To the Editor,
Re: “Respect your neighbours,” Letters, July 15
It’s frustrating to read your letter-writers’ pet politics and plain contempt towards cats. Though one thinly veils it by overtly criticizing the roaming cats’ owners, however much deserved, who seem to care naught about their pets becoming another predator’s meal, to me the letter-writers’ general dislike for cats is evident.
Far more disturbing, I’ve found their sentiments are common, though perhaps not as readily publicly expressed.
Testament of this may be the bleak situation allowed to continue for feral and stray cats, essentially due to human apathy.
For example, in Surrey there are tens of thousands of these beautiful sentient animals, so many of which are allowed to suffer severe malnourishment, debilitating injury and/or infection by callously neglectful municipal government as well as individual residents who choose to remain silent.
When I made a monetary donation to the local Trap/Neuter/Release (TNR) program, a volunteer left me a tearful voice mail expressing her appreciation, which to me suggested a scarcity of caring financial donors.
No wonder cat TNR programs are typically underfunded by governments and private donors, regardless of their documented success in reducing needless suffering.
I fear a possible presumption of feline disposability.
Could there be a subconscious human perception that the worth of such animal life (if not even human life in regularly war-torn or overpopulated famine-stricken global regions) is reflected by its overabundance and the protracted conditions under which it suffers?
Frank Sterle Jr.,
White Rock, B.C.