Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management BW Quail

TJ, I find it necessary to manage feral cats and also dogs. I hate the idea of shooting dogs. However one year they got so numerous on my place that deer avoided food plots and feeders.

Rant coming: I consider people letting their dogs run free the ultimate rudeness. The other rudeness, actually cruelty, is town people dumping unwanted dogs in the country. They have almost no chance of survival. One bunch of neighbors dogs enjoyed chasing horses and cows. I'm convinced that neighbors dogs ran a colt into a barbed wire fence. That cost me around $800 in vet bills. When talking to neighbors does no good, I take care of the problem myself. A lot of the Ranchers around me kill every dog they find on their property. I once had a talk with the County Sheriff about the problem. He told me that he had never considered me the kind of guy who bothered him with that kind of stuff and that he didn't have enough deputies to deal with it. He told me to just take care of the problem and keep my mouth shut. I HATE "managing" other people "pets". It makes me physically sick when I do it.

Texas has a law that lets us lower our property tax called a Wildlife Exemption. It is much like an Ag Exemption. We have to practice 4 of 7 qualifications to maintain the exemption. Along with food plots, water holes, brush piles, bird houses, and a couple of others we can elect to shoot feral dogs and cats along with other non native animals like pigs.

I'm right there with you Dave. We've taken in feral dogs/cats before, but first they've got to be social, then we neuter/spay them.

If they don't play by the rules, they go to the water park.

We have pastured race horses, and dairy farms around us, and part of being a good neighbor is helping them maintain their investment. It's no fun, but I agree with you, removal has to be done.

DD,
I hear you! I had plentiful quail on my property until my neighbor moved in with his three dogs about 3 years ago. These dogs come "visiting" my place every night between 9 and 10. I haven't see one quail on my property in three years and only hear them a few times/year.

For many years my brother was the mayor/animal warden/grader driver/etc., of a small, mostly rural town. One morning he got a call from a constituent who had an AWOL cow wandering in his yard. My brother has never been real diplomatic. He said to the guy that their whole family doesn't worry about hunting out of season, one brother had a butcher shop - so just take care of the damn cow!

He never heard another word about it, and apparently the cow somehow disappeared. Nobody ever reported a missing cow, either.

However, my brother did get on CNN one time after he got in trouble with PETA for his methods of dealing with stray dogs. In the CNN piece they filmed him when he answered his front door. They bleeped what he said before he slammed the door. But, anybody could have read his lips.

Do leash laws not apply on acreages? They should, IMO. I still live in the city...guess I'll find out what kind of problem I have when/if I live at the pond.

I understand the need to manage animals no one else will. That must be tough, shooting dogs. Shooting cats...well, that ought to nudge me over the brink to eternal damnation. Poor kitties.

I believe WI considered an open season on feral cats because the bird population was hurt so badly... I think this was a few years ago.

I'm no longer a Wisconsin resident, but I still keep close tabs on what happens there and in Minnesota, and I visit family there as often as possible.

In Wisconsin, the ferral cat issue is very murky, as is the wild dog issue. I believe it was back in 2005 that the referendum on killing ferral cats was voted on, and approved. However, it was never enacted into law. The law is clear in Minnesota and South Dakota, where it is legal. As for dogs, that is really an unclear issue.

I am a serious cat and dog lover, no two ways about it. In my lifetime, I've adopted/rescued/rehabilitated one heck of a lot of cats and dogs.

Currently, I've got a Siberian forest cat that lived on the streets near my in-laws for nearly two years. It is clawless and it has been neutered. These are really expensive and wonderful hypoalergenic cats, so it is hard to imagine why anyone would abandon a critter like this.

After a hot summer, a really bad winter, two weeks of enduring 100+ degree summer heat two years ago, and a neighbor saying she was calling animal control -- I brought the poor guy home with me. He had also become a pest in the neighborhood, as he tried to make friends with every human that was outside of their house, and he wanted into everybody's house.

He was skinny to the point where you could see his ribs through his thick matted and dirty fur. But he was always extremely friendly, and just wanted a home. For the first couple of months we had him, he vomited regularly after eating food that the vet recommended. Anyway, he has turned out to be the best cat we've ever had. He greets and befriends everybody who visits, and he even watches after the chickens when they are out for the day. He follows me everywhere when I'm home, including when I go fishing.

Our other cat, a little calico female, was a ferral kitten that we adopted through a local shelter two years ago. She too is extremely gentle and has turned into a great pet who just loves human attention. Now and then, she'll venture onto one of the porchs for a little while, but then wants back in the house.

We also recently gave away a really great little dog that we believe was part pug and part pekanese. Ugly, ugly, ugly little dog -- so ugly he was kind of cute. He looked like Yoda. His previous owner kept him chained outside for seven years -- seven days a week, 24 hours a day, under horrible conditions. Trying to chew his chain, he wore his front teeth down to nothing. His chain wore the fur and skin off his back. He never ran loose -- certainly not before we adopted him a couple of years ago. After he moved in with us he was never more than about 50 feet from the house, or he was with one of us and the cat mentioned above. Somehow, after such a horrible life, he was extremely friendly, extremely gentle, well mannered, and very easy to train. After about two years with us, he is now part of a family with two little girls who just adore him.

With all that said, I still have my issues with ferral cats and wild dogs. The law here in WV is kind of strange, and somewhat complicated, regarding shooting them. If they are bear dogs on a chase, you can't shoot them even if they are trespassing on your property. Pretty much all else is open to interpretation. We also have very few law enforcement people, and almost non-existent animal control in our county. They are a lot more than busy with really serious issues, like dealing with ferral humans.

Don't ask.

Don't tell.

I've got a backhoe and an excavator.

Enough said.

Ken, I'm like you with strays. When I moved to my place in Jan, I brought along a little male cat that was left out on the street where I lived in GA. Anyway, a female feral cat came by soon after, and after a whirlwind romance she churned out a litter of 5. I took them to the local shelter, and had my male cat fixed, but not before he knocked up that slut again, and she cranked out 5 more females in early Aug. I'm trying to catch the female and get her fixed, but she is very crafty. In the mean time, I've got five 3.5 month old females that are going to be looking for love soon. I was going to take them to the shelter, but I've probably waited too long (as far as adoptions go). They are really cute and have fun playing in the yard/woods, but I've got to do something or I could have 30 more baby kittens running around here!!!
It's probably going to be impossible to raise quail with any cats.
I mentioned quail so this is not an official thread highjack......

I have heard that the Fort Worth SPCA will take animals that have been "abandoned". Of course, everybody knows that I would never take a neighbors dog 70 miles from home.

Most ornithologists believe feral cats to be the #2 cause of song bird decline in North America and I am sure they are high up there for game birds well. In VA it is illegal to shoot a cat or dog, even if they are lose on your property! The only way you can legally shoot a dog is if it is an immediate threat to you or your property. With cats as dogs, SSS often applies but be careful of states laws. They all vary...

Here in VA in many counties it is legal to hunt deer with dogs and during firearms season, you will often have packs of deer hounds running around your land. Many are have collars, some even have tattoos and GPS units on them. They are usually the more valuable dogs that are worth a darn. Many of the dogs just go along to make noise. At the end of the season you will see many thin mangy dogs running around as the hunt clubs don't seem to care much for them. It is a shame!