The Hall of Awesomeness

I recently stumbled upon this article http://torontosun.com/Lifestyle/2007/08/05/4395258-sun.html and they mentioned that they have a problem with cat overpopulation. The funny thing is so do we here in Australia. I mean my God there are cats everywhere. One of the things that annoys me a lot is that very few people seem to be worried about it. It’s funny because a cat really cannot control the way they breed or even how they speak. Nevertheless one only has to venture down the road here in Brisbane to the animal welfare league to find even more examples of much the same thing. There are two typical types of response to this problem:

1. Kill the stray cats
2. Capture, De-sex and re-home the cats

Now being a person who loves animals I think the latter is much better than the former. This article is a great example of what I would call framing. You see framing is the way in which a person places a problem (in my language) in this invisible forcefield in which it cannot escape. Usually the result is a dichotomy of some sort where you have to pick one solution over another. Therefore we either kill the cats or re-home them… these are our only options. However, both of these solutions are getting to the root cause of the problem – even though I believe 2. is an excellent solution. Solving the cat overpopulation problem requires an understanding of three key things that make it mess it is today:

1. How did it come to be
2. What are the systemic factors that cause it to be
3. Can we change the systemic factors in order to stop the problem from happening

Now if we look at the bigger picture view (systemic factors) we get can get perspectives and look through them to see what might help solve our problem. Suppose we could make a moron-o-meter and attach it to deadbeats who decide to not take care of their pets. This would allow us to track the morons and either:

1. Kill them
2. Capture, De-sex and re-home the morons

Let’s be honest here. The problem’s creators weren’t the cats. It’s the people that year after year allow the cats to breed without having a shred of decency for their neighbours. Would education fix this problem? I doubt it. Let’s stop pointing a wavey finger at the people that cause this problem and take it up to a higher level where we can see the treetops. Suppose we find the people that made the morons and:

1. Kill them
2. Capture, De-sex and re-home the morons

Who then is next in the chain of blame? The more you zoom out the more the complicated it becomes to understand why cats are taking over Canada. The people who have recognised the problem have offered us two solutions. But are there more. Could we find the people responsible and through some ‘Judge Judy’ experience make them change? If we could how would we do it. Can we create cats that don’t breed? If we did would it be ethical or politically responsible? What reasons are there that cause people to allow cats to overtake a whole nation? Say we look at the problem from an economic point of view for a minute. What is the cost of running a shelter? How many cats actually make it? How much would it cost to reeducate a whole community to stop this practice? What would the legal ramifications be if we removed people from the streets who breed cats illegally?

So here we have a bona fide mess. One that just won’t quit. The problem has been “framed” to mean “kill” VS. “rehome”. Are there other ways that we could come up with answers that could dissolve the need for “kill VS. re-home”? I wonder. Until we can change the systemic factors we are stuck with cats overtaking the world as we know it.

After I posted this article I noticed that the animal welfare league of Queensland are supporting a national de-sexing program which I think is a clever way of slowly reducing the numbers. These people do great work.

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