Premier: Evidence shows TNR can’t solve cat threat
(CNS): Trap-neuter-release (TNR) programmes cannot address the overpopulation of feral cat colonies across the Cayman Islands, Premier Wayne Panton said, as he defended the rollout of the Alien Species Regulations and the introduction of control programmes aimed at saving Cayman’s threatened endemic and native species.
Of the 129 feral cats captured since 2007, only seven (two in 2007 and five in 2023) were spayed or neutered, he told the Cayman Islands Humane Society in response to their concerns about the new regulations.
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“This is a very strong indication that the TNR efforts in Little Cayman have not penetrated the broader feral population of cats there, leaving those animals to not only predate on the young of several regionally and internationally important species, driving their populations into drastic declines, but to also live short and miserable lives in the wild, which raises several serious animal welfare issues,” the premier wrote. “It is for these reasons that the government will not entertain the application of TNR as a population control method.”.
In response to the local non-profit organisation’s open letter sent to him on Monday, Panton, who has responsibility for sustainability and the environment, sent a reply on Thursday in which he explained the reasoning behind the new rules and the prohibited species list, outlining the distinctions between domestic and feral animals and defining procedures and the control of feral animals and other alien species.
While he acknowledged the NPO’s spay and neuter programmes, Panton said that extensive scientific evidence and literature showed that the TNR would not work. He refuted allegations that the regulations regress animal welfare, noting that the aim of protecting native animals and pointing to the terrible lives the cats have in the wild. He also noted that many animal rights activists and charities, such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, support control programmes.
Panton said it was the legal challenge by the Humane Society against the Department of Environment’s efforts to control the feral cat population on Little Cayman five years ago that highlighted the need for specific rules designed to govern culls and control programmes.
“I am keenly aware that… almost four years involving many hours of face-to-face discussions and written exchanges of your views with your organisation led to a negotiated settlement of the litigation, which allowed the government to proceed with the trapping of feral cats and the promulgation of these regulations,” he wrote.
Pointing out that the CIHS has a seat on the Department of Agriculture’s Animal Welfare Committee that helped inform the new rules, he said, “It is unfortunate that you have deliberately framed the regulations as something that blindsided your organisation.”
Panton noted the mountain of evidence showing that releasing neutered animals back in the wild remains a major threat to native species, as he accused the animal charity of being among those who are propagating misinformation about the new rules.
Having adopted a number of rescued animals himself, the premier, who is well known for his genuine concern about the threats to our natural world, said he was well aware of how sensitive and emotionally charged this issue is. Nevertheless, he told the CIHS that “we must make hard decisions in order to protect our threatened, endemic species”.
Read the full letter from Panton in the CNS Library.
Watch video clips supplied by the DoE below:
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Category: Land Habitat, Science & Nature
Dees the Humane Society have permission for that sign they now have blocking the sidewalk? PLC, NRA? Asking for the boobies.
Meanwhile, a conveyor-fed municipal glass crusher, with capacity of 3 tp 4 tons per hour, reduces landfill waste by up to 80% and costs under $250,000 brand new. The milled glass pellets can be added to asphalt, used in concrete, and building blocks, creates 5 full-time low-pay jobs, perfect vocation for high school leavers and/or non-custodial convicts. Too complicated to figure this out though.
Landfill glass waste perhaps, if it’s all separated, delivered to the collection point and then collected. Not likely. Pipe dream at best.
Pipe dream? That’s exactly what Dart was doing with their crushed glass output.
Some years ago I was a volunteeer in a country park in the UK where feral cats were a major problem. They tried TNR and not only didn’t it work but two of the people involved required hospital treatment for injuries inflicted by the creatures they were trying to help. The policy after that was trap and euthanise or in some areas where it was safe to do so shoot them. Problem solved.
In one place where I worked abroad the problem was feral dogs. Owners got fed up with them or couldn’t afford them so they took them out of town and simply dumped them in an extremely environmentally sensitive area. We just used to go out and shoot them, the army even sometimes used them for sniper training.
It seems strange that people here had no quarms about destroying the non-native populations of lion fish and iguanas but when it comes to cats they get all warm and fuzzy. The cats are not cuddly little pets. They’re just another invasive, destructive, non-native species – get used to it!
Sorry, I had a spelling failure here. My 7.54 comment should have read qualms not quarms.
Cull the feral cats with the same determination of the iguana cull. These are not pets. They pose a real threat to human health if rabies ever comes to Cayman. This could be done quickly and at low cost to the public purse as many of the iguana cullers are legal owners of pellet guns. Notice that these guns are never used in gun related crimes because the owners are responsible and adhere to the rules of ownership.
First talking about protecting them nice Brown Boobies.
Then now gone down to messing with the Kitty.
N finally want to remove all the Wild Cockarel.
I see the priorities are straight.
Never min the cost of living sir.
Cull them.
This is obviously a complicated and divisive problem. But blaming a charity like CIHS for any part of the problem is pretty misguided – a largely voluntary organization doing the best they can to help the animals treated like garbage by many on these islands, and they do it with minimal financial or other support.
I am a cat lover but I can get my head around the need to cull the cats. What I find indefensible is the fact that no one seems willing to acknowledge that the cats are paying the price for wilful human neglect (because humans obviously can’t be made to pay). I’m also disappointed that there seems to be no plan in place to prevent this problem from happening again – no requirements that pets on the sister islands all be spayed or neutered (with harsh enforcement) or anything of that sort. We’ll just be having this debate again in five years and yet more animals who didn’t ask to be here will pay the price.
Heck, any pet imported to the Cayman Islands in general should be required to be fixed before their paperwork is granted. If the animal will be too young on import then there should be a set time for follow up on island and harsh consequences if it has not been completed by potential breeding age.
Glad you’re not in charge.
Absolute TRUTH! A comment with complete logic.
CIHS is a large part of the problem. The legal action they brought forward against the government meant they couldn’t full cats for the past 4 years.
They are seriously overreaching their own mission statement on this one and need to stay in their lane and focus on finding homes for unwanted animals, not keeping our forests full of invasive predators.
“they couldn’t full cats”, what does that mean?
Obviously a typo. “Cull”
so the locals who have dogs that are left in not so secure cages or even worse just left to roam free face no repercussions? Those animals also attack birds and people.
And the loose dogs attack PEOPLE! Imagine walking your dog on a leash and someone else’s dog is free to roam and attack you. But nothing happens to the owner or the dog… This whole island is twisted and screwed. Send Help SOS
there is definitely a need for some kind of law that addresses this issue – but the cats still need to go.
understand but the rules only apply to non voting stray cats, not the idiots who let their dogs roam to do the same or possibly worse damage when one attacks and kills a child.
Or you could always leave.
love when the feral-cat-lovers have nothing more intelligent to say
i agree with u wayne! i saw a guy by red bay school stop in truck..dump a sack of feed for chickens…lobster pot too….
also while in little cayman camping..i finally see a few moor hens in pond….but tons of feral cats…they need reducing…prob already at them booby y man o wars on sounth side as well…eating theur young!
Prospect Point
Yep, he’s been doing it for years.
The chickens are so well trained that they see him coming and gather
“These birds have few natural predators. While owls and large birds of prey may steal booby chicks, the adults are too large. Humans are the main threat to these birds, although the occasional shark can also eat them.”
https://biologydictionary.net/booby-bird/
Please read it again: humans are the main threat to these birds. Killing cats is a decoy.
CNS: You have dug up a quote by a scientist that is a very generalised fact about six species of boobies across a very wide region. The scientists here, looking at this very specific situation, have found that the cats are a problem. I’m sure the first scientist would be horrified that you are using her words to negate actual science.
Everyone knows that humans and human development harms the environment. But even if all development suddenly stopped and all humans disappeared, the cats would still kill the booby colony on Cayman Brac. The DoE is doing what it can.
Regardless of where the quote fit, HUMANS are the main problem in majority of issues.
TNR doesn’t work apparently – scientific literature and all that. But does it hurt? What is the point of banning it especially when there are no proposals for replacing it with something that is either more humane and/or works.
As far as I can tell these new regs just mean that nothing at all will be done about population control.
I’m trying hard to rationalize these new rules. We must stop feeding the feral cats. Don’t they then pose more danger to the ‘protected species’, than a well fed cat.
Yeah, more scientific literature does say TNR still hurts.
There is no evidence that TNR causes an increase in your vulnerable species (case study: Woodrats in Key Largo, FL). Also domestic cats that are fed/housed in an area live in higher densities than undomesticated wild cats, so the predation pressure around these areas is inflated, too (case study: Domestic cats and their wild counterparts in Cape Town, SA).
Yes, it hurts, when some local non profits offer to trap cats from condos and built up areas, neuter them, and then release them into wild areas, so they don’t bother the humans that were complaining about the cats and instead feast on our wildlife.
TNR doesn’t remove the nuisance predator. The birds aren’t checking the cats for nuts and ovaries before being mauled to death for sport. DoE data sheets in CNS library.
Yes it hurts. The amount of time and effort needed to trap a cat is much more than you’d think. To go to that effort and then release a cat with no owner back into the wild where it can continue to hunt native wildlife makes no sense. Animals without owners responsible for their movements have no place in the wild. And certainly not in our tiny island ecosystem with no other top predators or even winter to reduce the wild populations.
Cats are incredible creatures but their mismanagement can no longer be ignored. If control efforts were not impeded by HS years ago we’d be in a slightly less crucial state. But as usual, the bleeding hearts refuse to open their eyes and admit the predators have gotten out of control and must be removed. I hope my grand kids get to see the boobies on the bluff. That fills my heart with just as much joy as my indoor cats.
Your grandkids, 11:17, wont give a rats ass about boobies on the bluff if they are typical of todays young people staring at their phones.
rude.
“Don’t do anything to save the native birds and lizards because nowadays kids love their phones more.” just another cat lover who can’t provide any rational reasonable logical REALISTIC solution to save the native wildlife so they resort to a ridiculous reply or insult. #Killtheinvasivepredator
We have evidence of Kitty’s guilt but what about our own by clearing and destroying the environment and making roads to access to these areas we are paving the road to our own destruction and thereby endangering the same species we claim we want to save. STOP Destroying the Environment WAYNE Panton!
excellent deflection from a felinephile.
Can we refer to it as Trap Neuter Abandon?
Let’s call it what it is.
“we must make hard decisions in order to protect our threatened, endemic species”
Stop building everywhere, for example
Let’s start by returning your property to it’s natural state.
Exactly! Concentrating on a few cats while concreting over the entire island.
yes ban those damn leaf blowers
In Greece, their famous islands attract tourists with their cats, that are integral part of the scenery. In Rome even the Colosseum hosts legions of free cats, that locals and tourists love and respect. Key West still has the descendants of Hemingway’s cats. And here, the local turtle-eating population wants to cull everything that moves. It’s ignorance, and unfortunately it can’t be treated.
CNS: In Europe and the Americas, predatory mammals and their prey evolved together over millions of years so that birds and lizards developed defence mechanisms and can therefore withstand feral cat populations. For example, birds tend to nest in trees and not on the ground, like the boobies. Here in the Cayman Islands, the only native mammals aside from bats were hutias, which ate mostly bark, leaves and fruit. They went extinct after agoutis, also herbivores, were introduced to the islands by humans in the 1600s.
This is why the bird, lizard and iguana populations can be wiped out by invasive predators – because they have not evolved to protect themselves. The green iguanas quickly multiplied because they evolved in South America, where they were hunted and thus learned to climb trees.
Ignorance and all that…
Do we look like Greece?
It pays to consider that not every environment can tolerate the same type of fauna, especially when only recently introduced (ie within the last few 100 years).
Every environment should be considered on its own individual circumstances.
In Rome at one point the cats disappeared around the Colosseum (2010’s).
That was after a period of pigeon control dramatically reduced the numbers of birds with traps and poison.
But never fear cats being cats they reproduced their way back to prominence.
Which is why we need restrictions on the Sister Island such as at the very least all pets and feral cats if not culled being fixed so they can’t breed. Otherwise, we end up back here in a few years…
whatever approach the CIHS has taken has obviously not worked. They are not any further ahead controlling stray dogs or cats than they were 20 years ago. Premier seems to be right here.
If it wasn’t for the ignorance of many people on this island the Humane Society wouldn’t even be full. People go out and buy and breed and badly care for their pets. When they get sick they let them suffer till they die or go crying to the animal charities cause they have no money to get them better. The dog or cat ends up in the shelter and they just go get another and the cycle starts again! Trust me I work at a vet clinic and I know. Did you know how many times I’ve heard a parent say “ Oh it’s my kids dog and she wants to see her have puppies “ that’s one of the reasons we are overwhelmed with unwanted animals!
Voting him out.
Nah. He won’t be Premier but he’ll be re-elected in Newlands. Heard it here first.
Can we have Alva back please ?
Don’t give any points to PR applicants who support CIHS and revoke the organization’s charitable license.
#Caymankind
Lol someone who has never had power or control before wanting to wield it in the worst possible way.
Yeah like protecting endangered native species you fuzzy foreigner.
To 9:30 am
What I would like to know is how we benefit from saving the iguanas and the the brown booby birds. The feral cats help to get rid of the rats which can cause diseases. Government wasting all of their time trying to please these foreigners but continue to turn a blind eye when developers destroy our mangroves which protect us.
If you have to ask, you’ll never know.
Apparently dog walking doesn’t count towards community hours already.
then who will take all the animals you e abused or abandoned?
Cull the feral Chickens. Those screeching pests are worse than a rat infestation.
And a huge threat to all humans when the avian flu comes to the island.
A well informed response. Thank you Mr Panton, for cutting through the sensationalism and shining some light on the purpose behind these regulations, which is to protect our native wildlife from invasive predators.
PACT theme song for the upcoming election sorted.
https://youtu.be/clsi6xghCYc
First time he’s been right about anything since taking office.
Next up – Ban Leaf Blowers!
Ps. Don’t forget about the damn dump Wayne. It wants fixing post haste.