Feral cats.

Give credit where it is due. They are magnificent predators, as are all cats. I know from playing with our Siamese house cat, with a non hooked rubber fishing lure, she is incredibly strong. When she gets a paw hooked onto it, i usually cant get it loose.
 
There seems to be a few here who have apparently never had to deal with feral cats---lucky you. I love hunting, and enjoy the sport of it as much as I enjoy it on the table later. But killing simply for the fun of liking to kill something just isn't in me. Doing what has to be done to control an out-of-control wild cat population, however... THAT I have no issue with what so ever. I have no problem with cats. I have a shop cat that found me years ago and has been with me for many years and several thousand miles. My daughter thinks he's a wonderful stuffed animal like her bear that can be flopped on, rolled on, snuggled with, etc, and he loves every minute of her squashing him on sight--I think he's a golden retriever in a cat's body. For other cats, I don't have any particular fondness for them, but I don't go hunting them until one shows up in my shop, tears out the insulation to burrow into the wall to hide, knocks things off shelves, hunts the birds nesting under my porch rafters, etc. If it makes a bee-line like its tail is on fire the moment it sees me, it becomes a potential target. I know all my neighbors. Some have cats. All those cats are pretty friendly--a couple come visit if I'm outside on occasion and get a quick ear-scratch every time. They have collars and I know them by sight at quite a distance. No collar and I don't recognize it, it "goes away", end of story. Giving a pass to one nuisance-cat a couple years ago made me have to deal with dispatching almost a dozen wild offspring 6 months later when the bird seed could sit in the feeder for days and not a single bird was around to touch it. Never again.
 
Rangefinder, I long ago quit killin' just for the fun of it (I would be a liar to claim I never did) but a cat has to do very little to trigger me to go from "spidey sense" to "incredible hulk" with a quickness.

As for "owned" felines with collar etc... If one approaches me and I can pet it, I feel a front paw... If it has claws, it better have a noisy bell or I am gonna catch it and stuff it in a pillow sack and tote it to the owner and give them one chance.

Cat+Claws+Loose= Non-Native Invasive Predator to me.

Brent
 
Let me start off saying that I am a cat guy 100%. We have always had cats and dogs, and I have always liked cats better. They're graceful (most of them anyway), sassy, loving, intelligent, beautiful, warm (to snuggle), and good for my blood pressure. And unlike dogs, they don't stink! I hope never to be without a cat as a pet.

However! Not all cats are the same. The placid, vaccinated, cuddle-kitten is not even close to a feral cat. I have seen feral cats beat the ever-loving hell out of or kill housecats. The coyotes tend to keep them down, here, but if I see a cat that causes problems, it's gone.
 
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