You are stupid wrote:
Cats kill billions of other animals a year in the U.S. alone,
plus they spread diseases and make many humans sick from their filth.
Their filth runs down people's immune systems and is a factor in people getting aids.
Your cat is not your cat when it's running around wild. It's a wild feral cat that you feed, that stalks the neighborhood destroying other people's property and kills other animals.
With respect, I don't understand your rationale on this. I live in an MSA of 450,000 people. I live in a suburb, but it is next to a University of 45,000 people. I live about .5 miles away from a main entrance to the Univ. It is not a heavily urban place. We have possums, mice, raccoons, woodchucks, rabbits, foxes, skunks in our yards all the time.
I know because I have LIVE-trapped a woodchuck several times. When I did, I took it out to a NATURAL AREA with features that are highly prized by woodchucks (Woods, river and forest). When I LIVE-trapped the woodchuck about 9 out of 10 times I trapped a different animal (usually a raccoon, but all of those on the list) many times before LIVE-trapping the woodchuck.
Without exception, EVERY SINGLE TIME I let the non-woodchuck animal go. Sometimes they were very vicious, sometimes they were not. Possums get very scared and raccoons get really panicky and fight, and sometimes they just slink slowly away. I think they fear the sun more than anything.
Anyway, NEVER did I feel that I needed to shoot any of these animals in the head. They never created any problem or threatened me, in any way. I lived with the woodchucks for 10 years and they just started ruining the lawn with their tunneling. So they had to go to a new place.
All of these animals poop outside. So far I have been successful in avoiding eating ANY of their poop and I have lived here my whole life. I have never gotten sick from a wild animal or a cat, domestic or feral, because I don't lick them or eat their poop.
You should try this.
I don't think anyone should shoot an animal unless there is a safety problem with the animal. I have never felt threatened by possums, raccoons, woodchucks or little cats. They are usually very scared of me and they run and hide and want no part of interacting with you.
But that is me, and I am quite a man.