Your parents were far more enlightened about cat population management than the farm and ranch people I grew up around in Texas (which I realize is damning with faint praise). The barn cats I met as a kid seldom (if ever) got fed, and if they got too numerous the farmer/rancher would stuff whole litters of kittens into sacks and drown them (sometimes the mother, too). I’ll never forget finding a mother cat crying as she tried to dig up the shallow grave where the farmer had buried her kittens. Of course, these folks were also killing off any and all native predators that might have helped to keep a lid on the cat and/or rodent populations.
