Letters to the Editor

Pet owners, not animals, are the real problem

Animal Aid Network has solution to cat problem

Editor:

Your recent article, "Feral cats a growing problem throughout Verde Valley" could have been titled "Irresponsible pet owners a growing problem throughout Verde Valley."

The two-legged breed is the source of the problem, not the four-legged breed.

Irresponsible pet owners who don't sterilize their pets (or who abandon them) are the problem.  There's no excuse for not spaying or neutering one's pets when both Animal Aid Network (639-3980) and the Humane Society (634-PETS) will pay for part of the cost.  Irresponsible pet owners are leaving hungry, suffering furry victims in the wake of their irresponsibility.

At present there's no program to protect these particular furry victims.  We have to ask ourselves, "Are we going to solve the problem of irresponsible owners by killing their victims?" there must be a better, more humane answer.

There's a national, non-profit organization, Alley Cat Allies (www.alleycat.org), which has developed a humane, non-lethal program for solving the feral cat problem. Under this program local citizens trap feral cats, sterilize them, and return them to live out their lives.  Often volunteer caregivers provide food for the cats. If it is necessary to move the cats, the caregivers relocate them.

At present, Wal-Mart is trapping the feral cats on its property and sending them to the Humane Society where they are slaughtered.  This is not an acceptable solution.  The "no-kill" approach should be the only one acceptable to civilized people.  Killing furry victims doesn't make sense.  There is an alternative.  The president of Animal Aid Network, Debbie Engle, stated an option to slaughter.  She said that working together Wal-Mart and Animal Aid Network could cooperate in a vaccination-sterilization program (and possible relocation) that would protect the furry victims, yet solve the problem.

Starvation isn't a humane answer for the furry victims.  Neither is slaughtering them.  An acceptable answer has been provided.  What are you going to do about it?  Are you going to contact Wal-Marts's manager?  Are you going to support Animal Aid Network?  Stand up and be counted.

Beryl Chappell, Cottonwood

Editor:

I would like to comment on Ms. Blankenship's article appearing in a recent issue of the Independent concerning the growing problem of feral cats in the Verde Valley.

From the headline you would have to assume this is an immediate threat to all residents of the Verde Valley.

I own the Suzy Q market located nest to Wal-Mart and Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Myself and my employees are guilty as adding to this "threat" by providing food and a little kindness to these creatures.  We mistakenly felt one more day of life and joy for these cute little kittens was a better alternative than the sure death that would await them at the Humane Society.  Now, thanks to Mr. Rangel of Wal-Mart they have indeed met that certain death. 

I wholeheartedly agree these cats would have multiplied had nothing been done and that would have been an even sadder situation.

My problem, however, is with Mr. Rangel and Judy Finch of the Humane Society not knowing enough or, most likely not caring enough for these lives to investigate the other option that was available to them.

Had I been aware of Debbie Engle's program of capture, vaccinations, sterilization and release, I most certainly would have raided those traps and taken those "suffering" animals to the Animal Aid Network.

Would that not have been a better alternative than just killing them?  Is this how some of these people would propose we deal with some of our other problems?  "Just kill them."

Nelson E. Durkee, Cottonwood