EDITOR – Last week the Berea Mail published a letter from a Californian ‘doctor’, claiming that feral cats are a danger to society and that TSR (Trap, Sterilize, Release) does not solve the ‘many’ health hazards associated with cats.
According to this letter writer, cats cause plague, rabies, toxoplasmosis, brain damage, blindness, liver damage, birth-defects, and who knows what else. They also kill HIV-positive people. Cats are probably, if this writer is to be believed, also responsible for high food prices (they cause agricultural collapse, apparently). So I wondered what was the motive for a letter-writer, based in California, to send such a dire warning to a community newspaper in Durban. So I investigated. The Internet is a wonderful thing, and a couple of searches turned up some interesting information.
First off, the writer, Johanna van de Woestijne, is not a medical doctor. It is not clear if she even is an academic doctor, or any kind of doctor at all, as there is no trace in any of her public profiles of a doctorate being awarded to her from any university in the world. According to her LinkedIn profile, she is an ordinary 60-year-old person living in Los Altos Hills, California.
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However – and this is important – she is a member of the Audubon Society. The Audubon Society (formed in 1905) is an association of environmentalists in the United States (a bit like our WESSA), and the society is notorious because of their attitude towards all cats. They believe that all cats are evil bird-and-small-animal-destroying machines.
However, if you are worried that her claims may hold water, here is a rebuttal, point by point.
Firstly, in her first point she is right. Neutering does not prevent a cat getting rabies. The truth is, the potential for a human to catch rabies from a cat is slight to non-existent, especially a feral cat. Rabies affects mainly jackals and dogs. It is possible for a cat that comes into contact with a rabid jackal or rabid dog to catch rabies, but this is unlikely as they have little contact. A human would have to be bitten or scratched by a rabid cat in order to catch rabies (the virus is carried by saliva).
When a feral cat is caught for TSR, they receive a rabies shot as a matter of course. For the next few years, therefore, the cat is immune to the slight chance of getting rabies.
The accusation that cats are vectors of plague is absolute rubbish. The flea that carries the plague organism is species-specific. Once the rodent host dies from the plague, the fleas will jump onto anything else, including a human, and bite them. It then usually dies itself.
Thirdly – Toxoplasma Gondii. Yes, this is a real parasite, and yes, it is carried by cats. It is also everywhere else, in the ground and in our drinking water. It is the most common parasite in the world.
Toxoplasmosis can be dangerous to pregnant women, as it can cause birth defects in fetuses. However, in order for anyone to catch the disease specifically from a cat, they need somehow to ingest the faeces of the cat. So, unless a pregnant woman is cleaning out litter trays and then eating with unwashed hands, she is unlikely to come to any harm from a cat.
Toxoplasmosis is also dangerous to HIV-positive people. Contrary to what the writer says, most HIV-infected people do not die of Toxoplasmosis, they die of tuberculosis or pneumonia.
The bottom line is: We have thousands of people around the world who work with, handle and treat feral cats all the time. If a feral cat was any danger, they would by now all be dead, blind, infected with plague, or raving mad.
Just like the Audubon Society, we are also concerned with the large number of feral, stray and unwanted cats. The only difference is, we differ in approach. We have a system that is working in bringing down the cat population. If bird-lovers and cat-haters worked with us, instead of against us, we could bring the feral cat problem down to manageable levels.
Niki Moore
Glenwood
