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Cat lovers outraged over a proposal to hunt stray cats in the state have left death threats for a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher and the La Crosse man who came up with the idea.

A cat fight figuratively broke out following the announcement that people will decide at next month's Conservation Congress spring meetings whether hunters should be allowed to shoot stray felines in Wisconsin.

"You cat-murdering bastard," said one caller to Professor Stanley Temple, whose 1996 study estimated cats kill millions of birds each year. "What goes around, comes around. I declare Stanley Temple season open."

At issue is whether stray and feral cats are cold-blooded killers or purring bundles of fur.

Mark Smith, a 48-year-old firefighter in La Crosse, thinks they're assassins with tails.

"I get up in the morning, and if there's new snow, there's cat tracks under my bird feeder . . . I look at them as an invasive species, plain and simple," Smith told the Wisconsin State Journal.

When Smith organized the Conservation Congress ballot question, he cited Temple's research that estimated outdoor cats in Wisconsin kill 7.8 million to 219 million birds each year. Smith, who couldn't be reached for comment Thursday, wants the state to reclassify stray and feral cats as an unprotected species, arguing that they're no different than invasive species.

Under the proposal Question No. 62 on the Conservation Congress agenda the state should define free-roaming feral domestic cats as any domestic type cat that isn't under the owner's direct control or doesn't have a collar.

Smith's proposal was approved last year by the La Crosse County branch of the Conservation Congress, and the group decided to put the issue on the ballot at the April 11 spring meetings in all 72 counties.

That set off a flurry of activity by folks who love cats and don't want them shot. And it prompted some to send nasty e-mails and leave catty messages for Temple.

Smith has gotten telephone calls at home and at work and at least two death threats. In fact, another Mark Smith who lives in La Crosse has changed his answering machine message to clue in callers that he's not "the Mark Smith who is a cat killer."

"It's quite amazing. I had no idea there were that many irrational, hysterical people out there," Temple said Thursday. "Some of them, I can't think of another word, but they're hateful."

Temple is not taking sides in the debate over whether cats should be hunted in Wisconsin.

And even if a majority of those who turn out for the annual spring Conservation Congress hearings vote yes, it's only an advisory referendum. The Legislature would have to pass a measure allowing cats to be hunted, and animal abuse laws might have to be changed. The Conservation Congress is a five-person group that advises the Department of Natural Resources.

Still, the proposal has raised the dander of people such as Ted O'Donnell, who created dontshootthecat.com and is trying to organize groups in each county to attend the Conservation Congress meetings and vote against the proposal.

"What drives me crazy is that somehow these birds are sacred. If the cat doesn't get it, the fox would," said O'Donnell, co-owner of Mad Cat Pet Supplies in Madison. He has two cats, Putty Cat and Karl Manx. "This is nature, circle of life. Get over it."

O'Donnell wonders what happens if indoor cats somehow get outside would they be fair game? And he criticizes owners who can't take care of their cats and abandon them in the country where they procreate and proliferate.

"Nobody likes feral cats," he said. "I'm not trying to romanticize feral cats. I just don't want them to be demonized."

# posted by Medical Information : 5:49 AM