In the reporting and commentary on the jailing of two women for feeding cats, almost all the disdain and vitriol has been directed at the police. This is misplaced and wrong.
This cat-lady incident has two distinct and unrelated elements to it. The first is that both women broke the law, more than one in fact. The second is that the police arrested them for breaking the law.
Taking the second first, by all accounts the police were polite and courteous and issued several warnings before the arrests. The elderly miscreants were told, "You were doing x which is against the law, please stop doing x or you will be arrested for breaking the law" and they did not stop and so were arrested. I believe they have subsequently been at least prosecuted, if not convicted.
The police did what they are supposed to do in the manner they are expected to use. This should not be the subject of debate and has wrongly generated so much condemnation.
The first element is where discussion should focus. Reportedly, the law in question prohibits feeding feral cats and the women were feeding feral cats (to which they confessed). This may be seen as a crazy and unnecessary prohibition and multiple armchair warriors have taken up keyboards against it. They are wrong.
I have lived in several places where feral cats cause real problems. Cats are highly effective predators and research shows that they can wipe out bird populations, gekkos and lizards and other wildlife very quickly. They are also very good at breaking into houses and helping themselves to food and other tidbits they find, while also marking "their" territories with foul-smelling urinary boundary-posts. They fight and mate loudly, disturbingly and shamelessly, and they breed prolifically. Places with feral cat population problems are fed up and thus pass ordinances such as "no feeding".
I assume that the law the two felix-fanciers broke was fully-debated, properly-debated and legally implemented. If not, then this should be investigated. Otherwise, the two moggie-mothers were rightly arrested.
**Please leave your comments and questions below**
Further Reading
https://news.yahoo.com/women-convicted-criminal-trespassing-feeding-181055364.html
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