22 September 2009

HELP STOP CAT KILLING!

A rogue county agency, LA County Vector Control, is rounding up and killing feral and stray cats as a defense against “terrorist threats” and wildly unproven theories of threats to humans health. Next they will move on to cities, as in the past with Santa Monica.

An email received by me: The L. A. County Public Health, spearheaded by Joe Ramirez, Environmental Health Specialist,  phone (626) 430-5468, has contracted the L. A. County Carson Animal Shelter to trap and euthanize all feral and stray cats within the park area and wherever there is ‘human interaction’.  I spoke with him on two occasions trying to negotiate allowing rescue groups to handle a relocation and adoption effort.  

But he is against relocation of any sort unless in a cat sanctuary or adoption.  He feels that feral/stray cats have become a National Security problem because of the ‘potential’ of spreading deadly diseases, plagues, and biohazards.  His mission is to go from park to park or wherever there are strays and ferals and euthanize them. He told me that Carson said they would euthanize the cats right away. It is a death sentence for all the feral and stray cats in L.A. County and then maybe elsewhere.

This is me, Ed Muzika: Joe Ramirez and his boss Gail Van Gordon are kill crazy and feel they are on a mission from God to cleanse the world or urban wildlife and feral cats when there is, in their minds, even the slightest potential for disease spread to humans. Ramirez bragged to me that the reason there has been no human plague in Los Angeles County is because they so thoroughly monitor and kill ground squirrels throughout the County. They don't even pretend to present reasonable arguments to support the medical/scientific necessity of their killing.

Ramirez told me in the past he wanted to kill feral cats because they can spread pneumonic vs. bubonic plague. Vector Control has been looking for an excuse to kill ferals for years, and now their excuse is terrorism! Over the year Ramirez has spoken to any number of groups about the need to trap and destroy cats. There most recent “reason” to trap is suspicion of Typhoid in the cats. Every month Ramirez has a different excuse or reason to trap and kill cats throughout the County.

Trapping has already begun at Del Aire Park and Imperial School in Hawthorne where a notice has been posted, that cats will be trapped and taken to the Carson shelter where they will be “adopted” out.  Next in line for trapping is PECK PARK and THE HARBOR UCLA MEDICAL CENTERThat County will adopt them is a complete lie. Feral cats are not adoptable. The County kills them after a 3 day hold. In fact, LA County has a kill rate of almost 90% for all cats impounded, whether feral, tame or kittens.

Phone Numbers of People to Call:

MOST IMPORTANT: Jonathan Fielding: Head of County Health,
jfielding@ladhs.org, jfieldin@ucla.edu; Phone: County Health: Direct Line-(213) 240-8117; UCLA: (310) 206-1141

Joe Ramirez, (626) 430-5468—In Charge of Cat Killing

Ramirez’s Boss:  Gail Vangordon:  gvangordon@ladhs.org
            Phone (626) 430-5450. She considers scientific evidence from outsiders laughable.

MOST IMPORTANT: The Supervisors: These are the decision makers:

Gloria Molina: Phone (213) 974-4111

 

Zev Yaroslavsky: Phone (213) 974-3333 

Michael Antonovich: Phone: (213) 974-5555

Mark Ridley-Thomas: Phone (213) 974-2222

Don Knabe: Phone: 213-974-4444


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2 comments:

  1. Ed are there no local organizations that vaccinate/neuter ferals that could be used instead of killing the cats? If so anyway to support them from afar?

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  2. I tried to make it clear. The County wants the cats dead, all the cats all over the County. They have just begun. This is a test case. They want to see if they can get away with it. They refuse to work with groups on a TNR policy.

    The only thing to do is call these people and stop them, especially Dr. Fielding and supervisor Ridley Thomas. I have dealt with these people before. They have order city after city for many years to kill untold thousands of California Ground Squirrels because, someday, they might cause a human bubonic plague threat--this despite official state of California policy of using flea bait stations to control the fleas that carry plague, and only if plague is found in the squirrels, rather than kill the squirrels as Fielding, VanGordon and Ramirez demand.

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