Um, no. The medical definition is a tad stricter than the common definition:
Rabies isn’t transmitted by by photons or air, so seeing or being in the presence of a rabid animal doesn’t qualify as exposure. The people in question came into direct contact with those cats and/or their virus-laden saliva.
Toxo can infect most warm-blooded animals (chronically or fatally), but felines are what parasitologists call the organism’s definitive hosts - the only hosts in which the organism can complete its life cycle and shed infective cysts. Non-felines don’t spread toxo except by becoming prey, but minimal risk to humans from infected wildlife doesn’t mean there aren’t serious consequences to allowing domestic cats to contaminate wildlife habitat with toxo cysts. TNR feeding stations attract raccoons, rodents, and other opportunistic scavengers and put them at higher risk for contracting toxo, but even wildlife that lives far from human development isn’t safe.
"Yes, the parasite-infested stray dog I’ve been feeding likes to shit in your vegetable garden and flower beds, but it’s okay - just wear gloves when you pick up after him and wash up afterwards. 
"
Where do you suppose meat animals get toxo? From cysts shed by free-roaming cats infected by eating prey infected by eating cysts shed by other infected cats (and so on).
There’s far more native wildlife in cities already than you realize, but there could be more. Did it occur to you that many native species would be more common in cities if not for cat predation? And doesn’t your implication that “managed” feral cats don’t hunt undermine the common TNR argument that they’re doing us a service by preying on “vermin”?
Citing the delusional and blithely self-contradictory Peter J. Wolf as an authority on wildlife impacts of feral cats hurts your argument. Of course, you could do the math yourself using a comfortably conservative estimate for population and a kill rate that’s only possible for cats with access to a regular supply of non-living food:
- 50 million feral cats x 3 kills/week = 7.8 billion dead animals/year
Horrifying, isn’t it? Let’s assume that the cats have more food and are killing mainly for entertainment:
- 50 million feral cats x 1 kill/week = 2.6 billion dead animals/year
Still awful! Let’s try a predation rate documented for well-fed pet cats hunting only for entertainment:
- 50 million feral cats x 32 kills/year = 1.6 billion dead animals/year
Still deplorable, but I don’t expect you to care. Hard-core feral advocates ignore this simple math or rationalize it away, because their obsession blinds them to the suffering and death of billions of other animals.
[quote=“SatinSatan, post:56, topic:14916”]
Re: mythical sanctuary ie beautiful gardens with free roaming cats with heated shelters and hundreds of full time volunteers and 24 hour medical care.[/quote]
Yeah, there aren’t enough of those, and even one mismanaged sanctuary is one too many. But whose fault is that? You’re the one who values cats above everything else, so you should be leading the efforts to develop alternatives that are more humane, effective, and socially acceptable than TNR. I don’t expect that to happen, though. IANAMHP, but it seems clear that volunteering with adoption and education programs or permanent sanctuaries doesn’t satisfy certain emotional cravings as well as doing TNR.
Seriously??
I’m really not trying to convince you of anything, SatinSatan. I understand that you’ve decided what you want to believe and that nothing I say will make any difference to you. I’m just offering an evidence-based alternative to the usual TNR propaganda. Now it’s time for me to step away from the keyboard - Lucky Wilbury, my current rescue cat, is overdue for a hug and a warm lap to sit in.
