculated on the cause of Dutch's sudden reversal of fortunes, it is impossible to say what went so terribly wrong. The fact that veterinary personnel were unable to pinpoint the exact time of his death is a strong indication, however, that he received lax care.

If that indeed were the case, it constitutes the very epitome of veterinary malpractice. Any animal that has suffered injuries of the magnitude of Dutch should have been kept in intensive care with a veterinarian monitoring his progress twenty-four-hours a day.

In all too many cases, seriously injured cats are treated by veterinarians, given clean bills of health, and then released into the care of either a shelter or a foster family where they in turn mysteriously die. That is precisely what happened to Malli back in 2008 after she arrived in Cleveland trapped inside a shipping crate that had originated in Malaysia. (See Cat Defender posts of March 21, 2008 and April 25, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Malli Survives a Thirty-Two-Day Voyage from Johor Bahru to Cleveland Trapped Inside a Shipping Crate" and "After Surviving a Lengthy and Hellish Confinement at Sea, Malli Dies Unexpectedly in Foster Care.")

An almost identical scenario was repeated in Billings, Montana, in March of 2010 only this time around the victim was a ten-year-old Snowshoe Siamese named Ally. (See Cat Defender post of April 18, 2010 entitled "Ally's Last Ride Lands Her in a Death Trap Set by an Uncaring and Irresponsible Supermarket Chain and a Bargain Basement Shelter.")

It is highly unlikely that practicing physicians and hospital personnel would be allowed to get away with dispensing such slaphappy treatment and veterinarians and humane groups should not be allowed to do so either. When an animal's life is hanging in the balance, minimalist care and hoping for the best are woefully inadequate.

Dutch's horrific abuse and cold-blooded murder sparked outrage all around the globe but no one felt it more than Bristol. "How could anyone do this to an animal?" she rhetorically asked the readers of the Geneseo Republic in the article cited supra. "When it happened, I was so upset, but the next day, I was very mad. I wanted to tell everyone I know in hopes that someone would know something and help this end in justice."

Concern and outrage do not solve feline murder cases, however; only sound detective work can achieve that objective. As a consequence, Dutch's killer is still at large in Geneseo and, no doubt, abusing other cats. A Facebook page entitled "Justice for Dutch" was set up shortly after his death but it has not been recently updated and apparently is not playing any role in helping to bring his attacker to justice.

Both Carl Vincent, a psychologist with Southpark Psychology in Moline, and Richard Hutchinson, a clinical psychologist with the Child and Family Psychology Center in Moline, believe that Dutch's assailants were adolescent teens. They base that assessment, in part, on the brazenness of the crime.

"(They put the cat) someplace they knew it would be seen," Hutchinson told The Dispatch of Moline on April 7, 2010. (See "Update: The Cat Nailed to a Pole in Henry County Died Overnight.") "In some ways they're thumbing their nose (sic) at all of us...They want that attention without the responsibility."

Hutchinson's opinion is buttressed by the fact that Dutch was found crucified the day after Easter. Although it is not known how long he was on the pole before Bristol discovered him, the crime itself is, like the crucifixion in Ghana, another blatant slap in the face of all Christians.

PETA was quick to offer up its customary, albeit paltry and insincere, $2,500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Dutch's killer. If it were anything other than a rogue band of frauds and hypocrites, it would realize that its incessant demonizing and wholesale slaughter of cats serve only to encourage the commission of heinous assaults like this. (See Cat Defender post of October 7, 2011 entitled "PETA Traps and Kills a Cat and Then Shamelessly Goes Online in Order to Brag About Its Criminal and Foul Deed.")

The same applies in spades to ornithologists, wildlife biologists, the entire United States Government, certain professors, and segments within the capitalist media. (See Cat Defender posts of July 18, 2011 and June 15, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Evil Professors Have Transformed College Campuses into Hotbeds of Hatred Where Cats Are Routinely Vilified, Horribly Abused, and Systematically Killed" and "American Bird Conservancy, The New York Times, and the Humane Society Unite to Form an Achse des Bösen Against Cats.")

Dutch's horrible death was made all the more heartbreaking because he already was a cat well-acquainted with misfortune. For instance, he apparently enjoyed an extremely close relationship with his previous owner until that person recently died.

He then apparently wound up on the street although area resident Lester Forbes continued to feed him. "It's so cruel," he told WQAD-TV in the article cited supra. "We're supposed to take care of our animals, not abuse them."

As it is so often the case, Dutch's domestication made him an easy target for the person or persons who killed him. More than likely he did not suspect a thing until it already was too late.

The only positive development to come out of this sickening and infuriating act of animal cruelty was the creation of the Dutch Memorial Fund by the Geneseo Chapter of the Henry County Humane Society (HCHS). Established with surplus contributions that originally were made for Dutch's treatment, the Fund since has helped to save the lives of more than two dozen animals.

In particular, it has paid for leg amputations for two kittens named Tammy and Darlene. It also has been used to finance eye removals for Roamer and Cabela.

"All four of these unique kittens are very playful. They have adapted to their losses and are living life like they should," Cindy Avey of HCHS told the Geneseo Republic on October 28, 2010. (See "Dutch Fund Helps Injured Kittens.") "I think if you told them there was something wrong with them or that they were different, they would look at you like, 'What are you talking about'?"

So, in a manner of speaking, Dutch's indomitable spirit lives on in each of the kittens as well as in the other cats that have been helped by the fund that bears his name. "The Dutch Fund made all the difference in the world for these kittens," Avey concluded.

The cold-blooded and remorseless executions of Dutch and the forever nameless cat in Ghana once again vividly have demonstrated the extraordinary lengths that enemies of the species are prepared to go in order to achieve their objectives. The method of mutilation in each case also tends to indicate that the perpetrators could be pursuing agendas that have far wider societal implications than merely killing cats.

Even without imputing any ulterior motives to their killers, the loss of these two innocent lives is tragic enough in its own right. The pain that they were forced to endure could not have been anything short of excruciating and seemingly interminable. Frightened out of their wits and with all conceivable avenues of escape closed off to them, their helplessness and anguished cries served only to stoke the fires of their persecutors' runaway and malignant egotism.

It is precisely for individuals of this sort that sure and swift justice in the form of capital punishment is merited. The sooner that societies resolve to eliminate this type of human filth, regardless of their ages, the better off that both animals and mankind are going to be in the long run.

Photos: GNA (crucified cat), The Dispatch (Dutch underneath blanket), and the Geneseo Republic (Dutch with eyes closed).

Chucked Out in the Trash, Tabitha Winds Up in an Oxygen Chamber with Four Broken Ribs, an Injured Lung, and Pneumonia

2011-10-14T16:07:00.002-04:00

"She was truly left for dead and had some suffocation injuries. It's a touch-and-go situation right now."
-- veterinarian Andrea Looney

An approximately six-week-old black kitten named Tabitha is waging a valiant struggle to live after having been wrapped in a plastic grocery bag and then tossed in a Dumpster at an apartment complex in Albany, New York. Suffering from four broken ribs, a damaged lung, and pneumonia, she is confined to an oxygen chamber and veterinarians initially gave her only a thirty to forty per cent chance of living. (See photos of her above and below.)

Discovered on September 23rd by an alert maintenance man who was mowing the lawn, Tabitha weighed less than one pound and could barely either open her eyes or breathe. Rushed to Upstate Veterinary Specialties (UVS) in nearby Latham, she was placed on painkillers and antibiotics as well as oxygen.

"She was truly left for dead and had some suffocation injuries," Andrea Looney of UVS told the Albany Times-Union on September 30th. (See "Gravely Injured Kitten Lives in Oxygen Chamber.") "It's a touch-and-go situation right now."

Despite the overwhelming odds against her, Tabitha so far is holding her own. "If she didn't have a little wheeze-rattle, you'd be hard pressed to know that she was so seriously injured and at such risk just days ago," Orange Street Cats (OSC), which has assumed responsibility for her care, stated October 8th in an untitled posting on its Facebook page.

An earlier posting on October 7th stated that although she still was having difficulty breathing, her condition had not worsened. The veterinarians apparently are hoping that her injured lung will heal on its own and not require surgery.

Otherwise, she has been off of pain medication since October 6th and is said to be getting bored with life inside the oxygen chamber. For the time being, she is amusing herself by frolicking with a stuffed bunny and other toys and that certainly is a positive development.

It is unclear how she suffered the internal injuries. More than likely, her previous owner attempted to squeeze the life out of her before chucking her in the trash. It also is conceivable that she could have sustained the life-threatening injuries when additional refuge was deposited in the Dumpster on top of her.

It also is disturbing that press reports do not make any mention of either the police or humane officials even being willing to investigate this horrific and unconscionable act of animal cruelty. For starters, the authorities, if they were the least bit serious about apprehending the culprit, would have begun by searching the contents of the Dumpster for clues.

Secondly, they could have canvassed the apartment building door-to-door looking for additional kittens. Since most litters contains between four and six kittens, any resident in the possession of fewer than that number would have some explaining to do.

Even that would not have been conclusive since some kittens arrive in this world stillborn and others almost immediately are fobbed off by their owners on friends and strangers alike. Additionally, the perpetrator simply could have disposed of the remainder of the litter in the same fashion that he attempted to get rid of Tabitha.

Since some apartment dwellers tend to be nosey-parkers, they might know which tenants keep cats. The building superintendent and maintenance workers who are in and out of the units making repairs also would be in a position to possibly assist the authorities.

So far, Tabitha's emergency veterinary treatment has cost OSC in excess of $2,700 and that figure is expected to climb significantly higher in the difficult weeks and months ahead. That in turn has forced the organization, which specializes in rescuing and sterilizing cats, to appeal to the public for financial assistance. Anyone interested in helping Tabitha can do so by contacting OSC either by telephone at (518) 533-5242 or e-mail at osc@orangestreetcats.org.

OSC also needs help in finding homes for some of the remaining seventy-two cats that it, in justified defiance of the local authorities, trapped and rescued from a condemned house at 198 Orange Street during the summer of 2010. (See Albany Times-Union, August 18, 2010, "Cat Love Trumps Law.")

Although sterilizations are what the group does best, OSC was not about to turn its back on Tabitha. "But we're not going to say 'no' when a little Tabitha comes by," the organization's Diane Metz explained to the Times-Union in the September 30th article cited supra. "We've just gone with it. We've decided that's 'Bewitched's' daughter, and she's magical."

Although the kitten was given its moniker by her rescuers at the apartment complex, Metz's mentioning of Bewitched most likely is an obscure reference to the popular 1960's television sitcom of the same name whose plot centered around an advertising executive who unwittingly marries a real-life witch and their daughter, also a witch, was named Tabitha.

Tabitha's plight is strikingly similar to the fate that befell a kitten named Duff from Spokane in August of 2009. (See photo of him on the left above.)

That was when he was entombed in a black canvas bag which in turn was sealed up inside a duffel bag and then tossed out with the trash. After spending six days in the trash, Duff finally was rescued on August 20th when maintenance workers reprogramming a garage door overheard his plaintive cries for help.

"This kitten was very lucky to be found at 11:00 this morning, otherwise it probably would have died today," Nicole Montano of the Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service (SCRAPS) said at that time. "We are thankful to those who rescued this kitten from what would have been a (sic) horrific death."

Only rarely are those who abuse kittens in such a cavalier manner apprehended, but in this case the culprit, Donivan Crews, was arrested but inexplicably charged with only "confinement in an unsafe manner." As for Duff, although he was emaciated and covered in urine and feces when rescued, he otherwise was in remarkably good shape considering his trying ordeal.

Best of all, his rescuers were scheduled to have adopted him. (See Cat Defender post of October 3, 2009 entitled "Deliberately Entombed Inside a Canvas Bag for Six Days, Duff Is Saved by a Pair of Alert Maintenance Workers at an Apartment Complex in Spokane.")

Tabitha is by no means the only cat in recent memory to have been tossed out with the trash in upstate New York. For example, last December 23rd a gray cat dubbed Jack-in-the-Box was sealed up in a cardboard box and left by the curb between One-Hundred-Ninth and One-Hundred-Tenth streets at Third and Fourth avenues in the Lansingburgh section of Troy. (See photo of him with veterinary assistant Natasha Stalker directly above.)

Luckily for him, local resident Melissa Lombardo reached him before the garbagemen. Lombardo, who was out walking a pit bull named Phoebe whom she was at the time fostering, made the discovery when she heard the cat crying and Phoebe started sniffing at the box. (See photo below of the cardboard box in which he was found.)

"I was shocked and sad," Lombardo told WXXA-TV of Albany on December 23rd. (See "Abandoned Cat Found 'Miracle on One-Hundred-Tenth Street'.") "I felt bad for the cat. It was obviously scared. It was crying."

Lombardo telephoned the Troy Police who came and collected Jack and transported him to the Troy Veterinary Hospital where he was treated for exposure. Other than that, he was expected to make a full recovery. "Considering what he has been through he came in a really good condition and he's doing really good now," veterinarian Laura Engel told WXXA-TV.

Nevertheless, it was still a close shave for Jack. In particular, he very easily could have frozen to death in that Decembers in Troy usually are brutally cold and snowy. Even if the elements had not done him in, he easily could have been killed by either the garbage collectors or crushed to death later when they dumped their load, most likely at either a landfill, incinerator, or recycling facility.

Normally, that would have been the end of the matter. No one would have bothered to investigate it and the perpetrator would have gotten away with his crime. Fortunately, Captain John Cooney of the Troy Police is a rare bird amongst lawmen.

"It's just a horrible crime; it's cruel and inhumane. Every step that we can take including door-to-door canvassing of the neighborhood and probably a search of the garbage in the pile will be done in order to get some resolution to the crime that occurred here," he vowed to WXXA-TV in the article cited supra. "It's certainly a criminal investigation. The Cruelty Animal Statute which covers this type of incident is a misdemeanor but, this is going to get a little extra look. The box the cat was found in has been secured as evidence and its beer checked for trace evidence. We'll go as far as fingerprints, DNA evidence on the box."

Just as the Washington Humane Society (WHS) demonstrated back in May through its investigation and apprehension of Nicole Dauphiné of the Smithsonian Institution for allegedly attempting to poison a colony of homeless cats in Washington, good, old-fashioned detective work is the only way that animal abusers ever will be caught and made to pay for their crimes. (See Cat Defender post of July 12, 2011 entitled "The Arrest of Nico Dauphiné for Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats Unmasks the National Zoo as a Hideout for Ailurophobes and Criminals.")

Police departments and humane groups that wallow in self-righteous moral denunciations and offer up only minuscule reward money as substitutes for undertaking concrete action had just as well keep their traps shut and wallets secured for all the good that they accomplish. Any group halfway serious about putting a stop to animal cruelty must do like Cooney and the WHS and commit the resources and intellectual acumen to the cause.

Cooney's due diligence paid off on December 30th with the arrest of forty-eight-year-old Michael T. Walsh of 10 Woodbridge Drive. (See photo of him on the right below.)

Walsh, who later pleaded not guilty to three counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty, had taken the kitten off the hands of Robin Becker who had evicted him because he allegedly was urinating outside his litter box. Although he pledged to Becker to take Jack to a shelter, he instead dumped him in the trash once he, allegedly, starting fouling the box with still more piss.

Later in court, Walsh further claimed that in dumping Jack he was doing him a favor. "I did not want to bring it to a shelter because I did not want them to put the cat to sleep," he vowed to the Albany Times-Union on January 3rd. (See "Man Thought He was Protecting Cat.") "I took it to an alley in Lansingburgh and left it on the side. I figured that someone would find it and give it a good home."

In addition to espousing an overly sanguine view of human nature, Walsh's explanation does not hold water in that abandoning a boxed-up kitten in the cold and at a garbage pickup site is guaranteed to lead only to its succumbing to either hypothermia or a trash compactor. While it is true that just about all shelters are dressed-up extermination camps, anyone who cared the least little bit about a cat at least would abandon it in a secure wooded area, preferably where there are barns and other outhouses that would provide it with a measure of shelter.

For her part, old Becker bird has pleaded total ignorance as to Walsh's true intentions. "I looked up at TV and saw my cat on TV," she shrieked to the Times-Union in the January 3rd article cited supra. "I said 'Oh my God, that's my cat!' I heard the news story and flipped out."

Statements such as those prove that she is every bit as full of it as Walsh. First of all, it takes kittens that grow up indoors a while to get used to using a litter box.

Just as importantly, Walsh and Becker conveniently have forgotten that when they were young their mothers had to change their diapers and empty their pots de chambre for the first two years of their lives. Compared to humans, kittens are considerably quicker on the uptake.

Likewise at the other end of life's cycle, old men and women often loose control of their bladders and bowels and yet no one would dare suggest that they be either chucked out in the cold or killed. When either a cat or a dog becomes incontinent, however, a date with the hangman normally is de rigueur.

In the final analysis, anyone unwilling to clean up a little urine and poop left behind by either a kitten or a senior cat does not have any business adopting one in the first place. True love does not wane just because a bladder no longer is as resilient as it used to be and a sphincter no longer functions as it should.

Everything eventually turned out all right for Jack in that he was scheduled to have been adopted into a new home during the first week of January. That joyful denouement to this tragic incident served as a fitting bookend to what Cooney initially had termed "the miracle on One-Hundred-Tenth Street."

Just as Lombardo saved Jack's life by her timely intervention, an unidentified pedestrian did likewise for a black cat named Titch from Westcliff in Essex on January 8, 2010. Having overheard Titch's cries for help from inside both a plastic bag and a backpack, the pedestrian reached into the trash and freed her. (See photo above of Titch with RSPCA inspector Matthew Gough.)

Fortunately, Titch was unharmed and later adopted. (See Cat Defender post of February 24, 2010 entitled "Sealed Up in a Backpack Inside a Plastic Bag and Then Tossed in the Trash, Titch Is Rescued by a Passerby in Essex.")

On February 3rd of this year, a four-month-old nearly blind kitten named Pacman was found inside a small box in a Dumpster in Middletown, Connecticut. (See photo of him below.)

"I was behind the blade," Mike Armetta of Dainty Rubbish Service told the Record Journal of Meriden on February 7th. (See "Kitten Saved from Trash Compactor.") "It's a miracle that the animal didn't end up in there (the compactor)."

Pacman will require major surgery in order to save the sight in one of his eyes but other than that he was said to be doing well in the aftermath of his close brush with disaster. Taken to the Humane Society's no-kill facility in Meriden, he was said to be "eating like a horse."

Although Pacman's surgery and care will cost the shelter a pretty penny, its director, Marlena DiBianco, was not doing any more complaining about that than OSC is about the exorbitant cost of attending to Tabitha. "They saved it," she told the Record Journal. "I was really happy they did that."

Both Pacman and Tabitha would have faced entirely different fates if they had been found by anyone associated with PETA. (See Cat Defender post of October 7, 2011 entitled "PETA Traps and Kills a Cat and Then Shamelessly Goes Online in Order to Brag About Its Criminal and Foul Deed.")

Armetta has expressed an interest in adopting Pacman as soon as he recuperates from his surgery so things may eventually work out for him. No arrests have been made in the case.

In September of 2010, a six-month-old cat named Smokie from Kingston upon Hull in Yorkshire was discovered at the last minute trapped in a trash can inside the crushing machinery at a recycling center. Luckily, the alert staff overheard his cries and saved him from being crushed and recycled. He then was taken to a veterinarian where an implanted microchip identified him as belonging to Susan and Philip Hirons who live a quarter of a mile from the recycling center.

Smokie also had the good fortune to come through his death-defying ordeal physically unscathed although his nerves, quite understandably, took a beating. His owners additionally believe that, as so often is the case, his trusting nature made him an easy target for this type of horrific abuse.

"Smokie had a miraculous escape. I am really annoyed by this. Whoever did this to him must be sick," Susan told the Yorkshire Post on September 21, 2010. (See "Copycat Fears as Kitten Found in Bin at Crusher.") "How did they sleep knowing he was hungry, cold, frightened and about to go into the landfill site and get buried alive?"

The circumstances in this case leave little doubt that Smokie was purposefully stuffed into the trash can. "There's no way he could have got in the bin by accident," Susan added to the Yorkshire Post. "I wonder if people are copying that woman who threw a cat in a wheelie bin?"

By that she is referring to forty-five-year-old spinster Mary Bale of Coventry who on August 21, 2010 was captured on a surveillance camera stopping to pet Stephanie and Darryl Andrews-Mann's four-year-old cat, Lola. After making sure that the coast was clear, she picked up Lola and stuffed her in a trash can before hurrying on her way. (See photo of her and Lola above.)

Lola was rescued fifteen hours later when Darryl overheard her crying from inside the trash can and the surveillance tape eventually led to Bale's arrest. Once her case finally came to trial, she was let off with a £250 fine plus £1,171 in court costs. (See The Sun, October 20, 2010, "Cat Chucker's Claim Trashed.")

Although the incident led to her being fired from her job as a cashier at the Royal Bank of Scotland in nearby Rugby and made her the bête noire of cat lovers everywhere, Bale remained unrepentant to the very end. "I don't know what the fuss is all about," she complained to the Daily Mail on August 26, 2010. (See "Grey-Haired Bank Worker Who Dumped Cat in Wheelie Bin Could Face Court as RSPCA Prosecutors Review Case.") "It's just a cat."

"It's the 'only' that's the problem: they're only animals, and we're the only species that matters," Michele Hanson pointed out in The Guardian on August 28, 2010. (See "Cat Litter Episode Shows How Our Pets Are Both Protected and Persecuted.") "But we're not."

Even when malice aforethought is not intended, innumerable cats either wander into trash recycling centers on their own or wind up there by accident. Some of them, such as seven-week-old Penny from Chester in Cheshire and Aflie from Kirknewton in West Lothian, Scotland, are saved at the last minute but countless others are crushed to death. (See Cat Defender posts of August 23, 2007 and May 4, 2010 entitled, respectively, "An Alert Scrap Metal Worker Discovers a Pretty 'Penny' Hidden in a Mound of Rubble" and "Picked Up by a Garbage Truck Driver and Dumped with the Remainder of the Trash, Alfie Narrowly Misses Being Recycled.")

As all of these cases demonstrate, disposing of unwanted cats, especially kittens, by throwing them out in the trash is not only pervasive but pretty much the perfect crime to boot. Nothing short of compelling everyone who handles trash from maintenance workers to haulers to personnel at recycling centers to either inspect or electronically scan everything that they handle before permanently disposing of it ever will be able to put an end to this horrifying loss of innocent lives.

While that is unlikely to become a reality, the eventual abolition of both Animal Control officers and conventional shelters is a real possibility. If a free and humane alternative that respected life were available, most inviduals would willingly surrender their unwanted cats to these facilities.

Free sterilization services, as opposed to jabs of sodium pentobarbital, would be another step in the right direction. (See Cat Defender post of February 12, 2011 entitled "Disabled Former Casino Worker Is Sent to Jail for Shoplifting Food in Order to Feed Her Twelve Cats.")

Photos: Orange Street Cats (Tabitha), SCRAPS (Duff), Southend Standard (Titch and Gough), Albany Times-Union (Jack and Stalker, Walsh), WXXA-TV (Jack's box), Dave Zajac of the Record Journal (Pacman), and Darryl Andrews-Mann via the Daily Mail (Bale and Lola).

PETA Traps and Kills a Cat and Then Shamelessly Goes Online in Order to Brag about Its Criminal and Foul Deed

2011-10-07T14:17:00.002-04:00

"The veterinarian immediately put the suffering cat out of his misery, giving him more comfort in his final moments than he had likely known for much of his life."
-- Alisa Mullins of PETA

"Our service is to provide a peaceful and painless death to animals who no one wants," PETA's head honcho, Ingrid Newkirk, declared a few years back. Even in making that frank, albeit morally reprehensible, admission she could not resist the temptation to once again shade the truth.

Actually, it is only live and breathing cats that get the old phony's goat. As a consequence, Newkirk and her two-million acolytes devote a disproportionate amount of their time and resources to combing the highways and byways in search of cats to kill.

One of the organization's recent murder victims was a forever nameless white-colored cat that it claims had an injured ear and was suffering from cancer. (See photo above.)

Although PETA is careful not to disclose the locale, it trapped the cat and took it to an unidentified veterinarian who promptly dispatched it to the devil. "The veterinarian immediately put the suffering cat out of his misery, giving him more comfort in his final moments than he had likely known for much of his life," the organization's Alisa Mullins, as proud as punch over the success of her evil deed, trumpeted in an August 24th press release. (See "A Kind End to a Harsh Life.")

First of all, a cancerous growth, unlike a bloody nose, is not detectable au premier coup d'oeil. Diagnostic tests are required for that and since PETA is such a miserly organization there is not any way in Hell that it ever would have footed the bill for them.

Secondly, although a cat's socio-economic status should not have any bearing whatsoever on its inalienable right to live, PETA had no way of knowing whether the cat was domiciled or homeless. After all, even a domesticated cat can look down-at-the-heel after a few days of roughing it.

The cat's mangled ear raises the prospect that he may have belonged to a managed colony. His ear could have been sliced up by a veterinarian in order to denote that he had been sterilized and afterwards became either infected or injured when it became snagged on some foreign object.

Since the foul deed already has been perpetrated, there is absolutely nothing that can be done for the cat at this late date. The only thing that can be hoped for it that either his owner or the caretaker of the colony will, against all odds, recognize his face and bring appropriate criminal and civil action against PETA.

It is, however, Mullins' assertion that the cat found more comfort while being murdered than he had known throughout his life that is the most revolting. Applied to human affairs, such spurious reasoning would imply that the victims of genocide ought to feel indebted to their murderers.

Much more mundanely, Mullins is guilty of wallowing in her own self-serving sottise without having had the benefit of knowing a blessed thing about either the cat's past or his current situation. For instance, he very well could have had a wonderful life before ending up on the street and even then he might have been doing all right except for a few rough patches here and there. Life is not always a bed of roses for either cats or humans.

Along about the same time that PETA was snuffing out this cat's life, journalist Jane Ganahl and Ken White of the Peninsula Humane Society in San Mateo were busy abducting and killing a senior cat named Marvin in Half Moon Bay. Although he had been living on his own in a parking lot for sixteen years, they got the wind up one day and unilaterally decided that he could not be permitted to go on living for so much as another day.

Like Mullins and PETA, they attempted to justify their abhorrent crime on the grounds that they cared deeply about Marvin. "He was failing, and this was the last gift from people who cared about him," White lied through his rotten teeth. (See Cat Defender post of September 28, 2011 entitled "Marvin Is Betrayed, Abducted, and Murdered by a Journalist and a Shelter Who Preposterously Maintain That They Were Doing Him a Favor.")

The cat killed by PETA needed food, veterinary care, and a bath and a good brushing, not an appointment with the hangman. His killing was murder, not euthanasia, and Mullins and her associates accordingly belong in jail.

The same holds true for the veterinarian who cruelly and unjustly took away his life. Moreover, he and all like-minded practitioners should have their licenses permanently revoked and never be permitted to practice veterinary medicine again under any circumstances. (See Cat Defender post of July 28, 2011 entitled "Tammy and Maddy Are Forced to Pay the Ultimate Price after Their Owner and an Incompetent Veterinarian Elect to Play Russian Roulette with Their Lives.")

Saving lives and doing a little pro bono work from time to time are alien concepts as far as most practitioners of veterinary medicine are concerned. Without so much as a moment's hesitation they will, however, kill off most any animal for a hefty fee.

In addition to being a vile and murderous organization, PETA also is stingy. Although it took in $34 million in 2009, it is not about to spend so much as a sou on treating, feeding, sheltering, and finding homes for cats.

Instead, it summarily executes approximately ninety-eight per cent of the cats and dogs that it impounds at its facility in Norfolk, Virginia. Thousand more never even make it to its shelter because PETA kills them inside its vans and then dumps their corpses.

For example, on May 19, 2005, June 2, 2005, June 9, 2005, and June 15, 2005 the police in Ahoskie, North Carolina, retrieved the corpses of eighty-two dogs and seventeen cats from a Dumpster behind a Piggly Wiggly supermarket where they had been dumped by Andria Hinkle and Andrew Cook of PETA. In January of 2007, they were tried for animal cruelty in Hertford County Criminal Superior Court but were convicted of only one count each of littering. (See photo immediately below of them celebrating their victory.)

"There were no intentions of cruelty, only good intentions to help animals which these two young people have dedicated their lives to," Daphna Nachminovitch, supervisor of PETA's motorized death squads, declared with a straight face after the verdicts were read. (See Cat Defender posts of January 29, 2007 and February 9. 2007 entitled, respectively, "PETA's Long History of Killing Cats and Dogs Is Finally Exposed in North Carolina Courtroom" and "Verdict in PETA Trial: Littering Is a Crime but Not the Mass Slaughter of Innocent Cats and Dogs.")

Nachminovitch is every bit as big of a liar as Newkirk and Mullins in that the only assistance that PETA ever provides to cats and dogs is a one-way, no return ticket to Hades.

As for those owners and shelters who are so uncaring as to surrender animals to PETA, all that they receive in return is more lies with a free snow job thrown in as an added bonus. For example, in North Carolina PETA told shelter operators that it would secure good homes for the animals that it took off of their hands and to substantiate that claim it took photographs of them gamboling in fields of flowers which it then mailed back to the shelters.

Of course, the animals were long dead before the shelters ever received the staged photographs. PETA thus was allowed to indulge in its murderous rampages whereas the operators of the shelters were relieved of the burden of caring for their impounded animals. Whether the shelters believed PETA's blatant lies or simply did not care one way or the other is a debatable point.

Adding insult to injury, the stiffs who sit on the North Carolina Court of Appeals threw out the littering convictions of Hinkle and Cook on April 15, 2008. So in the end PETA got off scot-free. (See the News and Observer of Raleigh, April 15, 2008, "PETA Workers Cleared of Animal Cruelty (sic) Convictions.")

The wholesale and indiscriminate en masse slaughter of cats and dogs is nothing new as far as PETA is concerned. In fact, it has been the business model employed by Newkirk ever since she operated a shelter in Washington way back in the 1970's.

"I went to the front office all the time, and I would say, 'John is kicking the dogs and putting them in freezers.' Or I would say, 'They are stepping on the animals, crushing them like grapes, and they don't care'," she admitted to The New Yorker on April 4, 2003. (See "The Extremist: The Woman Behind the Most Successful Radical Group in America.") "In the end, I would go to work early, before anyone got there, and I would just kill the animals myself. Because I couldn't stand to let them go through that. I must have killed thousands of them, sometimes dozens every day."

Based upon that confession, she should have been arrested on the spot and put behind bars for the remainder of her life. She is not only a morally warped sadistic mass murderer but poses an imminent danger to all cats and dogs.

Secondly, since she was in charge of the shelter it was her responsibility to train and discipline the staff. Since she failed to do that, she should have been promptly fired along with the imbecile who hired her in the first place.

PETA's inveterate hatred of cats and ingrained cheapness is further attested to by an e-mail letter that he organization's Teresa Chagrin sent to Hancock County Administrator Chuck Svokas on December 13, 2010. In it she extolled the virtues of a two-hundred-fifty milliliter bottle of sodium pentobarbital which she claims is more than sufficient in order to do away with eighty-three cats.

She went on to point out to the West Virginian politician that the cost of the deadly barbiturate was "extremely minimal" when compared to the price of rabies vaccinations, property damage, and feline predation of wildlife. (See Wheeling News-Register, December 16, 2010, "PETA Peeved at Hancock County's Feral Cat Problem.")

Although she is far too dishonest ever to admit it, what Chagrin really meant to say is that it is far cheaper to operate an extermination factory than it is to feed, water, shelter, medicate, and procure homes for cats. After all, the needs of the vanquished are indeed few.

Oscar Wilde once defined a cynic as someone "who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" and that description certainly applies in spades to PETA. Contrary to what it and just about all American veterinarians and practicing physicians wholeheartedly believe, a price tag cannot be placed on either animal or human life.

Such a policy also relieves the mental midgets at PETA from coming to terms with difficult moral conundrums and, just as importantly, ensures that none of them ever will be forced to look upon any cat as an individual, sentient being endowed with legitimate rights and needs. Like the practitioners of genocide, Newkirk and PETA do not think anymore of perpetrating mass slaughters of the innocent than they do about draining their bladders.

Chagrin's scurrilous missive, and the hundreds like it that PETA floods the web with each year, unmasks the totally fraudulent organization as being every bit as obsessed with maligning and killing cats as ornithologists and wildlife biologists. Like them, the higher-ups at PETA sit glued to their computers day and night in an all-out quest to identify, smear, and throttle cats and the groups that champion their cause.

Such a policy aligns PETA with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies within the bloated federal bureaucracy and demonstrates conclusively that it is anything but the radical animal rights group that it and The New Yorker claims; au contraire, it is every bit as conservative and bedrock establishment as the wildlife biologists, ornithologists, Animal Control officers, and conventional shelters that it strives so hard to emulate. After all, any group can kill cats, fan the prejudices of the unenlightened, and suck up to those in power.

Based upon the foregoing, it should not come as any surprise that PETA is violently opposed to the feeding of homeless cats. "If there are feral cats in your neighborhood, please don't prolong their agony by simply putting out food and hoping for the best," Mullins implores the heartless and uninformed in the press release cited supra.

In addition to being a totally morally repugnant philosophy, it is interesting to note that Mullins does not advocate that individuals refrain from feeding birds, wildlife, and dogs. Likewise, although it claims to be opposed to vivisection, factory and fur farming, the exploitation of animals in sports and entertainment, hunting, and a host of other evils, PETA never publicly has advocated that any of the animals so horribly abused by those commercial concerns be starved to death. It is only cats that it has singled out as not being fit to be fed.

From attempting to starve to death homeless cats PETA now has graduated to advocating that their domesticated brothers and sisters, along with dogs, be compelled to become vegetarians. "Most dogs' and cats' health improves on a vegetarian diet, but occasionally an animal may not thrive, so use common sense if this occurs," PETA recently postulated on its web site in an undated posting. (See "Meatless Meals for Dogs and Cats.")

As per usual, the cat-hating blowhards at PETA do not present one scintilla of scientific evidence in order to substantiate their ludicrous claim that obligate carnivores can thrive on a meatless diet. The organization's often repeated mantra that "animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment" obviously does not include either respecting the sanctity of their fragile lives or their genetically determined dietary needs.

As far as it is known, the only cat who prefers a vegetarian fare is a black and white former stray named Dante who lives with his owner, Becky Page, in Tasburgh in Norfolk. (See photo above of him chowing down.)

"I tried feeding him meat, fish, everything else that cats like, but he turned his nose up," Page told London's Mirror on April 14, 2009. (See "Meet Dante, the UK's Only Vegetarian (sic) Cat.") "Just when I thought nothing would work, he wolfed down a plate of veg I was going to throw out."

In spite of Dante's preference for melons, bananas, broccoli, rhubarb, asparagus, aubergine, and Brussels sprout, it would be incorrect to label him as a vegetarian. "I have to smuggle bits of meat among the veggies so he gets all the nutrients he needs," Page continued. "But sometimes he spots the meat and leaves it. He has a unique appetite but he's certainly healthy."

Dante's fondness for fruits and vegetables can be explained by the fact that as a kitten he nearly starved to death and therefore was forced to eat almost anything that he was able to procure. Contrary to popular belief, cats will eat almost anything that either necessity or their upbringing dictates.

Kittens, for example, who grow up in households where they are permitted to cadge food from the table have been known to develop a taste for such oddities as, inter alia, oatmeal, cereal, bread, cake, cheese, pizza, pasta, and even fruit and vegetables. The fact that they can be conditioned to eat carbohydrates certainly does not mean that such a diet is good for them. After all, a good portion of what most humans ingest is anything but beneficial to their health.

"This is extremely rare," Maggie Roberts, a veterinarian with Cats Protection in Chelwood Gate, Sussex, told the Mirror in the article cited supra. "Cats are obligate carnivores and cannot be vegetarian (sic)."

Ottawa veterinarian Marie Haynes took PETA to task on August 16th on her web site, Ask a Vet Question.com, by pointing out that cats have neither the molars and premolars necessary for grinding up food nor the enzyme amylase in their saliva that is needed for breaking down starches. (See "Should Cats Be Vegans?") They have a little bit of it in their intestines but not a sufficient amount in order to do the job.

Carbohydrates therefore pass through cats' short digestive tracts without being absorbed. Furthermore, undigested carbohydrates alter the bacteria in their intestines and thus make it difficult for them to even properly process proteins.

Healthy cats also need the animal-derived amino acids taurine and arachidonate in addition to vitamin B12. If these amino acids along with arginine, methionine, cysteine, and tyrosin are lacking in their diets serious health problems and even death can occur.

Since PETA sans doute is acutely aware of the negative health consequences associated with feeding cats meatless diets, its attempt to transform them into vegetarians only can be regarded as another sinister ploy designed to do in the species. It also once again highlights the folly of those individuals and groups who compromise with the species' sworn enemies.

Being that mulehead Mullins is so fervently committed to starving homeless cats to death it logically follows and she and PETA are adamantly opposed to both TNR and no-kill shelters. "Trap them and bring them into your home; take them to a reputable open admission shelter (not to a so-called no-kill shelter that warehouses frightened, unadoptable animals in cages for years); or take them to a veterinarian for a peaceful release from a world that has turned its back on them," she counseled in the press release cited supra.

If all of that were not odious enough, Mullins is such a delusional egomaniac that she expects the public not only to go along with her sophistry but to feel sorry for her to boot. "I've personally done all three, and the last option, while the hardest on me, was the easiest on the cat," she concludes in an utterly amazing display of twisted logic and morality.

First of all, if cats could talk like Saki's Tobermory it is doubtful that a single one of them would approve of either her nonsense or malice aforethought. Much more pertinently, no one cares what she thinks; it is the needs of cats that are paramount and not hers and PETA's.

In an amateurish attempt to justify her hideous crimes, Mullins goes on to allege that homeless cats are infected with every known disease under the sun, preyed upon by motorists and other ailurophobes, and often either starve or freeze to death. Since she has so cleverly dismissed all other alternatives, it follows that she now expects everyone to immediately vacate the playing field and to leave matters in the hands of PETA's exterminators.

"TNR may prevent future generations of cats from suffering the hardships of life on the street, but they (sic) fail to address the misery experienced by cats trying to eke out an existence in alleys and behind Dumpsters," she bellowed in another of her anti-cat screeds posted October 24, 2010 on OpEd News.com. (See "Don't Turn Your Back on Feral Cats.")

Everything that she and PETA have to say about TNR and homeless cats is pure fabrication. In particular, cats that belong to managed colonies are fed and watered daily, provided with winterized shelters, vaccinated, and taken to veterinarians when they become ill. The world has anything but "turned its back on them."

Even cats that do not belong to managed colonies usually make out all right. Kindhearted individuals feed them and there usually are buildings that they can get underneath in inclement weather. Furthermore, since they are territorial they quickly learn to avoid the dangers that exist in their environment.

According to several studies cited by Alley Cat Allies (ACA), less than one per cent of homeless cats need to be killed due to illness, trauma, and infectious diseases. Moreover, research does not support PETA's claim that homeless cats are more prone to disease than domesticated ones. (See "Feral Cat Health Analysis: Living Healthy Outdoors" at www.alleycat.org.)

ACA's assessment of the healthiness of homeless cats is attested to by veterinarian Shelia Dobson of the Kansas City area who is on record as saying that homeless cats are every bit as healthy as domesticated ones. (See Cat Defender post of May 16, 2006 entitled "Kansas City Vets Break Ranks with AVMA to Defend Cats Against Bird Advocates, Wildlife Proponents, and Exterminators.")

Because of their sedentary lifestyles and as the result of being cooped up all day and night in polluted houses and apartments, it could be argued with some force that indoor cats actually are far less healthy and physically fit than their outdoor cousins. (See Cat Defender posts of August 22, 2007 and October 19, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Indoor Cats Are Dying from Diabetes, Hyperthyroidism, and Various Toxins in the Home" and "Smokers Are Killing Their Cats, Dogs, Birds, and Infants by Continuing to Light Up in Their Presence.")

Obesity and cancerous implanted microchips also are taking a heavy toll on domesticated cats. (See Cat Defender posts of September 21, 2007 and November 6, 2010 entitled, respectively, "FDA Is Suppressing Research That Shows Implanted Microchips Cause Cancer in Mice, Rats, and Dogs" and "Bulkin Contracts Cancer from an Implanted Microchip and Now It Is Time for Digital Angel and Merck to Answer for Their Crimes in a Court of Law.")

PETA also makes much ado about homeless cats being preyed upon by ailurophobes and that, admittedly, is a major problem but the same holds true for domesticated ones as well. Generally speaking, homeless cats with a healthy fear of humans suffer less horrific abuse than do trusting, socialized cats. (See Cat Defender post of September 22, 2011 entitled "Neanderthaloid Politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, Wholeheartedly Sanction the Illegal and Cold-Blooded Murder of Haze by a Trigger-Happy Cop.")

TNR programs also have the added advantage of being fully funded by volunteers and therefore do not cost the taxpayers a solitary cent. That is likely one of the principal reasons that conventional shelter operators, like PETA, are so stridently opposed to them.

Groups such as Neighborhood Cats in Manhattan and the Humane Society of the United States in Washington are attempting to usurp the prerogatives of the volunteers and thus bring the colonies under their control. Should they ever succeed, they in quick order will sell the cats down the river. (See Cat Defender post of June 15, 2009 entitled "American Bird Conservancy, The New York Times, and the Humane Society Form an Achse des Bösen Against Cats.")

It stands to reason that the rogue band of cutthroat killers who comprise the ranks of PETA additionally would be strenuously opposed to no-kill shelters. While there can be no denying that the movement is rife with impostors, it nevertheless is a step in the right direction. (See Cat Defender post of July 29, 2010 entitled "Benicia Vallejo Humane Society Is Outsourcing the Mass Killing of Kittens and Cats All the While Masquerading as a No-Kill Shelter.")

The task confronting the advocates of no-kill is to expose and weed out the pretenders and thus restore credibility to the movement. No-kill should mean exactly what the name implies and nothing less.

TNR colonies, barns, adoption, legitimate no-kill shelters and, if nothing better is available, a policy of live and let live all are preferable to the onerous and morally repugnant trap and kill policies practiced by PETA and conventional shelters. "...it is in no animal's best interest to be killed," ACA responded on its web site last October to Mullins' October 24th broadside defaming homeless cats. (See "Alley Cat Allies' Response to PETA: Feral Cats Deserve to Live.")

A sixth option in the form of retirement communities for elderly and sick cats and dogs also is now available in a few select communities. Capacity is extremely limited and all funding must be raised privately but they nonetheless are a step forward in providing cats and dogs with the compassion that they so richly deserve.

It was in recognition of that glaring need that the Deutscher Tierschutzbund of Bonn last month awarded its Deutschen Tierschutzpreis for 2011 to Klein'en Gnadenhof of Letschow. Located just outside the former Hanseatic city of Rostock in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Klein'en Gnadenhof is a four-thousand square meter rural sanctuary that houses twenty-five cats and twelve dogs that are either elderly or sick.

It has been in business for ten years and is operated by Christel and Manfred Klein. (See photo of them above.)

"Wir schenken alten, verletzen and unheilbar kranken Hunden und Katzen wieder Lebensqualität," Christel told the Schweriner Volkszeitung on September 19th. (See "Preis für 'Gnadenhof' aus Rostock.") "Ich konnte das Leid der Hunde und Katzen nicht mit ansehen."

That certainly comes as a refreshing breath of air after listening to PETA's incessant drumming that all homeless cats must be killed on the spot. So, too, is the Kleins' decision to invest the €3000 that came with the award on enlarging the facility so as to accommodate additional needy animals.

Although the Kleins recognize that cats and dogs, like humans, are entitled to their Lebensabend, that does not stop them from killing them off in droves once they become incapacitated. In that regard, their sanctuary is not all that much of an improvement over PETA's Norfolk facility.

"Selbst alte und kranke Tiere geben uns Menschen viel an Liebe zurück," Christel pointed out to the Schweriner Volkszeitung in the article cited supra. If she and Manfred truly believed that and the rest of their highfalutin rhetoric, they would immediately renounce killing and simply allow nature to take its course.

In conclusion, PETA is nothing short of a malignant cancer that slowly is undermining the legitimate animal rights movement. With its hands fouled by the blood of the tens of thousand of cats that it has killed and with nothing but lies and a perverted, abhorrent immorality gushing forth from the lips of its members, it has retarded the animal rights movement by at least one-hundred years.

At best, the organization is a caricature of a legitimate animal rights group and as such is worthy of only scorn and ridicule. At worst, it is a deadly killing machine that needs to be confronted, exposed, and thwarted.

Photos: PETA (murdered cat), Cal Bryant of the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald (Hinkle and Cook celebrating), Mirror (Dante), and Dirk Eisermann für Funk UHR via Bild (Christel and Manfred Klein).

Marvin Is Betrayed, Abducted, and Murdered by a Journalist and a Shelter Who Preposterously Maintain That They Were Doing Him a Favor

2011-09-28T12:38:00.003-04:00

"Murmurings of love on his lips, and murder in his damn black heart."
-- John D. MacDonald

Long-suffering and handsome Marvin spent the lion's share of his all-too-brief sixteen or so years on this earth living in a parking lot off of Stone Pine Road in Half Moon Bay. It was a hard life to be sure but it was still a life just the same.

Along with all the deprivations there no doubt were many happy moments as well and, best of all, during the last decade of his life he had a companion named Mocha who was a tremendous comfort to him. (See photo of him above.)

People occasionally left food for him but generally speaking he was forced most of the time to scrounge around for his next meal. He apparently did not have anywhere to hang his hat either but since the thermometer in the San Franciscoan suburb of twelve-thousand souls rarely dips below 43° Fahrenheit during the wintertime or climbs much above 65° Fahrenheit in the summertime, the elements were the least of his travails.

Not much else is known about the black, reddish-brown, and white tom other than that somewhere along the way he had been neutered and that is a pretty strong indication that at one time or another he belonged to either someone or a managed TNR colony. That also is superficial evidence that he likely wound up on his own as the result of some unforeseen calamity because individuals who are willing to foot the bill in order to sterilize a cat are considerably less prone to simply abandon it.

Most important of all, he likely still would be gracing the parking lot and hanging out with Mocha if it had not been for a chance encounter that occurred about a year ago with a false-hearted Machiavellian journalist named Jane Ganahl who, incidentally, also is co-founder of San Francisco's annual literary festival, Litquake. (See a mug shot of her on the right below.)

"Dude, that's a good way to get killed!" she berated him then and there after nearly stepping on him according to her September 20th column in the Half Moon Bay Review. (See "Parking Lot Cat Opened Eyes and Hearts.")

It just as easily could be argued that Ganahl should keep her head out of her ass and watch where she was strutting. As things eventually turned out, she had a far more sinister fate planned for Marvin than merely squashing him to death underneath her heels as porno actresses routinely do to kittens in crush videos.

After the passage of an unspecified amount of time, Marvin unwittingly succumbed to Ganahl's cajolery and lies and consented to allow her to pet him. That ultimately paved the way for his eventual downfall and untimely demise.

A healthy fear of their number one predator, man, is in most instances beneficial for cats. More often than not, it is precisely domesticated cats that suffer the worst abuses from ailurophobes.

Ganahl does not, however, mention in her column that she ever provided Marvin with any food, water, shelter, or veterinary care. That is in spite of the fact that she claims that he was emaciated, his fur in tatters, and his face shrunken. She furthermore claims that he had a badly mangled ear which could have been sustained in either a fight or as the result of the odious practice that veterinarians have of slicing up the ears of homeless cats so that they can be readily identified as having been sterilized.

Ganahl further insists that Marvin was getting to be too old in order to hunt mice and voles even though she hardly was in any position to make such a declaration considering the minuscule amount of time that she spent with him. Even if that is true, it serves only to underscore how cheaply and shabbily that she treated him because any true lover of the species would have made doubly sure that he received regular meals.

Sometime in early August she cruelly abandoned him to his own devices in order to hightail it to France for a vacation. "I'm going away," she told him according to her column in the Half Moon Bay Review. "Please hold on until I get back."

The exact sequence of events that ensued is unclear because Ganahl, like all members of the capitalist media, only tells her readers what she wants them to know. Based upon the fact that she not only never secured a loving home for Marvin but ran out on him as well, it seems highly probable that she already had signed off on his death warrant long before she boarded her plane to France.

Nevertheless, according to her account of events, an unidentified individual ratted out Marvin to the cold-blooded exterminators at the Peninsula Humane Society (PHS) who promptly traveled to Half Moon Bay, trapped him, and removed him to their death camp twenty-one kilometers away in San Mateo. The ease with which PHS corralled Marvin conflicts with Ganahl's assertion that employees and customers of the Half Moon Bay Coffee Company at 20 Stone Pine Road had been unsuccessfully attempting to trap and relocate him for years.

Once the knackers at the PHS got their murderous hands on him they did not waste any time in snuffing out Marvin's precious, albeit fragile, life and he was dead within hours of his capture. Besides Ganahl, the two individuals principally responsible for this heinous crime were her bosom buddies, a woman identified only as Barbara and the PHS's very own reincarnation of Josef Rudolf Mengele, Ken White. (See a mug shot of him on the left below.)

"Animals have so much to teach us about acceptance and forgiveness," is how Ganahl philosophically summed up her brief association with Marvin. "I like to think I helped make Marvin's life a bit more joyful in the end, but the truth is that is just how he made mine."

She could say that again! Not only did she get a newspaper column out of the deal but she is working on a children's book about Marvin and Mocha.

Like Iowa librarian Vicki Myron, she is destined to be laughing all the way to the bank for a long time to come. (See Cat Defender posts of December 7, 2006 and May 10, 2007 entitled, respectively, "After Nineteen Years of Service and Companionship, Ingrates at Iowa Library Murder Dewey Readmore Books" and "Iowa Librarian Vicki Myron Inks Million Dollar Deal for Memoir About Dewey Readmore Books.")

Despite her literary coups, absolutely nothing will ever change the fact that Ganahl's ill-gotten gain is blood money. As for poor Marvin, the only thing that he ever got out of his relationship with her was the gallows.

As far as White is concerned, liquidating Marvin was strictly old hat to him. "Others knew him, I did not," he wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle on August 25th. (See "Musings Toward the End of a Long Day, and After Watching a Cat Die.") "I was just there to help see him off, something I've done more times than I can count."

It is truly shocking that an individual could be so morally depraved as not to be able to distinguish any material difference between taking the life of another and seeing someone off, as on either a plane or a train. Nonetheless, revealing statement such as that offer a rare glimpse into the diseased and perverted minds of those individuals who operate and work in shelters.

"He was failing, and this was the last gift from people who cared about him," White continued in an utterly abhorrent line of reasoning that sounds as if it were taken verbatim from PETA's sordid play book. Being a slick blabber like Ganahl, White is careful to omit any mention of exactly what was so terribly wrong with Marvin that necessitated ending his life so cruelly and prematurely.

As Hamlet understood only too well, death is anything but a gift and for White and Ganahl to pretend otherwise is nothing but self-serving sophistry. Marvin persevered in that crummy parking lot for sixteen years and at the very least deserved to have been allowed to die there with Mocha at his side.

Instead he was trapped by strangers, taken for a ride, and then killed off in a sterile and forbidding death house operated by diabolical monsters. The poor fellow's last hours on this earth could not possibly have been anything except a terrifying nightmare.

Afterwards, his body no doubt casually was tossed into the trash and burned. Since low-life scumbags like White and Ganahl do not have a scintilla of respect for the living, it is beyond the pale to believe that they would exhibit any regard for the deceased.

Likewise, White, Ganahl, and everyone else who kills off animals because they allegedly do not want to see them suffer are barefaced liars. In reality, they simply are too selfish and cheap to care for them once they become either sick or elderly. (See Cat Defender posts of March 12, 2009 and October 27, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Too Cheap and Lazy to Care for Him During His Final Days, Betty Currie Has Socks Killed Off and His Corpse Burned" and "Loved and Admired All Over the World, Feline Heroine Scarlett Is Killed Off by Her Owners after She Becomes Ill.")

Rather than allowing Marvin to languish in that parking lot, anyone who truly cared about cats would have made certain that he received the food, shelter, and veterinary care that he so richly deserved and needed. Above all, they would have found him a loving home if for no other reason than to have placed him beyond the reach of Ganahl and White.

That is precisely what he needed, not a jab of sodium pentobarbital. Sixteen is not all that old for a cat and Marvin very well could have lived another ten years or longer if he had received the food, veterinary care, and security that he needed.

Instead, he received something entirely different from Ganahl and White. "Murmurings of love on his lips, and murder in his damn black heart," is how John D. MacDonald in his novel Cinnamon Skin characterized what the victims of serial killer Evan Lawrence received from him and Marvin certainly did not fare any better at the hands of Ganahl and White.

To make matters worse, Ganahl has invoked her Buddhist faith in a burlesque attempt to justify her betrayal and murder of Marvin. She does not make any effort, however, to reconcile her heretical views with her sect's prohibition against both killing and telling lies.

Although he does not profess to be an exponent of any particular religious creed, White nevertheless invokes that old superstition about the immortality of the soul in order to justify not only killing Marvin but countless other animals as well.

"Whatever it is that animates is beyond my ability to understand, but without the religious package that goes along with the word I am comfortable calling that thing a soul," he wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle in the article cited supra. "I am convinced that soul is in more of us than just our own species. And I am quite sure it is too big a thing to disappear at the end of what we think of as life."

Leaving aside for now that in the De rerum natura, Lucretius offers up at least two dozen arguments in favor of the mortality of the soul, White's mumbo jumbo is one of the oldest and most successful con games ever invented. In short, he and others like him invoke that old pie in the sky legend in order to absolve themselves of not only all moral responsibility here on earth but to justify the commission of the most heinous crimes imaginable.

Long before there was Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, and numerous other salvation hustlers there was Billy Sunday and here is, in part, what Carl Sandburg had to say about him in his 1915 poem, "To Billy Sunday":

"You, Billy Sunday, put a smut on every human blossom that comes within reach of your rotten breath belching out hell-fire and hiccuping about this man who lived a clean life in Galilee...

"I like a man that's got guts and can pull off a great original performance, but you -- hell, you're only a bughouse peddler of second-hand gospel -- you're only shoving out a phony imitation of the goods this Jesus guy told us ought to be free as air and sunlight..."

"You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix it up all right with them by giving them mansions in skies after they're dead and the worms have eaten 'em.

"You tell a $6 a week department store girls all they need is Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead without having lived, gray and shrunken at forty years of age, and you tell him to look to Jesus on the cross and he'll be all right.

"You tell poor people they don't need any more money on pay day and even if it's fierce to be out of a job, Jesus'll fix that all right, all right -- all they gotta do is take Jesus the way you say.

"I'm telling you this Jesus guy wouldn't stand for the stuff you're handing out. Jesus played it different. The bankers and corporation lawyers of Jerusalem got their sluggers and murderers to go after Jesus just because Jesus wouldn't play their game. He didn't sit in with the big thieves.

"I don't want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion.

"I won't take my religion from a man who never works except with his mouth and never cherishes a memory except the face of the woman on the American silver dollar..."

Correspondingly, Ganahl and White are the absolute last individuals that any legitimate animal rights movement either needs or wants. Jack Kevorkian spent eight years behind bars for helping one-hundred-thirty individuals to end their lives and Ganahl and White most assuredly do not deserve anything less for robbing Marvin of his life without his consent.

The same applies in spades to veterinarians who line their pockets by killing cats, dogs, and other animals. (See Cat Defender post of July 28, 2011 entitled "Tammy and Maddy Are Forced to Pay the Ultimate Price after Their Owner and an Incompetent Veterinarian Elect to Play Russian Roulette with Their Lives.")

Elderly, sick, and injured cats need topnotch veterinary care, compassion, and a secure environment. When their time comes, they should be allowed to die natural and unhurried deaths; no human intervention is either needed or warranted.

Sadly, for Marvin there will not be any more summers or autumns but that is not the case as far as Mocha and the cats who live behind the Odwalla food company at nearby 120 Stone Pine Road are concerned. It therefore is paramount that neither Ganahl nor White get their murderous hands on any of them.

It would be comforting to believe that there is at least one kindhearted individual in Half Moon Bay with a healthy respect for life who would intervene on behalf of these cats and thus thwart Ganahl's and White's evil intentions but given the fact that her column has not attracted so much as one negative comment that does not seem likely. Nevertheless, unless someone steps up and puts a stop to their machinations the lives of these cats are destined to end every bit as abruptly, unjustly, and prematurely as Marvin's.

Mocha's days and nights already must be especially trying now that Marvin is gone. It no doubt would come as a great shock to Ganahl and White that cats have individual personalities and feelings just like every other living creature and suffer deeply whenever a loved one is taken from them.

One-hundred-sixty kilometers to the west in Modesto, another senior cat named Olivia has been living for the past twelve years in a parking lot that separates the Stanislaus County Men's Jail from the Stanislaus County Superior Court. (See photo of her above.)

Although she enjoys the patronage of Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager and others within Modesto's legal establishment, there is not any guarantee that they will not sell her down the river to the knackers one day just as Ganahl and White did with Marvin. Like Mocha and countless other homeless cats, she needs the kind of protection that only someone committed to the sanctity of feline life can provide. (See Cat Defender post of January 29, 2011 entitled "After Scrimping By in a Polluted Parking Lot for Eleven Years, Olivia Is Ready for a Loving and Permanent Home.")

Photos: Half Moon Bay Review (Marvin and Ganahl), San Francisco Chronicle (White), and Debbie Nada of The Modesto Bee (Olivia).

Neanderthaloid Politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, Wholeheartedly Sanction the Illegal and Cold-Blooded Murder of Haze by a Trigger-Happy Cop

2011-09-22T16:32:00.002-04:00

"We love our cats. Do you know what it was like to pull your pet out of the garbage can and then pull him out of the garbage bag and his head is bloody with a bullet hole in it? It's so violent that they did this to our animal and made no effort to call the humane society or find his owners."
-- Dori Stone

Tiny Lebanon, Ohio, located thirty-seven kilometers outside of Cincinnati, is a thoroughly barbaric town that should be avoided at all costs by cats and all individuals who care about them. It is so backward and inhumane that its police officers are allowed to murder residents' cats with the full blessings of both the entire political establishment as well as local humane groups.

That was the shocking and tragic lesson brutally foisted upon Dori Stone after an unidentified officer of the Lebanon Police Department murdered her beloved cat, Haze, in cold blood with a gunshot to the head on August 20th. (See photo of him above.)

The sickening and infuriating chain of events that culminated in Haze's murder began to unfold on Friday, August 19th when he disappeared from Stone's residence on East Silver Street. At a little before 1 p.m. on the following day a man identified only as Vernon who was either visiting or staying with Stone's neighbor, Betty Hayslip, in the 400 block of nearby Mulberry Street telephoned the police in order to complain about what he maliciously labeled as a stray cat with rabies.

Always willing to oblige whenever there is any killing to be done, especially if the intended victim is a cat, the unidentified officer arrived on the scene and without so much as a moment's hesitation promptly shot Haze in the head. Vernon then stuffed the cat in a garbage bag and deposited his corpse in a trash can. Quite obviously, neither he nor the officer have any more regard for the sanctity of feline life than they do for either leftover food or old, moth-eaten clothes.

For whatever it is worth, the officer later claimed that the cat was panting and failed to acknowledge his presence. From that spurious bit of inexpert and uncorroborated evidence he concluded that the so-called stray was suffering and in distress and therefore could not be permitted under any circumstances to go on living for another minute.

All of the available information point to the inescapable conclusion that the officer's assessment of the situation was pure baloney. According to the Weather Channel, the temperature outside that day was 85° Fahrenheit with more than likely a comparable humidity level and based upon that Haze likely was suffering from heat exhaustion which is characterized by a shortness of breath and listlessness. Moreover, the fact that he weighed twenty pounds no doubt put added stress on his tiny cardiovascular system.

Compounding matters further, he likely was accustomed to spending the majority of his time in an air conditioned environment where he readily had access to food and water. Since he had been missing for perhaps as long as eighteen hours, he may not have had access to water during that period and could have been suffering from dehydration as well as heat exhaustion.

Under such circumstances, Haze needed water, food, and an air conditioned environment, not a bullet in the head. All sick cats are entitled to competent veterinary care and anyone unable to tell the difference between heat exhaustion and rabies certainly does not have any business wearing a badge and carrying a gun.

Admittedly, cats suffering from heat exhaustion and rabies both exhibit labored breathing and protruding tongues but the similarities end there. Rabid cats tend to be loud and violent as well as prone to seizures.

Although rabies may be fairly common in certain species of wildlife, it is exceedingly rare in homeless cats and almost unheard of in domesticated ones. Plus, it is likely that Haze previously had been vaccinated against the disease.

Furthermore, there is a good chance that Haze would have been just fine even without veterinary intervention if he had been permitted to have gotten out of the sun and rested until nightfall. He then could have made his way home, which was only four-hundred-seven feet away, safe and sound.

That scenario additionally would explain his failure to return home Friday night. Sometime either overnight or during the early morning hours the heat and humidity may have gotten to him and he wound up stranded, as bad luck would have it, in the yard of an inveterate cat-hater.

As far as Haze's failure to respond to the officer's presence is concerned, that can be explained not only by the heat but his domesticity. Police officers are not nearly as thickheaded as they pretend to be and Haze's lack of fear of him was a clear indication that he was neither a feral nor a stray.

More mundanely, common sense alone would have dictated to any halfway humane individual that since Haze was discovered in a residential neighborhood that he belonged to one of the occupants. The condition of his fur, his overall appearance and demeanor plus, above all, his obesity shouted out the unmistakable conclusion that he had been neutered and was being fed way too much food by a doting owner. As any fool knows only too well, homeless cats that are forced to scrounge around for their next meal do not become obese.

The lawman also makes much ado about Haze not having on a collar. In addition to the difficulty of getting some cats to wear regular buckle-up collars, breakaway Halsbande are specifically designed to come off once they become snagged on an object, and elastic ones are potential death traps. (See Cat Defender posts of May 28, 2008 and June 22, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Collars Turn into Death Traps for Trooper and Que but Both Are Rescued at the Eleventh Hour" and "Hobson Is Forced to Wander Around Yorkshire for Months Trapped in an Elastic Collar That Steadily Was Eating Away at His Shoulder and Leg.")

Linda Lord of Ohio State University and her co-authors discount those concerns by arguing that the benefits of collars clearly outweigh the dangers. They further argue that most cats will gradually accept collars if their owners are persistent. (See "Evaluation of Collars and Microchips for Visual and Permanent Identification of Pet Cats," Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, August 15, 2010, volume 237, number 4, pages 387-394 and Pet Peoples Place, September 15, 2010, "Study Shows Most Cats Will Tolerate Wearing a Collar.")

The argument over the merits and demerits of collars and tattoos is largely superfluous owing to the growing popularity of implanted microchips as the preferred method of identifying cats and dogs. That is in spite of the fact that microchips have been linked to cancer and offer absolutely no protection whatsoever against cat-hating policemen who are prone to taking the law into their own hands. (See Cat Defender posts of September 21, 2007 and November 6, 2010 entitled, respectively, "FDA Is Suppressing Research That Shows Implanted Microchips Cause Cancer in Mice, Rats, and Dogs" and "Bulkin Contracts Cancer from an Implanted Microchip and Now It Is Time for Digital Angel and Merck to Answer for Their Crimes in a Court of Law.")

Haze's murderer sans doute is acutely aware of this change in pet identification methods as well as everyone else in the civilized world and for him to base his defense on the absence of a collar is just one more of his big, fat lies. It is even doubtful that anyone as bloodthirsty as him would have spared Haze's life even if he had been tethered to one of Goodyear's blimps that announced to the world his name and address in big, block letters.

Whenever cops are not doing either the dirty work of the capitalists and bourgeoisie or lining their pockets in nefarious ways, they amuse themselves by killing defenseless animals and crapping on the poor and downtrodden. It thus is ludicrous to expect any positive behavior out of them and the best that can be hoped for is that they will content themselves with taking bribes, goldbricking, and lapping up the perks that come with their office and accordingly mind their own business.

Anatole France certainly was well acquainted with the codification of injustice. "La majestueuse égalité des lois interdit aux riches comme aux pauvres de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans la rue et de voler du pain," he once wrote.

Even more compelling than all of the foregoing is the fact that no police officer or humane official ever should place a scintilla of credence in the unfounded allegations of cat-haters. The mislabeling of cats as ferals and strays, vicious, and as being eaten up with rabies and other deadly diseases are common ruses that enemies of the species frequently employ in order to justify having them killed.

To make a long story short, the officer's story is a tissue of lies from beginning to end. Both he and Vernon therefore should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and, if convicted, deserve nothing less than jabs of sodium pentobarbital at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

After searching in vain two days for Haze, Stone finally was told by the police on Sunday, August 21st that they had liquidated her cat and that she could find his remains in Hayslip's trash can. Dutifully, she went and did what was necessary but the memory of what she found has become a nightmare that is destined to haunt her dreams for as long as she lives.

"We love our cats. Do you know what it was like to pull your pet out of the garbage can and then pull him out of the garbage bag and his head is bloody with a bullet hole in it?" she confided to The Western Star of Lebanon on August 26th. (See "Owners Upset over Cat-Shooting Incident; City Says It Was a Public Safety Concern.") "It's so violent that they did this to our animal and made no effort to call the humane society or find his owners."

Press reports fail to disclose how Stone disposed of Haze's body and since the police did not order a necropsy it now is too late to determine if he was ailing in any fashion because a cat's remains will decompose in a matter of days in hot weather. Since it is customary for post-mortems to be conducted on all animals that are suspected of having rabies, the officer's failure to do so is just one more bit of evidence that he is an outrageous liar.

It did not take long for the fallout resulting from Haze's premeditated murder to reverberate throughout Lebanon's population of twenty-thousand residents. Not unexpectedly, it was Stone who got the ball rolling.

"Something needs to (be) done. If this is common practice it needs to be changed," she told The Western Star. "My husband (Randall) and I have not eaten since Sunday morning. We are just sick. We close our eyes at night and see his little face and to think as good of care we took of him for almost seven years, these were his last moments and that was the way he had to die; it's unbearable."

Stone's pet sitter, Cynthia Johnson of Stanwood Drive, immediately called for the establishment of a voluntary task force to come to the aid of sick and injured animals. "I would love to also hear other options. I would love to hear that other people think this is so wrong, that we can come up with some different and better solutions so this doesn't happen again," she told The Western Star in the article cited supra. "This was someone's pet."

Some sort of private initiative desperately is needed because the Warren County Humane Society is so derelict in its responsibilities to the animals that it categorically refuses to come to the aid of those in distress. Although in this instance it never was called, that would not have made any difference despite the fact that its headquarters is located only 1.4 miles from where Haze was murdered.

It will accept animals that are dropped off on its doorstep but even that is problematic since the Lebanon Police refuse to transport them in their cruisers under any circumstances. Plus, the county dog warden will not touch cats with a ten-foot pole.

As if the cold-blooded murder of Haze were not bad enough in its own right, Lebanon's shameful and utterly disgraceful political establishment was quick to close ranks behind the police officer. Right off the bat City Manager Pat Clements came out and ludicrously proclaimed that the animal cruelty statutes did not apply in this case because it was a matter of health, safety, and civic welfare. (See photo of him above on the right.)

"Based on the information I have received, it appears that the officer's actions were necessary and in compliance with departmental policies," he pontificated to The Western Star. If indeed the animal cruelty laws can be suspended either upon a whim or for convenience sake, then no animal's life is any longer worth a plugged nicked in Lebanon. Moreover, Clements' sottise is an open invitation for every sort of abuse imaginable.

Clements' descent into the realm of reductio ad absurdum logic brought a swift response from Bruce Langos of the Humane Society of Greater Dayton. "You cannot willfully and without consent of the owner injure an animal in any way," he wrote to Clements according to the August 26th edition of the Dayton Daily News. (See "Couple Seek (sic) Policy Change after Police Officer Shoots Pet Cat.")

As Clements and his fellow cronies within the Lebanon political establishment should know, it is illegal under both state and local law to kill a cat. Consequently, Langos is planning to ask the state to investigate Haze's murder.

Although the handwriting clearly was on the wall as far as Lebanon's intransigent political establishment was concerned, Stone nonetheless persevered and took her case before the City Council on September 13th. Fifty citizens turned out but only seven of them were allowed to speak.

"Regardless of whether he was a stray or was sick or injured, that gave him (the police officer) no right to execute him," Stone told the politicians according to the September 15th edition of The Western Star. (See "Supporters of Shot Cat Want a Dialogue Started.") "No right whatsoever."

The thoroughly heartless, unjust, and self-serving politicians let it be known from the outset that they not only were well beyond all moral and political persuasion but not about to be lectured to by either Stone or anyone else. "We all have different perspectives...absolutely everyone of us up here feels sorry," Mayor Amy Brewer barked back in response to an outburst from some of Haze's supporters. (See photo of her on the right above.)

In addition to serving as mayor, Brewer is a notorious multiple dipper at the public till who, inter alia, teaches art at Donovan Intermediate School and serves on the Warren and Clinton County Mental Health Board. Still not satisfied with all of that, she additionally models for a motorcycle rag and owns along with her husband a printing business downtown. Stone accordingly is wasting her time if she thinks that anyone as ensconced in Lebanon's power structure as Brewer cares one whit about either cats or justice.

Nevertheless, Stone's threatened lawsuit against the city had the politicians shaking so furiously in their silk drawers that they made sure that their legal counsel, Mark Yurick, was on hand in order to read the Riot Act to Haze's supporters. "There's no indication this officer acted maliciously or willfully in any way," Yurick, in an utterly stupefying twisting of both truth and logic, declared to those assembled according to The Western Star.

"Nobody up sitting here, including the police officer, is happy about this situation," he continued to blow long and hard. "Everybody up here is sorry. We're very sorry about it."

The only kernel of truth contained in Yurick's and Brewer's crocodile tears is that they both are indeed sorry excuses for human beings. Totally lacking in all sincerity, the tenor of their apologies makes them sound more like threats than anything else. It is as if the politicians were saying to Stone: "All right, we've said we are sorry. Now, beat it and leave us alone or else!"

If Brewer and her fellow political hacks were the least bit genuine, they would have not only fired the police officer on the spot but arrested him and charged him with murder. After all, it is the duty of politicians to uphold the law. They next would have reached out to Stone by not only apologizing and meaning it, but offering her substantial financial compensation for her loss as well.

Most important of all, they immediately would have rewritten their draconian ordinances regarding the handling of cats. Specifically, police officers in Lebanon would be prohibited from coming within ten feet of a cat, let alone dispensing their own patented brand of barbaric street corner justice.

The City Council furthermore should part with a few of its precious shekels in order to establish a legitimate no-kill shelter in Lebanon where the lives of all animals would be held to be sacrosanct. That would put a permanent end to all of this senseless killing and abuse and for once in their miserable lives the politicians would have done something worthwhile. Instead, they have chosen to wallow in murder, lies, and phony apologies.

In a way, the aberrant behavior of the police and elected officials in Lebanon is merely par for the course as far as how they treat cats throughout Ohio. For example, back on March 27, 2008 E.C. "Betty" Blair, a Lorrain County Commissioner from Elyria, recommended that cats be tasered. (See Cat Defender post of April 8, 2008 entitled "Ohio Politician Proposes Adding Cats to the Growing List of Pigs, Other Animals, and Humans Killed by Tasers.")

On December 13, 2006, Janice L. Rolfe, a retired English teacher from Grandview Heights, was arrested by Hilliard police officer Shane O'Connor and charged with littering as well as illegally sheltering an animal. Her attorney, Mark A. Serrott, successfully argued in court that feeding a cat was not littering and that Hilliard's ban on sheltering animals pertained only to livestock.

Consequently, the charges against his client were dismissed. (See Cat Defender post of February 26, 2007 entitled "Charged with Feeding a Feral Cat Named Fluffy, Retired Ohio English Teacher Beats the Rap.")

In 2004, the statehouse in Columbus was overrun with rats but luckily a dozen cats showed up and quickly brought the situation under control. Instead of being grateful for the cats' excellent work, the politicians ordered their expulsion a year later. (See Cat Defender post of October 20, 2005 entitled "After Ridding the Ohio Statehouse of Rats, Cats Now Find Themselves Facing Eviction.")

Cruelty to cats in the Buckeye State is by no means confined to police officers and politicians. For example, a male gray and brown cat was killed by an archer in Miami Township, Montgomery County, in July of 2007. (See Cat Defender post of August 2, 2007 entitled "Ohio Cat Shot in the Leg with an Arrow Is Forced to Endure a Long-Drawn-Out and Excruciating Death.")

Unfortunately, the Lebanon Police's cold-blooded murder of Haze was not an isolated incident but rather is a fairly common occurrence all across America from sea to shining sea. For instance, on Labor Day of 2009 the police in Raymore, Missouri, summarily executed Kelly Wesner's nineteen-year-old deaf cat, Tobey. (See photo of him on the right above.)

The events that led to his demise are eerily similar to those that did in Haze. In particular, he went out for a stroll and wound up inadvertently trespassing on a cat-hater's property.

The ailurophobe first trained a garden hose on him and then telephoned the police to erroneously report that a large, vicious feral cat with rabies had scratched a girl. The police promptly arrived johnny-on-the-spot, pumped two shotgun blasts into his tiny head, and then wrapped his bloody corpse in a plastic bag and deposited it in a Dumpster.

Like Stone, Wesner was left with the gruesome and heartbreaking task of retrieving Tobey's corpse. "He was our family member," she later said. "He was the sweetest animal (and he) was always there to be your friend. He didn't know a stranger."

In the aftermath of the shooting, the Raymore Police claimed that Tobey had his claws extended and that it took three officers in order to get the scratching and clawing cat into a box. That undoubtedly qualifies as one of the biggest lies ever told in that Tobey had been declawed and therefore was not in any position to scratch anyone.

He also suffered from Feline Hyperthyroidism and his weight had plummeted to only six pounds and that petit fait makes a barefaced liar out of the neighbor who sicced the cops on him. As was the case with Haze, if the police had truly believed that Tobey had rabies they would have saved his corpse for testing rather than tossing it in the trash.

Finally, although the Raymore Police made a big deal out of Tobey's lack of a collar, they made absolutely no effort whatsoever to scan him for an implanted microchip. (See Cat Defender post of September 16, 2009 entitled "Acting Solely Upon the Lies of a Cat-Hater, Raymore Police Pump Two Shotgun Blasts into the Head of Nineteen-Year-Old Declawed and Deaf Tobey.")

In stark contrast to the recalcitrant sticks-in-the-mud who rule the roost in Lebanon, Acting Police Chief Roger Mayberry shortly thereafter changed his department's protocol in order to allow strays to be taken to shelters and clinics and for dead animals to be left with Wayside Waifs in Kansas City. The Humane Society of Missouri pledged to launch its own independent investigation into Tobey's murder but nothing further has been heard from it.

On March 22, 2008, another unidentified cat-hater telephoned the police in Cecil, Pennsylvania, in order to complain about a group of cats loitering on either his or her property. Being neither a trained veterinarian nor an expert on rabies, the caller nonetheless insisted that one of the felines was rabid.

Upon the arrival of a police officer, all of the cats took to their heels except Roger Oldtaker's ten-year-old Persian, Elmo. As a consequence, the officer trapped him, dragged him across the street and into the woods, and then shot him. (See photo of him on the right above.)

"He was not injured. He just didn't know where to run," Oldtaker later said. "Another cat ran away, and the policeman said if my cat would have run, he would have let him go."

Although Elmo was not wearing a collar, the officer most certainly must have known because of his friendly demeanor and where he was found that he belonged to a nearby family. Just as telling, since Persians are expensive, high-maintenance cats that are easily rehomed, not too many of them wind up roughing it. (See Cat Defender post of March 31, 2008 entitled "Cecil, Pennsylvania, Police Officer Summarily Executes Family's Beloved Ten-Year-Old Persian, Elmo.")

There are several recurring similarities in the deaths of Haze, Tobey, and Elmo. First of all, in each case the police employed lethal force based solely upon the uncorroborated lies of cat-hating neighbors and that type of flagrant police misconduct should not be tolerated in any halfway civilized society. It is not only patently immoral and illegal but police officers are not competent to make those types of life and death decisions; that is the job of judges and juries.

Secondly, although the police claimed that all three cats were rabid, their failure to order necropsies exposes those charges to be lies. Thirdly, the cops willfully ignored all evidence of domesticity in order to falsely brand the cats as ferals and strays.

Fourthly, although the killers in each case gassed long and hard about the cats not wearing collars, their failure to scan for implanted microchips proves that they either did not care or were too lazy in order to conclusively determine the cats' socio-economic status.

The heinous crimes committed against cats by police officers are by no means limited to their rôle as the self-appointed death squads of ailurophobes. Some of them just like to kill cats.

For example, off-duty North Carolina State Trooper Shawn C. Houston of 2851 Icard Ridge Road in Granite Falls trapped and shot to death his neighbor's five-month-old orange and white kitten, Rowdy, in October of 2009 because he allegedly had been climbing on his vehicles. (See photo of Rowdy below.)

At trail, Houston was let off with the payment of $125 in court costs although his employer wisely gave him the boot on January 22, 2010. (See Cat Defender post of July 8, 2010 entitled "North Carolina State Trooper Who Illegally Trapped and Shot His Next-Door Neighbor's Cat, Rowdy, Is Now Crying for His Job Back.")

In addition to gunning down domestic cats, cops heap some of their worst abuse on those who belong to managed TNR colonies. In particular, they have been known to call in Animal Control officers in order to trap and kill the cats.

Secondly, they often destroy and steal the cats' feeding stations, food and water bowls, and winterized shelters. In doing so they sometimes crush to death cats and kittens living inside them.

Because the cats' caretakers largely are tapped out due to the expense of maintaining the colonies, they therefore are not in any position to hold those lawless cretins accountable in a court of law. In the end, attacking and killing homeless cats is just one more way that cops get their perverted kicks; after all, they do the same thing to homeless men and women.

Cats are not the only companion animals that are forced to suffer at the hands of trigger-happy cops. For example, on April 15, 2003 a ten-month-old pit bull mix named Dosha escaped from the yard of her owner, Louetta Mallard, in Clearlake, California. (See photo of her below.)

She shortly thereafter was mowed down by the driver of a pickup truck. An unidentified officer from the Clearlake Police Department arrived on the scene and immediately pumped a bullet into the collarless dog's head.

Dosha's body was removed to a freezer at Animal Control but, astonishingly, she was found to have regained consciousness two hours later. A veterinarian subsequently removed the bullet and treated her for hypothermia and she eventually was returned to Mallard. (See People Magazine, May 12, 2003, "Dosha the Wonder Dog.")

That is one more glaring example of just why police officers do not have any business shooting animals. In addition to nearly killing Dosha, the gunshot damaged her hearing and she nearly froze to death at Animal Control.

Although not publicized nearly as much, the carnage that they needlessly inflict upon wildlife and farm animals is incalculable. (See Cat Defender posts of May 5, 2008 and January 28, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Chicago's Rambo-Style Cops Corner and Execute a Cougar to the Delight of the Hoi Polloi and Capitalist Media" and "Hopped Up on Vodka and Pot, Trio Taunted Tatiana Prior to Attacks That Led to Her Being Killed by Police.")

Since police officers are seldom if ever held accountable for all the despicable crimes that they commit against cats and other animals, it is imperative that those who care about cats take certain precautions. First of all, they should actively try to ascertain the identities of all cat-haters in their communities and thus keep a close eye on them.

Secondly, they should acquaint themselves with the policies and procedures of police departments, Animal Control officers, humane groups, dog wardens, and private exterminators. That task is not nearly as simple as it sounds in that in order to arrive at the truth it is necessary first of all to wade through the lies and propaganda that these agencies and individuals so liberally disseminate.

One possible way of getting to the bottom of things would be for individuals to complain to these agencies about a fictional lost cat just to determine how big of a runaround and obfuscation of the truth that they receive in return. After all, it is far better to know how these groups think and function beforehand than to become caught up in their endless web of intrigue once a cat's life is on the line.

To attempt and locate a lost cat is to enter a labyrinth of deceit and lies where policemen are cold-blooded killers and Animal Control officers are stealthy characters who only can be reached by either telephone or pager.

On those rare occasions when shelter personnel choose to be somewhat forthcoming it is only to snow aggrieved cat owners with more lies and to waste their time and precious resources. Veterinarians likewise make a pretty penny off of doing in cats and therefore have very little credibility. (See Cat Defender post of July 28, 2011 entitled "Tammy and Maddy Are Forced to Pay the Ultimate Price after Their Owner and an Incompetent Veterinarian Elect to Play Russian Roulette with Their Lives.")

As a consequence, the most heinous of crimes imaginable are committed in this nether world grotesquely misnomered as animal protection. In reality, these groups and individuals form an animal liquidation fraternity operated both for profit and the sheer thrill of killing and abusing the powerless. "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate."

As far as those individuals who have been bamboozled by the American Bird Conservancy's lies and sophistry are concerned, they fail to realize that cats cruelly cooped up inside all the time are not nearly as secure as they believe. For example, cats find all sorts of ways of escaping. Building inspectors and other visitors carelessly allow them to get out and they are left with no choice but to flee during fires and other emergencies. (See Cat Defender post of April 3, 2010 entitled "Lumpi Is Unforgivably Left to Die in a Burning Apartment by the Ingrates Whose Lives He Saved.")

Burglars also break in and not only sometimes allow cats to escape but confiscate them as well. (See Cat Defender post of September 9, 2009 entitled "Home Alone in New Zealand, Friendly Little Nookie Is Repeatedly Kicked and Left for Dead by Vicious Burglars.")

Cats additionally get lost both on the way to the veterinarian and while under treatment as well. (See Cat Defender posts of March 7, 2008 and July 2, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Georgia Is Found Safe and Sound After Spending a Harrowing Twenty-Five Days Lost in the Bowels of the New York City Subway System" and "Lexi Was By No Means the First Cat to Be Lost by Woosehill Vets Any More Than Angel Was Their Last Victim of a Botched Sterilization.")

Traveling with a cat is a nightmare under any circumstances but that is especially the case if the mode of transportation happens to be par avion. (See USA Today, January 24, 2011, "Kitten Dies after Chilly Flight in Cargo," The Record Herald of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, July 21, 2011, "Amy Hamelin's Cat Escapes in Islamabad, Pakistan, Airport," and Cat Defender post of April 7, 2007 entitled "Pregnant Minskin Arrives in Oregon Frozen as Solid as a Block of Ice Following a Fatal Cross-Country Flight in the Cargo Hold of an Airliner.")

The only surefire method of putting a stop to what transpired in Lebanon is to make it illegal for any police officer, Animal Control officer, shelter, or veterinarian to kill cats of any description under any circumstances. If any of these bad actors are given even the slightest bit of leeway the killing is bound to continue.

Having completely struck out with City Council, Stone is contemplating legal action. While the officer in question, Hayslip and Vernon, and the city of Lebanon need to be held accountable, she has a tough road ahead of her.

In particular, the capitalist media's steadfast refusal to even name the killers of Haze, Tobey, and Elmo demonstrates not only how closely the various elements within the establishment stick together but just how committed they are to maintaining a culture dedicated to killing cats and other animals.

She might want to give some thought to getting together with Wesner, Oldtaker, and Mallard in order to explore the possibility of forming an organization similar to Mothers Against Drunk Driving that would be dedicated to putting an end to the police's practice of murdering cats and dogs.

If all else fails and she ultimately is unable to either secure any measure of justice for Haze or satisfaction for herself, she needs to seriously consider leaving Lebanon. Cases of irremediable injustice have an insidious manner of eating away at an individual's psychological health over time and she needs to be wary of that.

Her entire world has been torn asunder by this shocking act of barbaric criminality and it is going to take her considerable time in order to get her feet back on the ground. Worst of all, for Haze there are not going to be any more tomorrows.

Photos: Dori Stone (Haze), City of Lebanon (Clements), Glenn Hartong of The Cincinnati Enquirer (Brewer), Kelly Wesner (Tobey), Roger Oldtaker (Elmo), Andrea Evans (Rowdy), and Acey Harper of People (Dosha).

Coyotes, Swimming from Connecticut, Are Blamed for Killing Twenty Cats on Remote and Exclusive Fishers Island

2011-09-17T14:41:00.003-04:00

"I suppose they're kinda cute, but they can be dangerous. They attack cats and dogs."
-- Charles Kadushin

Big, strong, and stealthy, coyotes are accomplished omnivores who enjoy an ever-expanding habitat that already stretches from Canada to Costa Rica. Just as importantly, their only enemies, besides man, are cougars, bears, wolves, eagles and, occasionally, large dogs.

Their already formidable repertoire is further augmented by their uncanny swimming prowess. They apparently are so adept in the water that they now have successfully navigated the three kilometers of current that separate the southeastern coast of Connecticut from remote and exclusive Fishers Island, ten miles off of the North Fork of Long Island. (See photo above of Linderman House on the island.)

The animals first began showing up on the fourteen kilometer long and 1.6 kilometer wide island two years ago and, predictably, cats started disappearing. All totaled, at least twenty of them have vanished, including ten during the first week of August alone.

"The community board at our local post office is covered with missing posters for cats," Charles Kadushin, one of the tiny enclave's two-hundred-eighty-nine well-heeled permanent residents, told the New York Post on August 12th. (See "Why Cats Hate Water? Coyotes.")

His cat, three-year-old Habibi, disappeared around Memorial Day and is presumed dead. "Now I know for sure it will never be seen again," he added to The Suffolk Times of Mattituck on August 10th. (See "Fishers Island Man to Town: Coyotes Are Killing Our Cats.")

Since the island is accessible only by ferry and airplane, the coyotes surely must be fording Fishers Island Sound unless someone is smuggling them in and that is unlikely. "They're known to be good swimmers," Kadushin averred to The Suffolk Times.

Nevertheless, it does seem odd that they would take to the water like latter-day Christopher Columbuses without knowing what was in store for them on the other side. Of course, it is conceivable that either the authorities or developers could be driving them out of the Nutmeg State and as a consequence they do not have any alternative other than to take to the waves.

Regardless of how they arrived, they soon became a familiar sight on the island whether it was simply by prowling around or leaping over garden fences. Some residents even claim that they can be heard howling to the tune of the Fire Department's noontime whistle.

Whereas both locals and the island's two-thousand summer residents initially viewed their presence as a quaint addition to their remote getaway, all of that radically changed once their cats started getting eaten. "I suppose they're kinda cute, but they can be dangerous," Kadushin told The Suffolk Times in the article cited supra. "They attack cats and dogs."

As far as it is known, residents of the island have not resorted to trapping the animals and that perhaps is a good thing because they sometimes are confused with dogs. That is what happened to Lori Goodlett's Sheba Inu, Copper, last summer in Frankfurt, Kentucky. (See photo of her above.)

After somehow escaping from Goodlett's fenced-in yard on July 3, 2010, Copper was picked up by a police officer who deposited her with the Frankfurt Humane Society (FHS). Upon examination, the FHS erroneously concluded that she was in fact a coyote and telephoned the police to come and collect her.

To their credit, the officers spared her life by taking her to an open field and setting her free. As far it could be determined, that was the last anyone has seen of Copper.

"I know in my head Copper is gone for good, but in my heart I would like to think some nice family found her and took her in," Goodlett told CBS-TV on July 24, 2010. (See "Dog Mistaken for Coyote, Released into Wild.")

She was not nearly so forgiving, however, when it came to the FHS. "They acted more inhumane than humane," she told WKYT-TV of Lexington on June 22, 2010. (See "Dog Mistaken for Coyote Released into Wild.")

Moreover, she is consternated as how the organization could have confused a small dog of Japanese descent with a coyote. "People would say when Copper was young, she looked like a fox with her pointy ears and red coloring," she added to CBS-TV. "But no one has ever mistaken her for a coyote."

Instead of taking matters into their own hands, Kadushin and his fellow aggrieved cat owners brought the issue to the attention of the Southold Town Board when it paid its annual visit to the island on August 10th. (See photo below of the high-muck-a-mucks arriving on the island by ferry.)

All that they received in return for their bother was a plea of ignorance and a heartless joke from Southold supervisor Scott Russell. "I have to be candid. I didn't know there was a problem with coyotes on Fishers Island," he told those assembled according to The Suffolk Times. "I wish I could marry your coyote problem to my deer problem on my side of the island."

Bereft of even the tiniest shred of decency, this blowhard and buffoon does not have a smidgen of regard for either animals or his constituents. The trip to the island was merely a convenient excuse for him and his do-nothing colleagues to get out of the office for a day, strut about like lords of the manor rubbing elbows with their vassals and serfs, and to act cute. It no doubt would come as a great shock to American politicians that some of their constituents expect considerably more out of them than bullshit, spam, and junk mail.

The condescending public servants did not send the residents away completely empty-handed, however, and in a parting act of beau geste pledged dutifully to pass along their concerns to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). As they assuredly know only too well, the only action that the wildlife biologists at DEC are likely to take is to celebrate the cats' demise with a few beers at some seedy tavern. (See Cat Defender posts of October 2, 2006 and September 15, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Coyotes, Cheered on by Wildlife Officials, Join Raccoons in Killing Cats and Dogs in Washington State" and "Ravenous Coyotes, Cat-Haters, and Old Man Winter All Want Her Dead, Buried, and Gone but Brave Little Half Mask Is Defying the Odds.")

In addition to hating cats with a passion, wildlife biologists are not exactly doing coyotes any favors either. For example, on March 30, 2006 the DEC's Dan Bogan and Mike Putnam suffocated to death a male named Hal by sealing shut his mouth with an elastic bandage while attempting to attach an electronic snooping device to one of his ears. (See photo of him below.)

Hal, who earlier on March 20th had wandered into Manhattan's Central Park, suffocated on his own blood and a necropsy later detected the presence of thirty-five heartworms and the rodenticide Chlorophacinone in his corpse. (See Cat Defender post of April 17, 2006 entitled "Hal the Central Park Coyote Is Suffocated to Death by Wildlife Biologists Attempting to Tag Him.")

The DEC further undermined its rapidly evaporating credibility last week by enthusiastically endorsing hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale formation in upstate New York. On September 8th, the right-wing lunatics who comprise the editorial board of the New York Post were quick to endorse the proposal by claiming that there was "scant chance of environmental harm" from fracking while simultaneously smearing opponents of the harebrained scheme as "greenie Luddites." (See "No Reason to Wait" and the accompanying news story entitled "Hydrofracking to Spur Job Boom: State.")

That is hardly the case. In neighboring Pennsylvania where fracking is spreading like wildfire, the water in those locales has become so contaminated with methane and other chemicals that it not only has become flammable but will not freeze even in sub-zero Fahrenheit temperatures. It therefore is unfit to drink and some residents cannot even bathe in it. (See Science Magazine, May 9, 2011, "Study: High-Tech Gas Drilling Is Fouling Drinking Water.")

Some residents have been diagnosed to be suffering from barium poisoning and increased heart rates, spikes in blood pressure, skin rashes, stomach pain, nausea, dizziness, labored breathing, and tremors are frequently reported. Adding insult to injury, the twenty-thousand out-of-state workers brought in to man the pumps are blamed for an increase in venereal disease, prostitution, and crime.

Fracking also is believed by some to be the source of the more than seven-hundred minor earthquakes that have jolted Greenbrier and Guy, north of Little Rock, during the past year. (See AOL News, February 17, 2011, "Swarm of Earthquakes Rattle Arkansas Residents and Seismologists.")

The presence of dozens of nuclear power plants up and down the densely-populated east coast makes drilling through thousands of feet of rock in order to get at gas deposits an especially risky business. In fact, the area was jolted late last month by, up until now, a rare tremor that damaged both the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral in the nation's capital.

As is the case with all economic development and political upheaval, it is precisely Mother Earth and the animals that are forced the bear the brunt of man's savagery and unchecked greed. In addition to irremediably destroying the earth and killing off vegetation, there are reports of cows dying and pets losing their fur in areas of the Keystone State where fracking is permitted.

In particular, forty-nine-year-old Sherry Vargson of Bradford County told the Philadelphia Weekly on September 14th that her dogs now are forced to drink bottled water, her cows spring water, and her ducks rainwater. (See "The Drilling Fields." The online version is entitled "Natural Disaster: How Did the Gas Industry Get So Fracked Up?")

The impact upon wildlife, coyotes included, will be even more catastrophic, In addition to having their once pristine habitats obliterated, they no longer will be able to either safely drink the water or to consume flora and fauna. Genetic and reproductive abnormalities, perhaps not altogether that different from those experienced by wildlife at Chernobyl, are likely to ensue in quick order.

Coyotes, like cats and all other animals, have an inalienable right to live but there is scant chance of wildlife biologists and other governmental officials ever allowing that to happen. If they are not slaughtering them en masse, as the USDA's Wildlife Services does every year, they are either killing them during tagging exercises or using them to go after cats and dogs which sometimes ends up with them being killed as well.

Man's destruction of the environment through fracking and other exploitative activities is making it impossible for all animals, himself included, to survive. In spite of that looming catastrophe, wildlife biologists and ornithologists remain committed only to killing cats and pimping for various economic interests.

"If our only legacy is a dead planet, what does that say about us as a species?" Samuel Turvey of the Zoological Society of London poignantly asked London's Independent on August 9, 2007. (See "The Big Question: Should We Worry About Extinctions, or Are They Just a Part of Evolution?")

In his 2005 collection of essays entitled A Man Without a Country, Kurt Vonnegut had an answer for Turvey. In a poem entitled "Requiem," he opined:

"When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon
'It is done.'
People did not like it here."

Photos: Irish Kevin of Wikipedia (Fishers Island), Frankfurt Police Department (Copper), Beth Young of The Suffolk Times (politicians), and James Carbone of Newsday (Hal).

Ravenous Coyotes, Cat-Haters, and Old Man Winter All Want Her Dead, Buried, and Gone but Brave Little Half Mask Is Defying the Odds

2011-09-15T13:42:00.002-04:00

"The days of the cat colony are over, one way or another. Those that we don't find homes for will be eaten."
-- Robert Brydges

High atop the rocky bluffs of Lake Ontario in Toronto's Scarborough district a lovely black and white female known as Half Mask is maintaining a lonely vigil. She is the sole survivor of the once thriving Bluffers Park TNR colony that in its heyday numbered around twenty-five members. (See photos of her above and below.)

That was before coyotes, cat-haters, and Toronto Animal Services (TAS) declared war on the cats. Having rebuffed all attempts to trap and relocate her, this latter-day Robinson Crusoe of the feline world so far has been wily enough to avoid both the ravenous coyotes and area residents who are bent upon her destruction.

It is anybody's guess as to how long her luck is going to hold out and since apparently none of her caretakers can get within ten feet of her it would appear that her fate has been sealed one way or the other. For although dogs belong to people, cats belong to places.

Nevertheless, every time that she fails to show up for one of her daily meals the hearts of her devoted caretakers skip a beat or two. Otherwise, she appears to be the very picture of health and if her brave little heart pangs for the camaraderie of her long-departed mates she certainly does not show it.

Although it is not known exactly how long cats have been living in Bluffers Park, the present colony has been fed, watered, sheltered, and protected since 2004 by Robert Brydges and his associates. Over the course of the years, their excellent work has greatly benefited from a generous donation made by an unidentified elderly woman and that has made it feasible to get the cats sterilized, vaccinated, and medicated when necessary.

(I never have seen) "a colony as plump, healthy, well-groomed and happy as the Bluffers Park gang," Jack Lakey of the Toronto Star wrote in a column on June 19, 2009. (See "Fur Flies over Bluffers Park Cats.") That is indeed not only high praise for their caretakers but completely destroys as well the myth that homeless cats lead short, miserable existences. (See photo of him on the right below.)

They also were sans doute a hardy group of cats in order to have survived Toronto's notoriously cold and snowy winters. (See photos below of some of the cats in the snow.)

They were not, however, any match for the pack of hungry coyotes (canis latrans) that unexpectedly descended upon the park last February. Press reports fail to disclose either where they came from, how many of them there are, or why they chose last winter to set up residence in the park.

Two of the cats were eaten by the predators during the first week of February and that forced Brydges and his helpers to embark upon an ambitious emergency trap and removal plan that saw them successfully remove twenty cats. In order to achieve that herculean task, they mounted all-night patrols in the ice-cold park where they used sticks, flashlights, and whistles in order to chase away the coyotes.

"The days of the cat colony are over, one way or another," Brydges declared sang-froid to the Toronto Star on February 8th. (See "Coyotes Dining on Bluffers' Feral Cats.") "Those that we don't find homes for will be eaten."

Two of those removed were immediately adopted by an unidentified woman while the remainder wound up in basements. Not unexpectedly, the free-spirited cats did not at first cotton to life indoors but are now said to be making progress and that petit fait has given Brydges hope that homes eventually will be secured for all of them. (See photo further down the page of him feeding the cats.)

"All of these cats, though labeled feral, are tame," he told the Toronto Star in the February 8th article cited supra. "All would make beautiful pets if given a chance."

Although considered to be nothing less than heresy by none other than Becky Robinson of Alley Cat Allies, the countless volunteers who actually attend to colonies of homeless cats know only too well the accuracy of Brydges' assessment. In reality, a cat is a cat and all of them are fully capable of being socialized.

The only difference is that some of them require more time, patience, and effort than most individuals are willing to invest in them. Policemen, Animal Control officers, death camp operators, and others who earn their daily bread by exterminating cats en masse quite naturally do not have so much as a second to invest in socialization. Consequently, labels such as feral, stray, homeless, aggressive, and sick are arbitrarily assigned to impecunious cats as convenient excuses in order to justify extinguishing their fragile lives.

On the other hand, Robinson and others are most assuredly on the right track when they point out the numerous obstacles involved in relocating a colony of cats. In addition to the arduous task of trapping them, either a new location or individual homes must be procured for them tout de suite.

If neither of those options are viable, the cats often wind up being warehoused in cages for months. Nevertheless, once either a pack of coyotes or the authorities put out a contract on their tiny heads they must be trapped and removed regardless of the cost.

The deaths of the two cats and the demise of the colony are all the more outrageous in that the coyotes were baited into attacking the cats by someone who piled roast beef, cold cuts, and hot dogs near their winterized shelters. The perpetrator of this despicable act of ailurophobia even went so far as to leave behind a trail of dog food that led right up to the cathouses.

A similar incident occurred a few years back in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park when individuals were witnessed feeding hot dogs and raw meat to coyotes. In contrast to what occurred in Bluffers Park, it is believed that those individuals were motivated by a concern for the animals' well-being as opposed to indirectly targeting cats.

The culprit in Scarborough has not been publicly identified but suspicion centers on a boater who claims that the cats scratched her dog back in 2009. Advocates for the cats counter that it actually was she who sicced her dog not only on the cats but on another dog as well.

While it is impossible to say what actually transpired without having been present, both logic and history are on the cats' side. (See Cat Defender posts of October 18, 2009, October 23, 2009 and March 24, 2010, entitled, respectively, "Minneapolis Is Working Overtime Trying to Kill an Octogenarian's Cat Named Hoppy for Defending His Turf Against Canine Intruders," "Essex Welfare Bum Who Sicced His Dog on Cats and Beat Them with His Cane Is Now Pretending to Be the Victim of an Assault," and "Seven-Month-Old Bailey Is Fed to a Lurcher by a Group of Sadistic Teens in Search of Cheap Thrills in Northern Ireland.")

The dog owner's complaint did succeed, however, in bringing down the long and diseased arm of the law on the cats and their caretakers in the form of TAS. In short, TAS ordered Brydges to either license the cats or it would trap and kill them.

The organization's Eletta Purdy even went so far as to trot out the familiar red herrings that the shy and reclusive cats posed not only a health hazard to the public but were likely to attack children. Spirited opposition led by Lakey ultimately forced Purdy not only to rescind her kill and remove edict but to even deny ever issuing it in the first place.

"That would not be something that we would ever normally say," she told the Toronto Star in the June 19, 2009 article cited supra. She conceivably could be telling the truth in a roundabout, dishonest fashion in that it is customary for Animal Control officers to strike without warning like thieves in the night.

Even when TAS is not out for feline blood the best that it has to offer homeless cats is benign neglect. That is what seventy-two-year-old Elizabeth Hayman of Sandrift Square in Scarborough found out last autumn when she complained to the agency about a dozen homeless cats frequenting her yard. (See Toronto Community News, October 14, 2010, "Senior Concerned for Feral Cats in Her Yard.")

Because of its past record of horrific abuse and neglect, handing over the Bluffers Park cats to the Toronto Humane Society's (THS) notorious River Street shelter was totally out of the question. In particular, a raid conducted by the Ontario SPCA (OSPCA) in November of 2009 even discovered the mummified remains of a cat in the ceiling. (See the gruesome photo below.)

"It sends chills down my spine," Kevin Strooband, the OSPCA's lead investigator, told the Toronto Sun on November 28, 2009. (See "Humane Society: 'It Seems Like a House of Horrors'.")

As it later was revealed, the THS baited the trap and then completely forgot all about it and that act of gross negligence robbed the cat of its life due to a complete lack of both food and water. Far from being an isolated incident, such callous and patently criminal behavior is far more common than generally acknowledged. (See Cat Defender post of August 23, 2010 entitled "Valley Oak SPCA Kills a Cat by Allowing It to Languish in the Heat in an Unattended Trap for Five Days at the Tulare County Courthouse.")

Living conditions at the THS are in fact so bad that Strooband's boss, Rob Godfrey, is on record as stating that the facility is not suitable for habitation. "Here is Hope and she is eight weeks old. She was found abandoned by the side of the road and she had a better chance of survival at the side of the road than she would have had at the Toronto Humane Society," he proclaimed to the Toronto Sun on August 17, 2010. (See "'Too Much Evidence' to Drop Charges: OSPCA.") "...Ontario is your home if you are an abuser of animals." (See photo of him and Hope at the bottom of the page.)

Despite that damning indictment, the government ultimately chose to ignore the OSPCA's report and dropped all charges against the THS. (See The Standard of St. Catharines, August 16, 2010, "St. Catharines' Investigator Stands Behind Toronto Probe" and The Globe and Mail of Toronto, August 17, 2010, "Toronto Humane Society Aims to Win Back Public Support.")

Although there is not any evidence that either wildlife biologists or ornithologists were behind the baiting of the coyotes, that sans doute is a tactic that would be right up their alleys. For some years now, wildlife biologists in the United States have been systematically eradicating up to eighty-thousand coyotes annually at the request of ranchers, farmers, and other economic interests while simultaneously championing their right not only to resettle in urban and suburban areas but, more importantly, to prey upon cats and small dogs with impunity.

"If all cat owners committed to keeping cats inside, then only feral cats would be available to coyotes," Shannon E. Grubbs of the University of Arizona and Paul R. Krausman of the University of Montana wrote in the ultra-ailurophobic Wildlife Society's scurrilous rag, Journal of Wildlife Management, in June of 2009. (See "Observations of Coyote-Cat Interactions" in volume 73, number 5, page 684.) "Recognizing the negative impact that feral cats have on wildlife and their potential to spread disease, coyote predation on feral cats could have benefits for wildlife."

As a consequence, wildlife biologists are winning all the way around and, ironically, their feline eradication campaigns are being unwittingly financed by cat and dog owners through the taxes that they pay. Of course, once a coyote attacks either a child or an adult, as occurred in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue in April of 2006, the wildlife biologists immediately double-cross their designated assassins and have them liquidated as well.

Their stratagem has been so successful that coyotes are now found from Alaska to Costa Rica and in every state except Hawaii. Chicago has more than two-thousand of them and, in addition to San Francisco, they also are found in Boston, Detroit and Washington as well as in innumerable smaller cities. (See Cat Defender post of October 2, 2006 entitled "Coyotes, Cheered on by Wildlife Officials, Join Raccoons in Killing Cats and Dogs in Washington State," KXLY-TV of Spokane, May 4, 2010, "Coyotes Going after Pets in Coeur d'Alene Neighborhood," and West Seattle Herald, December 14, 2010, "Determined High Point Coyote May Be after Your Cat.")

Even the thoroughly reprehensible United States Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) sellout of gray wolves to hunters and ranchers is an integral part of the biologists' grand scheme to eradicate cats because it removes one of the coyotes' few natural predators from the environment. (See Philadelphia Inquirer, May 5, 2011, "Gray Wolves, Once Near Extinction, Lose Protection.")

Ornithologists, likewise, make no attempt whatsoever to conceal their elation every time that a coyote kills a cat. For example, the New Jersey chapter of the National Audubon Society breaks out the champagne every time that a coyote eats a cat on Higbee Beach in Cape May.

A few years back, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County posted on its web site an article entitled "Coyotes: A Songbird's Best Friend?" Featured prominently in it were photographs of two missing cats along with a glowing endorsement of the cats indoors agenda advocated by the American Bird Conservancy and The Wildlife Society. Staff at the museum could not refrain from gleefully pointing out that the locales with the most coyotes have the fewest cats.

The point of this rather long-winded digression is to demonstrate that increased coyote predation of cats is no more of a natural occurrence than is fisher predation of them. (See Cat Defender post of July 19, 2007 entitled "Up to Their Old Tricks, Wildlife Officials Reintroduce Fishers to the Northeast to Prey Upon Cats and to Provide Income for Fur Traffickers.")

Au contraire, it is a fiendish back-door plot hatched by wildlife biologists and ornithologists in order to exterminate cats. Whenever their overt machinations are thwarted by widespread public opposition, they still have coyotes, fishers, and other feline predators that they can manipulate into doing their dirty work for them.

It is, to be sure, a devilishly clever enterprise but it can be checkmated. First of all, public funding can be taken away from the USFWS and those professors who stooge for it and other governmental agencies dedicated to demonizing, abusing, and killing cats. (See Cat Defender posts of June 23, 2011 and July 18, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Wallowing in Welfare Dollars, Lies, and Prejudice, the Bloodthirsty United States Fish and Wildlife Service Is Again Killing Cats in the Florida Keys" and "Evil Professors Have Transformed College Campuses into Hotbeds of Hatred Where Cats Are Routinely Vilified, Horribly Abused, and Systematically Killed.")

Secondly, both the owners of domestic cats and those who attend to managed colonies must be willing to go the extra mile in order to thwart the machinations of coyotes, wildlife biologists, ornithologists, and other ailurophobes. Sometimes that may even entail placing their own lives in grave danger.

That was the predicament that Jennifer Foster of Thousand Oaks, California, found herself in on November 15, 2007 when a coyote snatched a ten-year-old cat named Cosmo. Regardless of the risks involved, she did not hesitate to intervene and thus was able to save Cosmo's life. (See Cat Defender post of December 4, 2007 entitled "Grieving Widow Risks Her Life in Order to Save Cosmo from the Jaws of a Hungry Coyote in Thousand Oaks.")

Regardless of who was behind the baiting of the coyotes, the demise of the Bluffers Park colony can only be chalked up as a stunning victory for those individuals and groups who hate cats. "It would be a sorry end for a group of cats that have lived peacefully in the park for many years and bothered nobody, except for a few feline haters," Lakey eulogized them in the February 8th edition of the Toronto Star cited supra.

When homes are found for all of its members and a colony dies a natural death it is a time for celebration but when one is prematurely destroyed, especially under the circumstances that transpired in Scarborough, it serves as a wake-up call for all individuals who care about the welfare of the species. For all too long cat advocates either have turned the other cheek or foolishly ignored the clamoring and criminal acts of cat-haters and that needs to stop.

As for the situation in Bluffers Park, it does not appear to be salvageable. To their credit, Brydges and the other caretakers have not deserted Half Mask and hopefully they ultimately will be able to find some way of saving her life. She is, after all, far too adorable, courageous, and too much of a survivor for her supporters to ever allow her enemies to get the best of her.

In a way, her indomitable will to live and refusal to be cowered is the best response that can be delivered to all the cat-haters in Scarborough and elsewhere.

Photos: Scarborough Bluffs Feral Cats on Facebook (Half Mask), Toronto Star (Lakey), Jack Lakey of the Toronto Star (cats in the snow), Carlos Osorio of the Toronto Star (Brydges feeding the cats), Chris Young of the Canadian Press (mummified cat), and Dave Thomas of the Toronto Sun (Hope and Godfrey).

Lucky Is Saved from Starvation by a Kindhearted Woman after Her Mouth Is Glued Shut by an Assailant in West Hartford

2011-09-10T13:43:00.002-04:00

"She (the Good Samaritan) was able, with a little bit of warm water and a towel...to pry it open gently. And I think she was the one that really saved Lucky's life, because if she wasn't able to do that, who knows how long she would have lasted out there."
-- Lisa Shackett of Mary's Kitty Korner

An innocuous tube of glue normally is not thought of as a lethal weapon but, as both history and experience have demonstrated, nothing ever can be taken for granted where cats are concerned. That god-awful truth was brought home to a malnourished, nine-week-old kitten named Lucky over the long July 4th weekend when someone in West Hartford, Connecticut, glued shut her tiny mouth.

Fortunately for her, she was discovered in the parking lot of an apartment complex by a good-hearted woman who saved her life by removing the glue before taking her to Mary's Kitty Korner (MKK) in nearby Granby. (See photo of her above.)

"She was able, with a little bit of warm water and a towel...to pry it open gently," Lisa Shackett of MKK told WFSB-TV of Hartford on July 6th. (See "Kitten Found with Mouth Glued Shut.") "And I think she was the one that really saved Lucky's life, because if she wasn't able to do that, who knows how long she would have lasted out there."

As things stood, Lucky weighed less than two pounds and had a swollen eye which, most likely, was sustained during the attack. Worst still, with her mouth glued shut she sooner or later would have succumbed to either malnutrition or dehydration.

Back in November of 2007, a cat named Wild Oats from Bartlett, Tennessee, was forced to go without food and water for nineteen days after her head became trapped in a discarded peanut butter jar. (See Cat Defender post of December 18, 2007 entitled "Wild Oats Survives Nineteen Days with a Peanut Butter Jar Stuck on Her Head.")

Although it is not known how long Lucky's mouth had been glued shut, there are several factors which distinguish the two cases. For starters, Wild Oats was an adult cat who had reserves of body fat in order to sustain her. Secondly, she may have been able to take advantage of the condensation that formed overnights inside the jar. Lucky, on the other hand, had none of those advantages.

Following a short stay at MKK, Lucky was placed in foster care and since has been adopted. According to an untitled July 21st posting on MKK's Facebook page by Cathleen E. Gonyer, Lucky's weight increased from 1.9 to 2.3 pounds within two weeks of her rescue and her eye is said to be healing.

A report has been filed with the West Hartford Police but, as per usual, they are not expected to take any action other than to deep six it and to pretend that animal cruelty does not exist.

Glue traps, designed to catch mice, also have become a hazard for cats and other small animals. For example, a four-week-old, twelve-ounce Boston kitten named Elma with beautiful blue eyes became trapped in one of these deadly devices just after the dawning of the new year back in January and nearly starved to death as the result. (See photo of her immediately below.)

"Her hindquarters were covered in glue," Brian Adams of the Massachusetts SPCA (MSPCA) told the Boston Herald on January 8th. (See "Cat Saved from Sticky Situation by a Whisker.") "Her tail was glued to one leg and her back legs were glued together."

As was the case with Lucky, Elma was malnourished when she was surrendered to the MSPCA on January 6th. It is not known either how long she was trapped in the glue or the name of the individual who discovered her plight.

Multiple scrubbings with dishwashing detergent were required in order to remove the glue from her fur and, because of her tender years, staff at the MSPCA were forced to hand-feed her with a syringe. Named after Elmer's Glue, she was expected to make a full recovery and then to be put up for adoption in February.

Earlier in July of 2010, a twelve-week-old kitten dubbed Sticky from the Sparkhill section of Birmingham also became ensnared in a glue trap set out in a garden. As a result, her paws, legs, and sides became coated with glue and other assorted debris.

In addition to requiring multiple baths like Elma, the fur on Sticky's right side had to be removed and she was forced to don an Elizabethan collar. (See Cat Defender post of August 17, 2010 entitled "Sticky Loses Much of Her Fur after She Is Ensnared in a Glue Trap Inhumanely Set in a Birmingham Garden.")

Although both the RSPCA and the MSPCA are on record as being opposed to the use of glue traps, they remain legal in both Angleterre and the United States but wisely have been outlawed in Ireland. More often than not, animals caught in these devices die of starvation and thirst.

One of the most ruthless and barbaric uses of glue on record occurred in April of 2005 when seventeen-year-old Wirimu Karena and eighteen-year-old Sahn Papa of Huntly, an hour south of Auckland, doused a trio of caged kittens with it and then set them on fire. The conflagration killed one of the kittens and the authorities polished off the other two badly burned survivors.

In August of that same year, Karena was sentenced to two years in jail while Papa was ordered to serve nine months. It is doubtful, however, that either of these remorseless cretins served their full sentences. (See Cat Defender post of September 22, 2005 entitled "Two New Zealand Teens Douse Three Caged Cats with Glue and Burn Them to Death.")

In addition to glue, male teens are known to use firecrackers, air guns, bows and arrows, and spray paint in order to maim and kill cats. For example, on August 23, 2010 two unidentified thirteen-year-old students at Horseshoe Bend High School in New Site, Alabama, shot a kitten named Jane Doe in the eyes with a can of spray paint in a deliberate attempt to blind her. (See photo of her below.)

They also tossed Jane around like she was a football and in the process broke one of her legs. One way or another, the police were notified and she was rushed to Twin Creeks Veterinary Services in nearby Ashland where she underwent emergency surgery.

The good news is that she soon recovered from her injuries and subsequently was adopted. Hopefully, her eyesight has not been impaired by the paint.

The bad news is the utterly disgraceful lengths that the authorities in New Site have gone to in order to condone the boys' horrific crime. "It has been handled according to Tallapoosa County's Code of Conduct, which I believe is the appropriate action for us to take," Casey Davis, principal of Horseshoe Bend, told the Press-Register of Mobile on September 10, 2010. (See "Alabama Teens Who Spray-Painted Kitten's Eyes, Broke Its Leg Go to Court September 16th.") "Beyond that we have no reason to comment further because our response to the issue has been handled as it should have been and that has been within our school system guidelines."

If Casey's total unwillingness to even condemn this dastardly act of premeditated animal cruelty were not bad enough in itself, the sympathy expressed for the teens by Chief of Police John McKelvey was even more revolting. "These kids are living people, that they're living organisms themselves," he defended them to the Press-Register. "I've seen people convicted of murder be received back into the community better than these kids have been."

The only conceivable way to interpret McKelvey's comments is that he has an extremely low opinion not only of cats but of those who own and care deeply about them. Moreover, they foreshadowed by about a year the shocking lovefest staged by Judge Gerhard Simon and state prosecutor Beate Miksch in Landgericht München last month for Rocco's cold-blooded murderer and torturer. (See Cat Defender post of August 17, 2011 entitled "Ernst K. Walks Away Smelling Like a Rose as Both the Prosecutor and Judge Turn His Trial for Killing Rocco into a Lovefest for a Sadistic Cat Killer.")

The callous disregard for feline lives and blatant dereliction of duty demonstrated by McKelvey, Casey, Simon, Miksch, and countless other public officials takes all of the mystery out of why the number and severity of attacks perpetrated against the species continue to escalate. As long as those in authority continue to wink at animal cruelty while simultaneously lavishing all of their pity on the abusers no other outcome is possible.

As far as Jane Doe's attackers are concerned, they were scheduled to have appeared in Juvenile Court last September 16th but it was a foregone conclusion from the outset that they would be let off scot-free. It is conceivable that they may have received a scolding from the presiding judge but that likely was the extent of their punishment. There was some talk in the days leading up to the trial that their parents would be held liable for the $600 tab that Jane Doe ran up at Twin Creeks but even that is doubtful.

Since the legal establishment only rarely ever holds adults accountable, it is not about to punish juveniles who abuse cats. That is in spite of the clearly observable fact that the suffering inflicted upon cats is no less egregious regardless of the ages of the perpetrators.

Much more poignantly, even juveniles know the difference between right and wrong and it is ludicrous for jurists to pretend otherwise. Besides, individuals that morally depraved are destined to commit even far worse crimes once they grow into adulthood. The only thing that they ever learn from their adolescent brushes with the law is not to get caught again.

Photos: Cathleen E. Gonyer of Mary's Kitty Korner (Lucky), Brian Adams of MSPCA (Elma), and New Site Police Department (Jane Doe).