Distasteful

As some of you may be aware, my neighborhood has become host to a litter of feral kittens. Sure, they are cute, but they are also a symptom of an increasing problem. Domestic cats that have not been fixed do on occasion procreate, and unfortunately there are not homes enough for these misbegotten fluff balls. Many of them end up in the hills living a precarious existence off of whatever they might find. There is the chance that instinct might give them what they need to survive, but coming from domestic stock, how much practical experience do they have? I don't know enough about how this really works. I do know that feral animals frequently make do by feeding off the scraps of humanity. In this case, by crowding Chance (my cat) out of his food bowl. Once I first saw the kittens (the misfortunate get of the ugliest cat in the neighborhood and the tom that picks fights with Chance) I chose to let nature deal with them. It seemed a better choice to me than to capture them and send them off to a crowded shelter where they would likely sit with hundreds of others waiting for the same cruel fate of either being ignored or put down. In the natural world I figured they would either find that the world around them would support them or they would not. It was a hard choice for me, but I had determined that I was in no shape, ideologically or financially, to support four more cats, in addition to the one I already care for. I am not a cat person. With the exception of mine, I do not like them. Nor, as chance would have it, do I like burying them. I found two of the kittens dead this morning when I went out to feed Chance. Taking a shovel out behind the barn I began to dig a resting place for them. The burial also required a trip to the shop for a pick, and yet another trip back for a breaking bar. Cinnabar clay is persistent stuff. I dug as deep as I was able without doing myself harm, then filled the hole and rolled a wooden cable spool over it to keep the rest of the wild world away. Digging gave me time to think about the law of unintended consequence. I had made a choice to do nothing about these kittens and to let the hills kill them, perhaps to relieve my own squeamishness. It hadn't occurred to me that I would have to face up to it in such a way. As I shoveled I had time to think that this was entirely my fault. I could have fed them. I could have taken them in somehow. The original decision to let the hills deal with them did exactly that, yet I found it easier to be harsh before I had to deal with the results of my (in)actions. The work has already been done.

I would ask any who have not already done so to spay or neuter their pets. For all of its barbarity, it is a far kinder thing we can do than to let their young starve, sicken, and die.