[MissoulaGov] cats & dogs & stewardship

[Jim McGrath]

Having promised to NOT weigh in on the dog question, I do have a
question about cats. I wasn't clear, Marilyn, what you were proposing
regarding cats. You ended up saying you didn't want government to
require the to be indoors, so maybe you are not recommending anything.

 

My recommendation regarding cats is to leave things alone. I base it on
a labor logic, if you will. How many things will you have time to
effectively tackle while on council? How much does each one accomplish
versus the time and energy it takes to get them done (let alone the
ongoing cost of implementing them.) 

 

To me, legislating the cat population will require a huge effort with
little (relatively) to show for it. I would rather live in a community
that provides more and better housing, safe neighborhoods, effective and
clean transportation choices etc. but allows cats outside even though
they kill song birds. I would rather not live in a community whose
leaders take great pains to regulate cats but does nothing much for
housing, transportation, crime etc. 

 

But that's me. You may have your own priorities.

 

________________________________

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Marilyn Marler
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 11:16 AM
To: Jason Wiener; missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: [MissoulaGov] cats & dogs & stewardship

 

    Now that I've taken a full day to decompress from Bob's description
of the "dogs off leash" discussion, I can cheerfully say that, unlike
Jason (apparently) I *did* run for council at least in part because of
my interest in conservation issues and good stewardship of natural areas
and wildlife.

    Cats roaming free in town *do* have negative impacts to native
wildlife. They kill a lot of birds. If only we could train them to kill
starlings and house sparrows, but we can't. They just as happily eat
migratory warblers or northern flickers (our neighbors' cat killed a
flicker just recently). Birds have enough issues with habitat loss; do
we have to also accept that our pets "need" to eat them?  Cats can hunt
even with bells, even if they are de-clawed. You might not see it, but
it happens.  Denial is not a river in Egypt, as they say.  And I'm not
even getting into general bad cat behavior like pooping in garden beds
and so on, which is a legitimate quality of life issue. We need to move
towards cats as indoor pets, although I don't think its appropriate for
government to require it.  You can't have it both ways- be an advocate
of local wildlife and an advocate of outdoor unsupervised cats. (note: I
have 3 rescued cats who I love dearly).

    Dogs off leash in our conservation areas *do* have negative impacts
to native wildlife.  One person wrote to this list serve that she saw
"only" 8 incidents per year of dogs harrassing wildlife.  I did some
math and if one person who spends 520 hours per year on one area of open
space sees 8 incidents per year, and you expand that to cover 8 hours a
day for 260 days, and then expand that to 4 conservation areas (North
Hills, Mt Sentinel, L trail, Lincoln Hills), then someone's dog is
harassing wildlife about avery 3rd day. I think that is very
conservative because 1) a lot happens out of eyesight, and 2) there are
more than 8 hours per day that people are walking dogs on conservation
areas, and 3) you could probably divide those conservation areas each
again for a multiplyer of 8 instead of 4. So conservatively, every other
day.

    Bob, you included some obnoxiuos descriptions of arguements in favor
of leashed dogs. You did not include Pam's suggestion that dogs off
leash harassing wildlife might be a positive thing because we have too
many urban deer.  If we are going to do something about our urban deer
population, I really hope we can aspire to do something humane and
productive, rather than letting dogs run them to death.

    Again, I'm only focusing on conservation/stewardship issues here.
Not social issues of whether I want someone's dog tripping me while I'm
out for a run (as happens almost every time I run on the river trail
which is technically a leash area but I'm good natured so I deal with
it), or stealing my food when I'm working on Mt Sentinel. (note: I love
dogs)

    And I'll close with something that is more of a topic for a book I'm
writing in my head- Can we please start moving beyond a false dichotomy
of Human Influenced vs Non Human Influenced places?  The world is human
influenced.  Let's make mindful choices always. We CAN have our pets but
respect wildlife. We CAN have landscaping that makes room for
biodiversity and wildlife.  It's old fashioned to think of humans as
only having detrimental effects on nature.  2 good books I'm reading now
(for those of you looking for winter reading):  The Sunflower Forest
<http://www.amazon.com/Sunflower-Forest-Ecological-Restoration-Communion
/dp/0520233204/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233337878&sr=8-1>
and Bringing Nature Home.  Thanks for listening to my thoughts on this.
Marilyn

 

 

	----- Original Message ----- 

	From: Jason Wiener <mailto:JWiener at ci.missoula.mt.us>  

	To: missoulagov at cmslists.com 

	Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 9:10 PM

	Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] committee update 1-28-09

	 

	Amen. Though I will eventually have to do so, I sure didn't run
because I wanted to spend time regulating the presence, absence or
behavior of small animals. I guess the chicken shit should have tipped
me off though, huh? 

	 

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