[Vision2020] UI Campus Cats

Sat Sep 17 11:17:48 PDT 2016

Visionaries:

I'm sharing - with gratitude -- a letter to the editor from Elizabeth Sloan
that appeared in yesterday's (2016-09-16) Arg.  

 <https://www.uiargonaut.com/2016/09/16/mailbox-catastrophe/>
https://www.uiargonaut.com/2016/09/16/mailbox-catastrophe/

Cats are being killed on Moscow's University of Idaho campus. According to
an article in the Idaho Statesman: "Two state agencies say the University of
Idaho failed to seek approval for a program that trapped and euthanized
feral cats on campus."

In a UI Argonaut article, Veterinarian Autenried said that the cats are
trapped because they are wild, sick, "completely feral," and unmanageable.
"The captured cats were a mixture of kittens and adults."

Feral: ferocious, vicious, savage.  Savage kittens, then.

Autenried claims he "gives each cat a check-up." After which they are
gassed, lethally injected and incinerated. 

"I am a veterinarian, and I can tell a pet cat from a feral cat without a
long evaluation." 

That does not mean merely visual. That does not mean, "I spy with my little
eye a cat in a trap who needs to die."

I see a grand irony worth mentioning. Cats are being killed on a college
campus that has adopted the book "Soul of an Octopus" as their common read
this academic year. The author, Sy Montgomery, will be on our cat-killing
campus on Oct. 3. Montgomery talks about learning humility, compassion and
empathy from getting to know and understand these marvelous creatures named
octopus.  Accepting the challenges and differences between species is
something that can only benefit and enrich the lives of our university
students. Killing animals with no accountability is not the lesson I want my
students to learn.

I have a Richard Feynman quote posted for my students on our BbLearn site: 

"I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be
questioned." 

There are legitimate questions to be asked, from both sides of this issue.
But trapping and killing cats on a college campus as an answer is indeed
something that needs to be questioned.

- Elizabeth Sloan

I have been dismayed by some of the ignorant and biased comments I've heard
about the UI's atrocious recent handling of campus cats.  One can be against
free-roaming cats - as am I - without hating cats and wanting to kill them
all, a fact that seems to have escaped a vocal few.  You'll find no one more
distressed by bird  tragedies in their environments than am I, whether those
tragedies are from free-roaming cats, raptors, scavengers, dogs, coyotes,
reptiles, or whatever, yet I'm not out advocating for the ability to kill
everything that offends me.  And to advocate killing free-roaming cats to
"save the birds" (BTW, I've spent a lot of time & money over the years
making my yard bird friendly) while remaining mum and doing nothing
productive about habitat destruction, window collisions (responsible for
killing about a billion birds in the US each year), pesticides, and all the
other causes/contributors to bird fatalities is silly and short-sighted.

I also heard there was an article in the Daily News earlier this week about
the UI's failure to comply with Idaho Public Records Law with respect to
providing access to the records pertaining to the trapping, gassing, and
subsequent euthanasia of the campus cats.  Unfortunately, we were down to
one car this past week and I was unable to pick up the paper to read the
details.  However, while I'm disappointed in the UI's failure to comply, I'm
glad to know I'm in good company because I received no response whatsoever
to my email to the UI, which I'm also including below.  As some may
remember, Rose Huskey and I have run into the UI's obstruction with respect
to accessing public records more than a few times in recent years, which has
been a marked change over earlier times when we found the UI nothing but
cooperative when we wanted to examine public records in accordance with
Idaho Public Records Law.

It goes without saying I continue to remain disappointed by the lack of
transparency at the UI, and I'm thoroughly disgusted that it continues to
hold itself above the law by failing to comply with public records law.

For those interested, please scroll below my sig to read my email to the UI
which has been ignored.  Please keep in mind that I sent my email prior to
the subsequent revelations that the UI did not, in fact, secure the
appropriate permission as required by law to trap cats.  By all reports thus
far, Dr. Autenried seems to have been mistaken - at best -- in his earlier
claims to the contrary.  Yet another black eye for the UI.

Saundra Lund

Moscow, ID

The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather,
"Can they suffer?"

~ Jeremy Bentham

From: Saundra Lund
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2016 4:30 PM
To: 'campusvet at uidaho.edu' <campusvet at uidaho.edu>
Cc: 'chuckstaben at uidaho.edu' <chuckstaben at uidaho.edu>; 'aharner at uidaho.edu'
<aharner at uidaho.edu>
Subject: Accountability

Dr. Autenried:

I suspect today isn't a good day for you, and I'm not going to make it any
better.

To be clear:  as taxpayer, a University of Idaho graduate, and the wife of a
28-year UI faculty member who would be resigning today if not for his
contract and dedication to his students, I cannot tell you how extremely
disappointed and angry I am by the revelations in today's newspaper.

The question about how best to manage feral cats is a complicated one with
strong opinions on all sides, to be sure.  And, to be as charitable as
possible, I'm willing to grant that someone such as yourself --whose
expertise is the use and care of research animals -- is ill-equipped and
clearly unqualified to determine feral cat management policy.

Intelligent people with strong ethics don't hesitate to admit the
limitations of their expertise, and your failure to do so in this instance
certainly didn't serve the UI well. 

The questions I'm asking are not rhetorical:  I expect answers.  I find it
disturbing the UI apparently refused to give a clear-cut answer as to
whether the handling of this "single family sick feral cats" is something
that was an unacceptable and regrettable one-off or a continuation of
existing campus policy.  So, consider that my first set of questions:  what
exactly is the UI policy regarding trapping cats on campus, when was it put
into place, exactly how many cats have been trapped at the UI during the
last five years, and what has been the disposition of all cats trapped at
the UI during the past five years?

Also, what are the specifics of the trapping program?  Who is responsible
for setting the traps, and what training did they receive to ensure that
they were qualified to humanely trap cats?  What is the policy about
checking the traps, and what is the process followed when a cat is found in
a trap?  What is the policy that ensures trapped cats aren't subjected to
dangerous and inhumane deprivation of food and water, are protected from
temperature/weather extremes while trapped, etc.?

Next, let me make this very clear:  if you think your flowery language to
describe your self-built gas chamber fooled anyone with connected brain
cells, you are sadly mistaken.  I find it appalling that no one involved had
the sense God gave billy goats to recognize how horribly inappropriate your
scheme was.  There are many good reasons the practice by organizations of
using gas chambers to dispose of unwanted non-research animals has been
outlawed in much of the nation.  That it hasn't yet been outlawed in Idaho
doesn't change the fact that just because you can do something, that doesn't
make it ethically, morally, rationally, or logically right to do it.  And,
the cats you gassed weren't research animals.

A quick look at the research euthanasia policies of several other higher
education institutions indicate that when gas chambers are used for
non-rodent research animals, they are to be commercially produced "proven"
chambers, not jury-rigged devices.  I find it unconscionable a jury-rigged
gas chamber was allowed to be used on cats - research subjects or not -- at
the UI.

What is your specific training that qualifies you to design and build a gas
chamber to suffocate cats specifically to unconsciousness?  What is the gas
displacement rate of your self-built gas chamber?  What are the specifics of
your design and testing protocols prior to your use of gas chamber on the
cats and kittens?  What carbon dioxide flow rate did you use, and what
instruments did you use to ensure appropriate concentration to guarantee the
administration was as humane as possible?  What carbon dioxide concentration
did you use?  What's the source of the carbon dioxide used to gas the cats
and kittens (i.e., did you use CO2 that was funded for use on research
animals for non-research animals)?  Did you gas the cats individually or in
groups?  What euthanasia method was subsequently used? 

Given your background, I'm also frankly disturbed to learn you fancy
yourself some kind of feline expert qualified to determine whether an
understandably stressed trapped cat is feral or just plain traumatized by
being trapped and handled by unknown people.  Those experienced with cats
know it takes time to determine whether a trapped cat is feral, stray, or
lost.  Please do tell me over what time frame you observed the cats after
you trapped them to make the determination, and how were they housed in the
time between trapping and gassing?  Specifically, what modern (I know you
graduated from vet med school decades ago) and specialized training have you
received to qualify you to make that determination about non-research cats?

I fear I already know the answer to my next question, but did you scan for
microchips the cats you trapped before killing them?  If you didn't, then
how can you state with authority that the cats you trapped were feral rather
than stray or lost?  The nightmarish fact of the matter is that you can't,
no matter how much you spin, back-pedal, and try to convince anyone
otherwise.

Perhaps there is no better evidence of your lack of qualification to
"handle" the problem than your hubris in fancying yourself qualified to
build a gas chamber for cats and your stunning failure to even reach out to
HSOP -- or to any other organization -- with legitimate expertise in
humanely dealing with cat management. Reaching out to IDFG while not
contacting HSOP to request assistance is inexplicable and inexcusable.

I think it fair say both tell this community a heck of a lot about not only
the sad mindset of those calling the shots, but also about the obviously
deficient critical thinking and problem-solving skills of all involved with
this horrifying debacle.  This whole thing points to an incredibly
disturbing institutional failure.  I expect better - much better -- from the
UI.

There's another aspect of this "incident" I find very troubling:  I can't
help but notice that the Office of Research Assurances - which is where I
found your contact information -- is located in Morrill Hall, which
reportedly was the location of this "single family of sick cats" discovered
in the spring.

Is that where your office is located?  Whether it is or not,  why didn't you
- as a veterinarian - get involved in a non-lethal way?  What positive
steps, prior to trapping and killing, did you take to address the "single
family of sick cats?"  And, once you made the decision to trap, why on earth
didn't you make any non-lethal plan whatsoever about what to do with the
cats you set out to trap?

That glaring absence of a plan certainly seems to indicate that a decision
had been made in advance to simply kill everything you caught without
consideration of the health, condition, temperament, feral/stray/lost status
of the trapped cats, doesn't it?

Otherwise, you'd have had contingency plans for what to do with any healthy
and/or friendly cat or kitten that was - however inadvertently -- trapped.
And, without prior contact with the HSOP, you clearly didn't have any
alternative plan, did you?

And without a reasonable and thoughtful humane plan for what to do with any
"health" feral, stray, or lost cats you trapped, why on earth should anyone
with connected brain cells believe a word you say about the state/condition
of the kittens and cats you trapped and killed?

The answer is this:  no reasonable or thoughtful person should.

In case I've not made myself perfectly clear, I find the UI's handling of
this situation - and your role in it - utterly repugnant and completely
unacceptable.

Again, I do expect answers to my questions, and I expect that those answers
be timely.

A Thoroughly DISGUSTED UI Alum,

Saundra Lund

1220 Highland Dr.

Moscow, ID  83843

(208) 882-2150

The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak out for
themselves.

~ Jane Goodall

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