Concern with cat traps
There has been an increasing trend amongst cities and now rural communities, in implementing cat bylaws to trap "nuisance" cats. I am wondering how a cat trap that is bated with a juicy morsel of fish can discern between a "nuisance" cat and any cat that happens to love fish. Who defines what constitutes a nuisance cat? To cat haters, every cat is a nuisance.
I think many cats are going to lose their lives as a result of these bylaws. If a cat will not tolerate being imprisioned in its own home after having years of freedom, what decision do you think the owner will make? If a cat develops "behavior problems" from being confined, what do you think its fate will be? In the vet clinic I have been affiliated with, there have already been euthanizations simply because the owners felt it more humane than confining their cat inside.
At this point in time, cats are the only animals that are being confined indoors for an entire lifetime. Some veterinarians even endorse this. Along with this endorsement is an increasing trend in prescribing antidepressants for cats. Does this not say it all?!
I truly feel sorry for cats. They can not enjoy a car ride like dogs. There aren't "off-leash" parks specifically for them to run in. Hotels won't accept them as they do dogs. Cats can't travel with their owners to expand their horizons. More and more a cat's world is being constricted to the size of the home they live in.
Winston Churchill said that you can tell a society by the way it treats its animals and old people. At the rate at which our country (Canada) has been implementing cat bylaws, we do not have a society to be proud of.
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