In November of 2006, James M. Stevenson loaded his .22 caliber rifle and went in pursuit of a trespasser on his property. The trespasser? An orange and white, possibly feral tabby cat. He currently stands trial, accused of animal cruelty.
With only the basic information, it would be easy to condemn Mr. Stevenson as an animal abuser. However, Mr. Stevenson and his lawyer, Tad Nelson mounted a persuasive argument at the opening remarks of his trial yesterday. Mr. Stevenson does not deny the premeditation of his assault on the cat. Instead, he submits that the cat in question was stalking piping plovers, an endangered shore bird that is native to the area. Mr. Stevenson has been a lifelong bird lover and currently leads bird-watching tours around Galveston, an island off of the Gulf Coast of Texas. He is also the founder of the Galveston Ornithological Society and the operator of a popular bed and breakfast that caters to bird-watching tourists.
His case – and more importantly, his defense strategy – highlights an historic struggle among animal activisits: although often grouped under the same umbrella, animal rights activists and wildlife conservationists are usually at odds with each other. Nowhere is this truer than in the battle between the rights of domestic cats and their wild prey. Domestic cats kill millions of birds per year. While 30% of pet cats are kept indoors all of the time, 70% are free to roam at least part of the time. Additionally, there are an estimated 100 million feral cats in the United States alone. Nationwide, birds make up only 30% of domestic cat victims (small mammals such as mice, voles and chipmunks make up 60% and reptiles and amphibians make up the remaining 10%), although island bird populations like the piping plover make up a far greater percentage of cat prey.
Many islands lost their native mammal populations thousands of years ago and so contemporary island bird species evolved without any defense mechanisms against mammalian predators. The piping plover nests on sandy shoreline, making its eggs vulnerable to raids. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology lists people and domestic animals as the first two threats to the species’ survival. From this perspective, domestic cats can be seen as an invasive species: a disruptive, introduced menace just like the silver carp, zebra mussel or Japanese beetle. While no one bats an eye at the eradication and culling of zebra mussels, cats are another story.
Animal rights activists argue their cause by characterizing the domestic cat as a being with feelings and rights. Indeed, the prosecution in Mr. Stevenson’s case largely relies on anthropomorphic rhetoric: suggesting that the cat felt pain at its death, assigning it a name to garner sympathy among the jurors and characterizing Mr. Stevenson’s action as “in cold blood.”
The outcome of this case will be important for the future of animal rights-conservation relations. When asked by New York Times reporter Kate Murphy about his actions, Mr. Stevenson expressed dismay at cat fanciers’ inability to ascribe the same rights to wild birds as they do to cats. He said “This is about wild species disappearing from your planet. I did what I had to do.”
