Very touchy subject has been brought forth..
Am I in favor of cats being gassed?...
Hell no..

BUT..and there is always a but...
the vets won't euthanize a 'perfectly' healthy animal....
and when that animal is a feral cat (wild), WHAT the hell do you do with it??
I have spayed/neutered and released my fair share of them....(have another one sitting at my store right now that was just spayed yesterday that thankfully we found a farm willing to take, cause she is one NASTY girl!!)
And its not as though the vets will alter them for free.....it still costs us a hundred bucks a cat..so money quickly runs dry..

There is NOT a waiting list of people wanting feral cats....there is not enough areas to release them at or enough people willing to feed them (especially with everyone watching every dollar they have right now)
neighbors get pissed off when someone starts setting up a colony of wild cats in their neighborhood...gardens are shit in, and birds are killed....household pets get in fights, with bite wounds/abcessed (MONEY!) having to be addressed because of that f*%ckin wild cat that is beating it up...(I hear it all the time at my store)..

I have brought my fair share home to our acreage to release...to do it properly, they should be acclimated for a week or so before the door to the cage is open...that is pretty impossible when you have a cat living in a small cage that is NOT user friendly for litter box cleaning, or accessing food/water dishes...
and if I want to bring it home in a bigger cage...well that means my truck (at 14mpg) is now used simply to transport a big dog crate home...(again more money)...AND we now have a a cage with a much bigger door, so the likliehood of a cat escaping whilst you try and get litter box in and out greatly increases...

Then of course, you have to deal with terrritory issues, and worry if the animal will even remain in the area, or try to find its way back 'home'...during which it may starve, be attacked, run over etc...or find its way home only to be trapped again and this time dealt with in other horrible ways, because that backyard bird lover is determined to save his/her birds....or that pet owner is tired of that wild cat causing them vet bills...

And last but not least...if you think for one second that a WILD animal is not going to be stressed over the moon (often defecating/urinating themselves)..being restrained while a vein is found (and all involved are in fear of being bitten/scratched) to administer a lethal injection than I ask you to really really think about that for...

But then again we go back to the fact most vets refuse to do it...so now what???

Coastal is not gassing perfectly adoptable animals....(not now..in the past, I would have to agree they were!)

So, this petition is about twenty years late in coming in many ways....and doesn't give all the facts.....until the public walks both sides of the debate, their opinion should be held...

What is the best way to deal with this?? I don't know...I don't care for the idea of anything dying...(needlessly), but until we have more vets on board to help us with cheap spay/neuter clinics (and free for the ferals, as far as I am concerned)...and more people SPAYING and NEUTERING their pets...there will always be a problem that no one wants to deal with..

It's the whole 'not in my backyard' mentality!!

Angela
Little Rascals Pets and Supplies..
Ladysmith