News broke recently that stray cats, birds and a dog have been found in gravely sick condition at a local condominium estate. Most likely from eating poisoned cat food deliberately left around the estate. [ST link]

What the online ST article didn’t include were quotes from the residents interviewed, one of whom suggested that the culprit acted out of anger at having his car hood scratched by the strays. Cats like to lie on car hoods at night as the engines leave the surface warm; the people assume that they scratch the paintwork in the process.

It makes me sick to the stomach to think that people find damage to car paint adequate justification for deliberately killing small animals with poison. What is more repulsive is that this person has laced cat food and deliberately left it in areas where strays congregate so that they would eat it. I was also shocked at the interviewee, a Mr Tay, who expressed sympathy for the culprit; to condone such violence in reaction what is so disproportionately trivial issue of scratched car paint shows a disturbing lack of understanding and compassion towards living creatures.

I never understand why some people are so bloody hostile against stray cats and other animals to the point where they often express a desire to see the animals killed. They often claim that these animals “intrude” upon humans, which I think is a horrid expression of anthoropocentric arrogance. Humans have as much to contribute to these “animal problems” as well.

The neighbourhood I live in is a relatively new development. Before the housing units sprang up, it used to be a forested area with occasional fields and dotted with some small farms. There is a significant wild dog population that has thrived in the forests, and when we first moved in, it was not uncommon to see large wild dogs going about their own business or lying around in the sun. Then the eateries opened, and the trash wasn’t properly disposed of, and suddenly there was a “stray dog problem” because the wild dogs would go eat the leftover scraps and rummage through humans’ trash for food.

I must note that these wild dogs, although they are large, have never shown any signs of aggression towards humans at all. In fact, all the times I’ve seen them, they seemed either friendly, or inclined to avoid humans unless absolutely left without a choice.

One day I saw a dogcatcher’s van stopped outside the eatery. There was a huge cacophony of barking and howling, and what seemed like a staff member appeared to be cracking a whip and hitting the enclosure at the back of the van to intimidate or silence the dogs — I couldn’t see very clearly, as I was a good way across the street. This only resulted in louder barking. After some time the van left.

After that incident, and I supposed there were more incidents of culling of the wild dogs, the dog population was reduced and they stopped coming near human areas. I can understand people’s concerns for hygiene and safety, but a lot of it seemed to be borne out of unfounded fears as well.

It wasn’t that the wild dogs were “intruding” upon humans; in fact I would think quite the opposite. We have “invaded” their territory, which the dogs have been living here for many years, built up our structures, took away a good chunk of the forest, and refused to put up with the dogs that haven’t been even aggressive towards us. The dogs, for lack of other food sources, naturally gravitated towards human eateries and the trash.I missed seeing the dogs around, trotting across a grass field or lying down at the bus station in the evenings — sometimes with a young pup or two in tow — it always made my day a little brighter and more interesting.

It is a sad world we are in that fellow humans cannot accept co-existing with other animals; that in supposedly more enlightened times today there are still lots of people out there who think we are perfectly justified to kill animals any way we please over petty issues.