Greg, I'm not the poster child for cat rescue and my mom was nobody's fool. She knew what she was doing. Her ashes are in the sea off LA if you want to go pick a fight with her, but this thread is not the place for it and I won't play. I will however give you some facts you could not have known.

I personally euthanized a barn full of abandoned cats with my own hands because they had been abandoned there, bred, and got incurably ill. This was at a demonstration farm I managed. My mind knew this was right. It hurt my heart to do it-- even the last most-baleful fighting tom I had to catch who would cheerfully have euthanized me if he'd had opposable thumbs.

At our current home on a working farm property, cats are also regularly dumped. I have taken many new mothers and their litters to the local shelter that, at the time, gave out free spays for whole litters surrendered. These mama cats became not wildlife-killing machines, but employees trusted to defend the house against the seasonal invasion of rodents whose runs, chewed thru the plaster, crisscross behind 100 years' worth of wallpaper.

The current employee came, starving, to our back porch with a diseased and deformed youngster, who soon disappeared (probably coyotes tbtg. I used food to lure her when she next appeared, heavily preggers; I kept her indoors as she got to her birth time, tended the babies, found homes for all, got her spayed and vaccinated her, and we still have her as our chief employee. When intrusive birds have driven away the mourning doves that also live here in our porches bushes, she happily removed the invaders so the doves could come back.

But we shoot maurading feral tom's that regularly come to call-- also dumped or inbred deformed monstrosities. They are the feral offspring of tame kitties abandoned here by local gas frackers when they close work camps. They're lonely people far from home and I don't begrudge them a cat for their campers... I just wish they'd crate them before moving day instead of pulling up stakes while Kitty is out hunting in the wild woods here.

A cat is 'just' a critter in the food chain, and as such have a place in it. Some are also capable of being dear friends and mysteriously charming creatures. They all deserve a chance in that food chain.

I'm surprised you went off on me. As you can now see, I'm a poor target for your rant. I bet the other folks posting are, too. I've enjoyed the cessation of hostilities with you in justice-oriented threads... but nobody picks on MY dead mama.

~Susan