Further Information

I've realized that a really important part of advocating is getting the facts out there. I found a great website, http://fanciers.com/npa/owned-cats.html, which compares stats of house cats and stray cats. These facts prove just how much we need to take care of these animals. Due to their living conditions, feral cats have only a 3 year life span, which usually ends tragically, compared to a house cat's 7 years. Spaying/neutering is something that must be practiced with these animals because they are taking up over half of animal shelter space and 80% are euthanized compared to dogs being 20%.
I encourage you to sign the following petition that shows even the Humane Society's efforts aren't strong enough at the moment because the cats are still being brutally killed.
http://capwiz.com/alleycat/issues/alert/?alertid=14223211&PROCESS=Take+Action

More Petitions

Thankfully I've been successful in finding more petitions to sign! Both petitions are concerning the unecessary deaths of colonies of feral cats. The first petition I ask you to sign was posted by residents of Barker street that have been spaying and neutering colonies of feral cats and also giving them food and shelter. The street has new superintendents that want animal control to come capture the cats, which ultimately means death for these animals. The second petition is concerning the feral cats in Petaluma. Twice now, their city council has voted against these cats recieving free services and rather they voted for all captured cats to be killed which actually costs the taxpayers hundreds and thousands of dollars. Please please please sign!!!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/219/petition-for-responsible-maintenance-of-the-feral-cat-colonies-of-on-barker-street-paris-ontario
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/petaluma39s-feral-cats-need-your-support

Helpful Information

Hey guys sorry I've taken a little break from blogging...but I'm back! I've had trouble finding petitions lately so I've decided to do a little more research. While researching, I found an interesting blog, but it is actually working against feral cats. This blog is actually advocating to save the bird population from degradation due to feral cats...and there are definately some anti-cat people posting. I'm going to give you the link in hopes it will make you work even harder to try and help these animals. Some of the posts complain about how they caged a good amount of the cats, but then they kept reproducing......then go get them spayed or neutered! I encourage you to keep finding petitions about offering free procedures for these and other stray animals so their lives don't end in violence. http://birdadvocates.blogspot.com/

Ways to help out

When I first got this advocacy assignment, I thought it would be very difficult, but as I have been finding this week, it's not bad at all!! Really anyone can do it! I'm finding more and more petitions such as, http://www.thetetitionsite.com/campaign and http://www.petsandanimals.org/petition_state.asp?st=in. While reading through these petitions I've learned that over 16,000 homeless pets are put down in shelters every day...if that's not enough to make you simply sign these petitions, then I don't think your reading the right blog. Along with signing petitions, it's important to educate other people on what you've learned. I've already made my mom watch a short video with me, made flyers for my neighbors, and e-mailed a petition to five of my friends for them to sign. Because these feral cats can reside in urban, suburban, AND rural areas, it's important for people everywhere to start learning more about this issue.

Help the feral cats!!

Because of the gigantic population of the feral cats, society has a hard time trying to find ways to deal with them. Up to $50 million in a single state can be spent on cat-related expenses for shelters and animal control. Sadly, many shelters kill a large number of these cats due to their constantly expanding population. The alternative to this, which I find needs to happen in all cases, is to spay/neuter these cats. It would actually be less expensive for the government if the cats were caught, the procedure was performed and then they were released, rather than spending money on putting all these homeless animals down. It is just instinct for these cats to reproduce and it is up to us to control that. It's unjust for these cats to die a long, painful death due to starvation rather than having a quick procedure that would let them continue on with their lives and hopefully give them a better chance of finding a home. It's not hard to advocate for this cause...it's as easy as signing a petition such as this one. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Save-6-Toes

Just getting started...

For the Environmental Science class that I'm in, I was assigned to do an advocasy project for which I would do work with over the course of this year. Because I have a love for animals, I decided I would center my project around that and found the topic of feral cats to be very interesting. Feral cats have no human contact and are therefore considered "wild". They are a topic that our society should be concerned about because of their rapid rate of reproduction. A pair of these feral cats can produce up to 420,000 offspring in only 7 years!! In the United States alone there are an estimated 70 million feral cats that are depleting bird populations along with chipmunks and rabbits. It is critical for the community to recognize the growing problem with this species because it could deplete the biodiversity in our ecosystems which would lead to even more problems. If you are interested in learning any further information about feral cats here's some good websites...http://www.feralcat.com/ , www.alleycat.org