Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 12:36 am

Setting the Record Straight:
Anti-Cruelty Laws Protect All Cats

On November 12th, the founder of the Galveston Ornithological Society will go on trial for felony cruelty for intentionally shooting and killing a cat with a .22-caliber rifle. The Houston Chronicle reported that he claims "feral cats are not protected by the law." The Wall Street Journal reported that he admits he killed the cat, but that the law "would permit radical measures in defense of a piping plover," an endangered species of bird that winters in Galveston.

Whether or not he’s guilty is for a Texas jury to decide. The trouble is, in the national media’s coverage of the case, little effort has been made to report on what the law really is. Let’s set the record straight: Intentionally killing a cat is a criminal offense in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Anti-cruelty laws apply to all cats—pet, abandoned, lost, and feral—and there is no such thing as a “piping plover defense.”
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