Yahoo news carried this story this morning:
COTATI, Calif. - A 3-month-old cat is clinging to life at a Sonoma County animal hospital after having been set on fire by two teenage girls who now face charges of animal cruelty.
The kitten, named Adam by hospital staff, has undergone two surgeries and had its tail and the tips of its ears amputated. The skin on its back was burned off in the attack, leaving nothing but raw tissue.
"The degree of injury is greater than our normal level of trauma that we care for," said Katheryn Hinkle, the head veterinarian and owner of the Animal Hospital of Cotati. "He's our most critical patient, and we're watching him constantly."
The cat, one of several feral felines trapped for spaying and neutering, was in a cage outside an apartment in Santa Rosa when two 15-year-old girls allegedly poured flammable liquid on the animal and set it on fire last month.
An 11-year-old boy and his friend saw the smoke and heard the cat, then eight weeks old, shrieking while the girls laughed. The girls, whose names have not been released, were charged with cruelty to animals in Sonoma County Juvenile Court last week.
With so much exposed skin, the cat is vulnerable to infection, Hinkle said. It cannot leave its cage and must be handled only with gloves. It will need several more surgeries to cover the wound on its back with skin.
The kitten was among six wild litter mates and a male cat captured by a trapper on a farm. The plan was to have the cats spayed and neutered and then released back to the farm. The cages with the kittens were stolen and only Adam has been found.
According to Hinkle, the bill to keep the kitten alive could run between $20,000 and $30,000 even though the vet performing its surgeries has donated her services. The community's concern for the cat has prompted anger in some Sonoma County residents, who complain that the slaying of a 16-year-old boy in the same neighborhood last year did not receive as much attention.
End of Story
WOW! Welcome to America, the worst country in the world for nationalizing the innane and the insane! Yes, two girls need to go to jail for animal cruelty. Yes, I feel sorry for the cat. Now come on people, put the poor kitten to sleep, painlessly, and let it be done with!
I know, I'm inhumane. Well, I'm not. Let me tell you something; I have three cats of my own which I adore. However, I'm astounded by the fact that the government is going to wind up spending a possible $30,000.00 in expenses to keep this cat alive, and this does NOT count all the work by the doctors who are volunteering their time.
The next time you want to find a way to spend thirty thousand dollars on something worthwhile, try this:
- Go to ANY high school in the united states, find a kid with a good grades who's about to graduate and write them a check! Send a kid to college.
- Donate it to Cancer/Aids/other disease research!
- Go find a family of four who have been impoverished by job cutbacks and give them the money, enough to clothe and feed them for a year!
- Purchase 50 computers for a community library or school.
- Donate it to the red cross to help with the efforts they do saving HUMANS!
- Build a house for a family who lost one due to fire/flood/other incident.
- Give it to me and the interest accrued alone will pay my rent each month!
For christ's sake people, when did we go from cute and endearing people to complete bluthering idiots? I love america and it's national free press system, but sometimes they catch us at our most stupid.
I'm going to quote idausa.org on this, so you don't think it's me being harsh and simply spewing numbers to you:
Quote:
"It is estimated that between six and eight million cats and dogs enter animal shelters every year in the United States, but only about half of them make it out alive.(1) Those who are reclaimed by their guardians or adopted into someone’s home are the lucky ones. Animals who remain when the short holding period expires are unceremoniously euthanized to make room for others who are also in desperate need."
And here's another quote from them:
"Humans domesticated cats and dogs tens of thousands of years ago by taking them out of their natural habitat and selectively breeding them, changing the very course of their evolution in the process.(2) Dogs and cats are not native to most of the areas they now occupy, so their reproduction remains relatively unchecked by natural predators or environmental conditions, especially when under human protection. At the same time, their breeding frequency and litter sizes have remained the same as they were millions of years ago. For instance, a single female cat can have three litters a year with an average of five kittens per litter. In only seven years, she and her offspring could potentially produce 420,000 cats. In just six years, one female dog and her brood can produce as many as 67,000 puppies."
Maybe you missed somethng in the translation; let me explain it in simpler terms what would have happened if the two girls HADN'T tortured the poor animal.
- Kitten is trapped by farmer (who is obviously overrun with cats or else he wouldn't be trapping them to get rid of them.)
- Kitten would be given to local animal shelter.
- Kittenwould be given 30 days to find a home by some caring person.
- Kitten would be put to sleep (killed).
- End of story!
Now, instead of that process, here's what's going to happen NOW because of two stupid teenage girls.
- Kitten is trapped by farmer (who is obviously overrun with cats or else he wouldn't be trapping them to get rid of them.)
- Kitten gets tortured by two girls.
- Kitten goes to animal shelter and becomes the sob-story for a bunch of animal activists.
- Media has a frenzy with a pointless story instead of actually publishing something important we need to know.
- Kitten gets enough money wasted on it's life to pay for my entire college career!
- Kitten gets some air-time!
- No one wants kitten...
- Kitten would be put to sleep (killed).
- End of story!
The only difference between the two; a few pictures and thirty thousand bucks wasted. Wow. Thoughts, comments?
And yet, there is something true and good in a desire to restore something so small and powerless to something of its former self. It's a desire from deep within to do what one can to dispel the immediate and obvious effects of evil. One cannot always consider the perfect uses of the time and money which one possesses, but one may seek to do immediate good with what is in front of oneself.
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