Jul 8, 2017 2 min read

In her June 29 letter to the editor, Teresa Chagrin of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) uses a stray cat diagnosed with rabies in Dunkard Township, Greene County, in an attempt to promote PETA’s culture of killing.

PETA claims to be an animal rights organization, but it killed 854 0f 1,071 cats received in its Virginia shelter in 2016, according to the Virginia Department of Agriculture. That fact becomes significant when it is considered that a basic tenet of animal rights is that death is a harm.

However, her attack on trap-neuter-vaccinate-return (TNVR) efforts, which she mistakenly refers to as TNR, is logically irrelevant to the fact that one cat had rabies. A closer look at Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture website shows that in 2016 no cases of rabies were reported in either Greene or Washington counties. Furthermore, in Pennsylvania the leading cases of rabies were reported in raccoons.

Chargin makes a dubious and illogical leap from a single cat with rabies to the conclusion that TNVR is somehow linked to an increase in cat rabies, and that it is a cruel program. First, the “v” stands for vaccinate. Second, the facts are that, in Washington County, colony cats in managed colonies live long, healthy lives. In a managed colony, the population stays steady or declines as no kittens are born. There is data collected as part of the Colony Cat Project, a three-year study conducted in Washington County, which supports that claim.

Finally, Chagrin’s call for shelters to take in all cats is, in reality, a call for trap-and-kill to replace TNVR as a means of addressing feline overpopulation. Shelters have limited cage space, so the fact is that in order to take in all cats surrendered, they must kill for cage space.

In an ideal world all cats, would have loving homes, but until that ideal can be realized, TNVR is the most humane way of addressing feline overpopulation in conjunction with stricter penalties for abandonment and requiring that all pets be spayed, neutered and vaccinated.

Faith Bjalobok

McMurray

Bjalobok is the founder of the Fluffyjean Fund and a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.