Fighting animal cruelty

By STAR D. HESSE

The River Reporter’s editorial in the September 6 issue dealt in part with the phenomenon of “animal hoarders.” Unfortunately, more than a few of these “hoarders” are motivated by the money they can rake in, when they falsely advertise their activities as “no kill” shelters. Thousands of dollars sent by well-meaning, unsuspecting donors never get to the animals.

Here are some other ways to help homeless animals. First, stop referring to stray cats as feral. The feral label is just a convenient way for people to dismiss any responsibility for their care. Ninety percent of these animals are not wild, but rather thrown out and abandoned by irresponsible, cruel people. Abandoned cats need to be taken out of the nonentity category, and treated in the same way as dogs under New York State Article 26. Cat owners should be required to license their pets. Licensing would accomplish three very important things. It would assign responsibility for a given cat to the registered owner; it would insure that registered animals have a rabies inoculation, and encourage owners to spay/neuter their pets to take advantage of the lower licensing rate; and the money raised through licensing fees could be used for the care of other cats, by setting up low-cost spaying programs and cat sanctuaries, which could incorporate a “trap, neuter and care for” program to help stop the proliferation of the unwanted cat mega-colonies, while reducing the suffering, of those poor creatures that have been abandoned.

Other funding for this type of project could be procured by beefing up the penalties and fines for animal cruelty, as seen recently in Great Britain and other countries. Increased penalties will help to discourage acts of animal cruelty and/or neglect, by allowing meaningful action to be taken against those who engage in these abhorrent practices. And the income from significantly increasing the fines would yield large amounts of money to help care for other abandoned animals.

But enforcement is critical. Toughening up the law means nothing if those charged with carrying it out fail or refuse to enforce it. It would be necessary to list acts of neglect or cruelty, the presence of any one of which would mandate a cruelty prosecution, in the same way that certain acts of domestic violence now require the police to prosecute the suspected perpetrators.

If enough pressure is brought to bear on public officials, by voters becoming more aware of animal cruelty and abandonment issues, and supporting those who act to prevent or fight against animal cruelty, there is reason to hope that meaningful intervention and assistance for abandoned animals might be forthcoming in the foreseeable future.

(Star D. Hesse is a resident of Narrowsburg, NY.)