the national park service is once more taking aim at the gatos and seeks to exterminate them. make your voice heard. because VSJ without boriqua gatos is unthinkable.
Somebody is giving them money for this "project" and unless you squash the incentive, you'll have this on your hands over and over until they sneak in and do a big kill. Kill the incentive this time, not just the proposal.
“This is their home. Cats are being forced out of their ancestral homes!"
- AOC's Abuela.
You know el Gato Malo, if AOC took a public position to save the cat's home like she took a public position to save her abuela's home the NPS might pay more attention.
I retired from NPS a little over a year ago. You need to call the cats a historical and cultural resource. You need to get the integrated pest management bureaucrats involved and emphasize that the cats are an organic and pesticide free way to control pests and disease. They have a low carbon footprint. Make sure there is a plan for the humane organizations to vax them all so that big pharma gets behind your efforts! Maybe even a plan to spay and neuter (especially if the cats are already pregnant) will gain support for your cause. Cats have a right to choose! I can see this might make sense if it were a natural area like El Bosque but this is an old historic city center!
I followed your suggestion and even borrowed some of your wording, due to your evident understanding of their bureaucratic language. I hope you don't mind:
"The cats of Old San Juan are a historical and cultural resource. Cats are an organic and pesticide free way to control pests and disease. They have a low carbon footprint. They have been in Old San Juan for 500 years, and are an integral part of the ecosystem. They are beloved by locals and tourists alike -- they are part of the local economy. If you kill them, what will replace them?
Without the cats, rats and other vermin would proliferate. Remember that when cats were exterminated in Europe, a third of the human population died of the plague.
If you want to spend money on this situation, perhaps you could develop and fund a plan for the humane organizations to vax them all. Maybe even a plan to spay and neuter (especially if the cats are already pregnant)."
@wild Bill unfortunately I was mostly being sarcastic lol. I don't know if there is evidence that cats have a low carbon footprint! Is there a concern about them being preying on native birds? I havent read the impact statement. I'll try to find it. Maybe if you could provide evidence that they only eat mice and rats and not songbirds it would help? Feeding them canned cat food probably could be argued to increase carbon footprint. I do know that the NPS has allowed other "feral" species to remain in national parks because they are "historic" i.e., burros in the Grand Canyon and horses on Assateague and Cumberland Islands.
Well, the cats have been there for 500 years and they probably do eat a few birds, but both birds and cats have learned to co-exist, if so.
I'm pretty sure their carbon footprint is low because they mostly fend for themselves. People might feed them occasionally (as Gato's piece showed) but since they don't drive, or fly, or use electricity, I'm pretty certain that their carbon footprint is minimal.
So if they can tolerate burros in the Grand Canyon, seems like a few cats in Old San Juan should not be a problem. 500 years of history, after all. Thanks for your comment!
Cats actually do terrible damage to bird populations especially to songbird populations. This is one reason many wildlife biologists and ecologists dislike cats and some are rabidly against allowing any cats outside and are very much for extermination of outside cats. The only real solution to that problem that I see is keeping cat numbers down to a level that they don’t threaten songbird populations. (Although I will be honest, I have no idea how you come up with that number.)
Study after study has shown that unless you intend to remove 100% of cats from an island that Trap, Neuter, Release programs are the most effective to control cat populations. If you remove cats from an area as this proposal suggests then other cats from outside the area will just move into the now unoccupied territory. Meanwhile if you neuter a big old Tom cat he’s still going to patrol his territory and keep other toms out of it.
So the killing of songbirds is a very real problem but TNR programs are extremely successful and are much easier to get public support for than extermination.
Only if you have a 100% success rate which is unheard of on an inhabited island of this size. It also gives you a lot of room to influence the population, or not. For example a rule might be made that only older cats get neutered thus allowing all cats the chance to produce some offspring. Or neutering decisions might be made based on more desirable characteristics.
I know right? One of the reasons I retired was because of biden's mandate to get the vax. But most of my fellow NPS employees were all over it. so as an argument for keeping cats in old San Juan it might work.
Maybe they focus on getting rid of the iguanas in Old San Juan instead. An invasive pest that's everywhere doing all kinds of environmental harm. And a menace.
As a veterinarian, I think them trying to remove all the cats is ridiculous.
I liken this to the Outer Banks wild horses. Control the population, yes, but eradication will seriously alter the ecosystem.
Look to the example of Assateague and Chinocteague Islands. Once a year, they round up the ponies and sell some of the offspring. It's a big deal, a festival, etc, etc.
Old San Juan could host a yearly kitten adoption--Adopt a genuine spanish cat/kitten....make it a big deal. Have a carnival, have vendors.
Keep a healthy base population and adopt out the overflow.
Make it a destination...
Where did you get your cat? From Old San Juan...he's an original conquistador cat. Imagine the PR.
That's kinda my question as well. Is the population more or less stable or is there a concern over them overflowing? Or merely the perception by someone sitting in a cubicle in D.C. that there might be a population problem? Seems that after half a millennia nature has worked things out as she always does. And it's not nice to fool (with) Mother Nature.
Edit: I went back and read through the AP story. So, The Man claims there is an overpopulation. What are their criteria for this? Are the locals concerned? Have there been any reported issues or incidents? What, after 500 years, has changed so drastically that it warrants a mass gatocide?
I agree, it’s even more ridiculous since this isn’t an attempt to remove every cat from the island since that’s the only way such a plan would actually work. (Maybe that’s the unstated long term goal.) Time and again “the science” has shown that trap, neuter, release is the best way to deal with these cats so it’s absurd for the NPS to propose any other solution. I also think the island’s cat population would present an interesting opportunity to do studies on feline genetics.
I think you make a very compelling point about “marketing” the cats as it were. Rescue organizations just need to start calling these cats “Conquistador Cats”. Get one or two influencers to adopt one of them (or maybe a Taylor Swift) and next thing you know they will be the new doodle, everyone will want one.
OMG...that is amazing....Taylor and her Conquistador cat....maybe I'll ring ole Tay Tay up and suggest it!!
We do TNR here in Georgia. It works. And cats are like coyotes...you are NEVER going to eradicate them all. It will just be a big waste of money and PR disaster.
Here in Toronto, we used to have a cat problem in Bluffer's Park on the shore of Lake Ontario. There was pet dumping plus feral cats. They colonized a large pile of rocks and evaded capture. Harsh winters killed some and obnoxious cruel humans did too, but well-meaning visitors fed them which stimulated reproduction. The colony got huge. The community got together with the city to stop pet dumping and solve the overpopulation and starvation humanely through feeding, trap-spay-neuter-return and kitten adoption. Volunteers raised funds, identified all the cats in the colony, provided food, removed the sick and dead, gentled those that could be gentled for adoption and kept the site clean. It took almost 20 years, but finally the population was down to a few very old felines who finally passed away from natural causes.
The cats are longstanding residents of Puerto Rico. They provide a valuable vermin-control service to the island and are beloved by locals and tourists. They cause no harm and add great beauty and charm.
Your removal plans are cruel and without any counterbalancing benefit. Please cancel them."
The last time there was a mass extermination of cats, the populations of Europe and the British Isles were decimated by The Black Plague carried by fleas on rats. Be warned.
submitted. "In Florida we respect wild cats, we do not exterminate them. They contribute to the ongoing management of rodent populations. It is very distressing to think that we are targeting an individual species on the basis that they are invasive when they have been there as long as the people. People are also another invasive species in Puerto Rico. I have travelled to the island and marveled at the cats in the same way I marvel at the chickens who roam Key West. "
Might I suggest to readers, in addition to helping out with this issue, zapping out an email is good practice to be able to do it more easily more often. More of us need to be regularly zapping out emails to our government officials because they need start getting a clue-- that we see, we know what they are doing.
First they came for the cats of Old San Juan. Then they came for... Get ready.
Accept proposal 1 and disregard proposals 2 and 3.
Given that the cats have been within this park in this manner for about 500 years, they are a part of the ecosystem no different than deer and wolves are part of other ecosystems. That this particular ecosystem is present within an urban area makes it something to be extolled and to be proud of, not vilified. That this is also a tourist attraction is likely in part because there is awareness of the wonder of how ecosystems come into balance within human habitation, and to be able to come close to it and to be a living part of it.
You're rationale doesn't seem to be founded on these realities, and I suggest that you reconsider whatever rationale you are using to justify killing the cats. If it is related to the 'problem' of faeces, then look for an alternative solution and accept that whatever cost is associated with it – and I am sure that there is some way to minimise it with co-ordination and co-operation with the people and organisations who support the cats – are a part of the tourist bill.
Consider that decisions made only by accountancy practices are a form of lifelessness, a means to rationalise otherwise cruel and unnecessary actions for what looks like a short term gain. Are you looking at some kind of cost-benefit analysis for this year or the next quarter? Or whenever? If that is the only consideration then you are likely not seeing the long term costs in both dollars and the social and ethical impacts. Please consider well, and include your heart and soul in the decision.
I will take the little white kitty with the grey tail and greyish face that is in the first photo you share. I will come and get him and bring back to my house.
As someone who owns five cats that’s absolutely not true. My cats are fed high quality cat foods twice daily, they still hunt and kill literally anything they can catch. Sometimes they eat everything, but they often kill things just to kill them and leave them after. Small mammals (including some reasonably large rabbits), snakes, songbirds, heck even chicken chicks I was trying to raise have all been killed and left uneaten by my cats. They are absolutely killing machines that kill for the pure joy of it. But that’s okay, because they are cats, that’s what they are built to do.
Ine of my cats is a small 6 pound adult cat that goes for the full grown chickens but when she gets close and they start flapping like crazy, she backs off. Chick's though would be another story.
👍🏽👍👍🏿—I submitted an appeal to save the cats, and donated. Jesus, I hate the senseless killing of life. I just fucking hate it, whether it’s the healthy microbes of our soil, the necessary insects, weeds, grasslands, trees, birds, reptiles, amphibians, marine & land animals or humanity…I just can’t stand all the bloody killing, man. These methods of “thinning out the numbers” of all the too many wrong kind of life on Earth are NOT human philosophies, and it’s certainly not human-nature-elemented science. It’s just Soulless, Eugenicist-Satanic. Carl Sagan is spinning in his grave.
Does NPS do/propose to do any other means of population management (not elimination) like catch and spay or sterilizing medications in food drops?
The city of Nara, Japan has a similar tradition involving the extant herd of imperial deer that have occupied the city for 2000 years. While they do cull diseased and deformed ones (the population is highly inbred after all this time with only minimal introduction of genetic diversity from populations in the nearby mountains), they do not kill as a form of population control because the deer are culturally sacred.
Then this is just germaphobe shit and they just want zero cats because someone decided feral animals = unsanitary. Controlled breeding programs work fine when properly implemented.
Too bad there isn't a plan like that for DC bureaucrats . . . but I digress. Thanks for the heads up Gato, will submit my objections.
Somebody is giving them money for this "project" and unless you squash the incentive, you'll have this on your hands over and over until they sneak in and do a big kill. Kill the incentive this time, not just the proposal.
Yep. They only have to slip it through once......
Yep. Trap, transify, release on an asteroid! I'm sending the article to my friend who is an absolutely rabid animal rescuer.
“This is their home. Cats are being forced out of their ancestral homes!"
- AOC's Abuela.
You know el Gato Malo, if AOC took a public position to save the cat's home like she took a public position to save her abuela's home the NPS might pay more attention.
I came to the comments to propose the same thing.
Felinely stated - Thnx for the grin. Blessings ~
3 2 1 ... ACTION!!!
Baby? https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/someone-to-call-me-baby
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/a-real-touch-of-love-for-pillow-fights
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/hello-halo
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/more-of-fly-y-yay
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/the-rainbow-fly
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/ph-ph-ph-fly-as-one
I retired from NPS a little over a year ago. You need to call the cats a historical and cultural resource. You need to get the integrated pest management bureaucrats involved and emphasize that the cats are an organic and pesticide free way to control pests and disease. They have a low carbon footprint. Make sure there is a plan for the humane organizations to vax them all so that big pharma gets behind your efforts! Maybe even a plan to spay and neuter (especially if the cats are already pregnant) will gain support for your cause. Cats have a right to choose! I can see this might make sense if it were a natural area like El Bosque but this is an old historic city center!
I followed your suggestion and even borrowed some of your wording, due to your evident understanding of their bureaucratic language. I hope you don't mind:
"The cats of Old San Juan are a historical and cultural resource. Cats are an organic and pesticide free way to control pests and disease. They have a low carbon footprint. They have been in Old San Juan for 500 years, and are an integral part of the ecosystem. They are beloved by locals and tourists alike -- they are part of the local economy. If you kill them, what will replace them?
Without the cats, rats and other vermin would proliferate. Remember that when cats were exterminated in Europe, a third of the human population died of the plague.
If you want to spend money on this situation, perhaps you could develop and fund a plan for the humane organizations to vax them all. Maybe even a plan to spay and neuter (especially if the cats are already pregnant)."
I would be concerned about the contents of their so-called vaxinations.
I like it.
@wild Bill unfortunately I was mostly being sarcastic lol. I don't know if there is evidence that cats have a low carbon footprint! Is there a concern about them being preying on native birds? I havent read the impact statement. I'll try to find it. Maybe if you could provide evidence that they only eat mice and rats and not songbirds it would help? Feeding them canned cat food probably could be argued to increase carbon footprint. I do know that the NPS has allowed other "feral" species to remain in national parks because they are "historic" i.e., burros in the Grand Canyon and horses on Assateague and Cumberland Islands.
"I was mostly being sarcastic"
Demonstrating once again the razor thin line between bureaucracy and farce.
Viva los Gatos!
Well, the cats have been there for 500 years and they probably do eat a few birds, but both birds and cats have learned to co-exist, if so.
I'm pretty sure their carbon footprint is low because they mostly fend for themselves. People might feed them occasionally (as Gato's piece showed) but since they don't drive, or fly, or use electricity, I'm pretty certain that their carbon footprint is minimal.
So if they can tolerate burros in the Grand Canyon, seems like a few cats in Old San Juan should not be a problem. 500 years of history, after all. Thanks for your comment!
Cats actually do terrible damage to bird populations especially to songbird populations. This is one reason many wildlife biologists and ecologists dislike cats and some are rabidly against allowing any cats outside and are very much for extermination of outside cats. The only real solution to that problem that I see is keeping cat numbers down to a level that they don’t threaten songbird populations. (Although I will be honest, I have no idea how you come up with that number.)
Study after study has shown that unless you intend to remove 100% of cats from an island that Trap, Neuter, Release programs are the most effective to control cat populations. If you remove cats from an area as this proposal suggests then other cats from outside the area will just move into the now unoccupied territory. Meanwhile if you neuter a big old Tom cat he’s still going to patrol his territory and keep other toms out of it.
So the killing of songbirds is a very real problem but TNR programs are extremely successful and are much easier to get public support for than extermination.
neutering is extermination -- just as the eugenics for humans promoted by Globalist Leftists
Only if you have a 100% success rate which is unheard of on an inhabited island of this size. It also gives you a lot of room to influence the population, or not. For example a rule might be made that only older cats get neutered thus allowing all cats the chance to produce some offspring. Or neutering decisions might be made based on more desirable characteristics.
cats definitely have a low carbon footprint
pawprint*
🤭 yes!
You lost me at "vax them all"
I know right? One of the reasons I retired was because of biden's mandate to get the vax. But most of my fellow NPS employees were all over it. so as an argument for keeping cats in old San Juan it might work.
Maybe they focus on getting rid of the iguanas in Old San Juan instead. An invasive pest that's everywhere doing all kinds of environmental harm. And a menace.
As a veterinarian, I think them trying to remove all the cats is ridiculous.
I liken this to the Outer Banks wild horses. Control the population, yes, but eradication will seriously alter the ecosystem.
Look to the example of Assateague and Chinocteague Islands. Once a year, they round up the ponies and sell some of the offspring. It's a big deal, a festival, etc, etc.
Old San Juan could host a yearly kitten adoption--Adopt a genuine spanish cat/kitten....make it a big deal. Have a carnival, have vendors.
Keep a healthy base population and adopt out the overflow.
Make it a destination...
Where did you get your cat? From Old San Juan...he's an original conquistador cat. Imagine the PR.
Think outside the box.
That's kinda my question as well. Is the population more or less stable or is there a concern over them overflowing? Or merely the perception by someone sitting in a cubicle in D.C. that there might be a population problem? Seems that after half a millennia nature has worked things out as she always does. And it's not nice to fool (with) Mother Nature.
Edit: I went back and read through the AP story. So, The Man claims there is an overpopulation. What are their criteria for this? Are the locals concerned? Have there been any reported issues or incidents? What, after 500 years, has changed so drastically that it warrants a mass gatocide?
excellent questions imho
I agree, it’s even more ridiculous since this isn’t an attempt to remove every cat from the island since that’s the only way such a plan would actually work. (Maybe that’s the unstated long term goal.) Time and again “the science” has shown that trap, neuter, release is the best way to deal with these cats so it’s absurd for the NPS to propose any other solution. I also think the island’s cat population would present an interesting opportunity to do studies on feline genetics.
I think you make a very compelling point about “marketing” the cats as it were. Rescue organizations just need to start calling these cats “Conquistador Cats”. Get one or two influencers to adopt one of them (or maybe a Taylor Swift) and next thing you know they will be the new doodle, everyone will want one.
OMG...that is amazing....Taylor and her Conquistador cat....maybe I'll ring ole Tay Tay up and suggest it!!
We do TNR here in Georgia. It works. And cats are like coyotes...you are NEVER going to eradicate them all. It will just be a big waste of money and PR disaster.
Bless you
I don't see what the "problem" is of having feral cats abound. What precisely, concretely are the problems they are supposedly causing?
The iguanas in Old San Juan are more of a problem than the cats.
Here in Toronto, we used to have a cat problem in Bluffer's Park on the shore of Lake Ontario. There was pet dumping plus feral cats. They colonized a large pile of rocks and evaded capture. Harsh winters killed some and obnoxious cruel humans did too, but well-meaning visitors fed them which stimulated reproduction. The colony got huge. The community got together with the city to stop pet dumping and solve the overpopulation and starvation humanely through feeding, trap-spay-neuter-return and kitten adoption. Volunteers raised funds, identified all the cats in the colony, provided food, removed the sick and dead, gentled those that could be gentled for adoption and kept the site clean. It took almost 20 years, but finally the population was down to a few very old felines who finally passed away from natural causes.
I'm thinking those are pretty tough cats too. Super snow and ice and wind kitties.
I've lived on the southern shore of Lake Ontario and it is gorgeous and breathtaking.
bless you and the good people of Toronto.
Done. This is my comment posted to their website:
"This is a bad and unnecessary plan in my view.
The cats are longstanding residents of Puerto Rico. They provide a valuable vermin-control service to the island and are beloved by locals and tourists. They cause no harm and add great beauty and charm.
Your removal plans are cruel and without any counterbalancing benefit. Please cancel them."
done. Choose between the cats and an inundation of rats and mice (I should probably have added snakes too) Oh well.
Yup, I commented as well. Shame on these bureaucrats for pushing such a cruel plan!
So did I. I've heard about packs of rats terrorizing New York City. I'd rather see beautiful cats around than have to fear packs of rats.
The last time there was a mass extermination of cats, the populations of Europe and the British Isles were decimated by The Black Plague carried by fleas on rats. Be warned.
https://owlcation.com/humanities/Cats-and-the-Black-Plague
so maybe its a human depop plan?
Perhaps. Given the latest democide, it stands to reason.
democide. that's a keeper
Death by government
indeed
That should be an official Cause of Death. Been so much Death of Government lately.
Fauchi and Beagle torture, now the NPS and cat murder. There's something seriously wrong with these people.
submitted. "In Florida we respect wild cats, we do not exterminate them. They contribute to the ongoing management of rodent populations. It is very distressing to think that we are targeting an individual species on the basis that they are invasive when they have been there as long as the people. People are also another invasive species in Puerto Rico. I have travelled to the island and marveled at the cats in the same way I marvel at the chickens who roam Key West. "
Thank you for this, dear gato.
Might I suggest to readers, in addition to helping out with this issue, zapping out an email is good practice to be able to do it more easily more often. More of us need to be regularly zapping out emails to our government officials because they need start getting a clue-- that we see, we know what they are doing.
First they came for the cats of Old San Juan. Then they came for... Get ready.
I submitted the following:
To Whom It Concerns:
Accept proposal 1 and disregard proposals 2 and 3.
Given that the cats have been within this park in this manner for about 500 years, they are a part of the ecosystem no different than deer and wolves are part of other ecosystems. That this particular ecosystem is present within an urban area makes it something to be extolled and to be proud of, not vilified. That this is also a tourist attraction is likely in part because there is awareness of the wonder of how ecosystems come into balance within human habitation, and to be able to come close to it and to be a living part of it.
You're rationale doesn't seem to be founded on these realities, and I suggest that you reconsider whatever rationale you are using to justify killing the cats. If it is related to the 'problem' of faeces, then look for an alternative solution and accept that whatever cost is associated with it – and I am sure that there is some way to minimise it with co-ordination and co-operation with the people and organisations who support the cats – are a part of the tourist bill.
Consider that decisions made only by accountancy practices are a form of lifelessness, a means to rationalise otherwise cruel and unnecessary actions for what looks like a short term gain. Are you looking at some kind of cost-benefit analysis for this year or the next quarter? Or whenever? If that is the only consideration then you are likely not seeing the long term costs in both dollars and the social and ethical impacts. Please consider well, and include your heart and soul in the decision.
Thank you, sincerely,
Whhaaaat? No no
I will take the little white kitty with the grey tail and greyish face that is in the first photo you share. I will come and get him and bring back to my house.
Kitties are not killing people.
Cats kill only when necessary. Humans kill for pleasure, sometimes even each other.
a well-fed cat hunts best
As someone who owns five cats that’s absolutely not true. My cats are fed high quality cat foods twice daily, they still hunt and kill literally anything they can catch. Sometimes they eat everything, but they often kill things just to kill them and leave them after. Small mammals (including some reasonably large rabbits), snakes, songbirds, heck even chicken chicks I was trying to raise have all been killed and left uneaten by my cats. They are absolutely killing machines that kill for the pure joy of it. But that’s okay, because they are cats, that’s what they are built to do.
Sounds like you could save some money. Let them eat their kill.
My cats kill too, they can't help it, but they eat most of it, usually just a fuzzy tail or intestines left.
I’m afraid if they actually got hungry they would start taking out my full grown chickens. Don’t want them getting desperate.
Ine of my cats is a small 6 pound adult cat that goes for the full grown chickens but when she gets close and they start flapping like crazy, she backs off. Chick's though would be another story.
👍🏽👍👍🏿—I submitted an appeal to save the cats, and donated. Jesus, I hate the senseless killing of life. I just fucking hate it, whether it’s the healthy microbes of our soil, the necessary insects, weeds, grasslands, trees, birds, reptiles, amphibians, marine & land animals or humanity…I just can’t stand all the bloody killing, man. These methods of “thinning out the numbers” of all the too many wrong kind of life on Earth are NOT human philosophies, and it’s certainly not human-nature-elemented science. It’s just Soulless, Eugenicist-Satanic. Carl Sagan is spinning in his grave.
Does NPS do/propose to do any other means of population management (not elimination) like catch and spay or sterilizing medications in food drops?
The city of Nara, Japan has a similar tradition involving the extant herd of imperial deer that have occupied the city for 2000 years. While they do cull diseased and deformed ones (the population is highly inbred after all this time with only minimal introduction of genetic diversity from populations in the nearby mountains), they do not kill as a form of population control because the deer are culturally sacred.
that is the policy they are seeking to end.
Then this is just germaphobe shit and they just want zero cats because someone decided feral animals = unsanitary. Controlled breeding programs work fine when properly implemented.
My submission will be handwritten on paper and sent by US mail. All my life I have heard that this gets more attention, and it will not be anonymous.
"Dear Public Servants: ......." (irony intended, but I will be nice)
By the way, who gets to define "the purpose of the park?" The NPS or the people who visit the park?
“Dear Public Serpents…”
thanks for bringing this to our attention