When I was little I was given a small but sweet natured quail by my mother as a pet. It lived in her aviary in the garden with her canaries and budgies and would come and lay near the edge of the fence to see me while I spent many hours as a child chatting to him as he appeared to listen. One day instead of me next to the fence where my lovely pet lay it was the neighbours cat, which then proceeded to stick its claws through the wires and break the wing of my little bird who was so traumatised he died a few days later in great pain.
This event was just the start for me of what can only be described as a daily war with the onslaught of pet cats who terrorise neighbourhoods. My mother’s aviary was stalked daily by cats and my parents had to go to the expense if fitting a second layer of wire so that no more birds were injured. Over the years I have lived at several addresses but it is the same everywhere, I have had my car dirtied with paw prints and scratched. I have had my lawn dug up, my herb garden dug up, my potatoes dug up. I have had the fish in my pond hunted, captured and eaten by cats, the birds at my bird table hunted and injured, have witnessed baby birds caught and eaten and had dead mice and voles spread all over my driveway. I walked outside once to count 9 little bodies spread all over my drive rotting and bloody. On top of this every area imaginable has been covered with cat faeces, from my lawn to my path to my herbs which are inedible for the most part because of it.
My complaint is that how much more of this do people like me have to suffer at the hands of others pets before something is done and laws are changed. Foxes are shot for less, so why can pet cats get away with this level of destruction to the wildlife and peoples private gardens. The mess has caused me a lot of heartache and cost a good deal of money over the years. This misery needs to stop!