While we appreciate that you want to teach us how to hunt, we do ask that you stop bringing chipmunks into the house, dropping them on the floor quite alive, and watching them scamper away. Especially since this is now happening multiple times a day.
Terrified chipmunks are exceedingly hard for us to catch, so leave them outdoors. Ditto for baby squirrels, mice, and other small furry creatures.
Thank you,
The management
Cat lovers! What can you say to them? Blind to the brutal consequences of feline hunting practices such that here in Australia feral and domestic cats –along with foxes — have devastated native animal numbers and led to the near extinction of smaller marsupial species and birds.
It is the norm to bell them and keep them locked up at night because of the devastation they are having on the environment and out West cats are levied and hunted because they have done so much damage to wildlife.
At night the treeline can sparkle with masses of cats eyes in the branches.
The only rehabilitation program that has worked in all of Australia for smaller marsupials is one which has massive fences around brush areas designed to keep cats and foxes out.
So this management(see above) is far too indulgent if you ask me! Cats don’t speak English let alone read it!
It is very very hard to be green and remain a cat lover…unfortunately. So bell em. Bell em big & loud or…. do the right thing: [INSERT IMAGINATIVE CONSEQUENCE HERE]
Our two young cats hardly ever kill, they just bring them in and drop them on the floor.
As for belling the cat – a Peggy Sue story, she’s Sue’s old lady cat and has the kill part down just fine.
Sue once rented rooms in her condo to students. One was a cat lover, and Peggy Sue kept leaving remains of dead birds in the kitchen. So, he decided to bell her.
That night, at 2 am, she stood outside his door and started swinging her head. Ding… ding… ding. She kept doing it. Sue heard the student start to wake up. Ding… ding… ding. Sue heard swearing then his door open. Ding ding ding ding ding as Peggy Sue ran away. Then a bit of a scuffle and the sound of a cat collar being removed and tossed across the room.
Peggy Sue 1. Adult human 0.
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We keep our cats locked up at night, as there are plenty of critters that will eat them like coyote, fisher cat, and bobcat. There is an abundance of wildlife here and no feral cats, which is what it sounds like you have way too many of.
Management? With cats? You gotta be kidding!
To dogs, humans are gods.
To cats, humans are staff.
We had to make a choice between our cats and our dogs. Cats eat mice, of which there are far too many. Dogs kill jackrabbits, of which there are far too many. (Both problems arise from a local penchant for hunting coyotes.) Jackrabbits cause far more destruction than mice. So the dogs stayed.
I miss our cats. Not only did they provide a valuable service by keeping the rodent population under control, but they are far easier to pick up and cuddle than a dog. And if they think they’re gods, well, who am I to argue?
The most astute comment I ever heard about cats came from a woman I once dated. She said, “I hate cats; they’re too much like women.”
BTW, turns out our chickens help keep the mouse population down, too.