Feral Cats Are Not An Invasive Species

Cats are living, thinking creatures of nature who have lived all over the world for millions of years. I will continue to feed them.

I too have lived all over the world. One thing I immediately notice about any city I travel to is the stray cat situation. Some cities are teeming with cats, on the street and in the parks, slinking along the tops of walls, visiting their favorite cafes for scraps and scratches, standing sentry on terraces and sheds. The people in those cities are kind to their stray cats. They leave food out for them, call them by familiar names, invite them inside to sit by the wood stove, and generally regard them as beloved co-inhabitants of the city. Cities like this where I’ve lived include Athens (Greece), Casablanca (Morocco), Puerto Vallarta (Mexico), and Bangkok (Thailand); and I’ve noticed the same phenomenon when traveling around those countries as well as Italy and Egypt. There doesn’t appear to be any effort whatsoever to round these stray cats up, stick them in the pound, and euthanize them; which is the program in every United States city I’ve lived in. In Athens, I did encounter significant noise online demanding that people stop feeding the cats, but every single incidence I encountered was some expat from the North trying to enlighten the locals about the…