Group Drops Proposal for Feral Cat Hunt

A month after Gov. James Doyle said a plan to allow hunters to shoot stray cats was making Wisconsin a laughingstock, the public advisory group that raised the issue decided Friday to let it die.

“There is no need to push it any further,” Steve Oestreicher, chairman of Wisconsin Conservation Congress, said of a proposal to allow licensed hunters to shoot feral cats that kill wildlife.

The proposal ignited a firestorm among animal rights groups that called it inhumane and dangerous -- and raised the specter that hunters would shoot cats that had only wandered from their homes.

Still, 57% of those attending the Conservation Congress’ meetings in all 72 counties last month favored the idea, which supporters said would let people deal with nuisance stray cats.

Members of the Conservation Congress advise the state Natural Resources Board and the Department of Natural Resources.

Delegates at the group’s convention in Manitowoc voted Friday to recommend the cat measure to the Natural Resources Board, but the group’s executive committee decided against it. For the proposal to become law, it would need legislative approval and the signature of Doyle, a Democrat.

“The governor has indicated he would never sign a bill,” Oestreicher said. “It’s time to let it go.”

The La Crosse firefighter who proposed the idea, Mark Smith, said that the advisory group had caved in to animal rights activists. But he said he wouldn’t pursue the issue.

“I think it is wrong that these activists hold such power,” he said in a telephone interview.

“It is not about animal cruelty; it is about individual landowner rights,” he added.