Comic Will Criticize Wisconsin Push for Cat Killings

By: Dave Astor Proposed legislation in Wisconsin to kill feral cats will be criticized in a "Cats With Hands" story line the week of May 23.

In one of his comics, Wisconsin-based cartoonist Joe Martin of Tribune Media Services shows a state-government meeting of mice. One mouse says: "Congratulations are in order, boys. ... First we made it the cheese state and now our dream of legally shooting cats will soon become a reality!"

Martin told E&P that the possibility of the cat shootings is "insanity."

The matter was also addressed in a column this week by Georgie Anne Geyer of Universal Press Syndicate. She wrote: "It may be, as Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle has said, that the state will not pass proposed legislation making it legal to shoot cats. But that will never hide the degree to which this shameful episode has revealed the cruel underside of too many 'humans' in America."

She added: "What will happen if such legislation -- now encouraged by votes across the state at county levels -- comes to pass? I'll tell you what will happen: Cats will be half-killed and left to die or suffer indefinitely. Beloved house cats who happen to get out of their houses will be shot. Undisciplined or cruel children will torture animals and even skin them, assured they are protected by the law."

And Geyer concluded: "The great anthropologist Margaret Mead said she rated the level of civilization of societies by the way their men treated their women. Today we can rate that by the manner in which we treat the vulnerable animals God put in our midst to nurture and protect."