By : Jenny Cialis Freeman
The City of Angels has a rat problem. Ask the LAPD, they can’t keep the rats out of their lockers, off their desks, out of the walls, they’re as abundant as cockroaches but vastly more menacing – out-numbering the officers 50 to 1.
Remember the bubonic plague/Black Death that hit Western Europe during the 14th Century? Who were the main carriers of an infectious disease that wiped out a thousand people a day and a third of the population in a little over 2 years? Flea-infested rats.
Today, the modern rats are carriers of much more than bubonic plague. In fact, present day rats are hosts to the fatal Leptospirosis and potentially deadly Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome.
Who can stop the Willards of the world? The exterminators can’t. Armed with the most deadly poisons and gases, these bipeds that are outfitted in gas masks and tarp overalls from head to toe, ironically are only partially successful against critters a fraction of their size:
The rats that survive the deadly chemicals give birth to an even mightier breed of rat.
So, who you going to call? The real rat-busters with a success record that dates back to millions of years ago: the cats.
But, where were the cats during the Middle Ages? They were goners. Prior to the Black Death, religious extremists did such a negative spin on cats by labeling them Satan, that Western Europe got rid of all their felines. We can always count on the human parasites, the clerics, for their “brilliant” enhancement of human life!
So, without the rat-busters, the rats flourished along with their fleas who gave shelter to the deadly bacterium: the perfect recipe for an epidemic.
Of course, today, we have antibiotics to knock out the bacterium transported by the fleas. But, with antibiotic resistance on the rise, can we really depend upon those antibiotics in an emergency? Or could humanity find itself faced with an unstoppable epidemic?
History doesn’t have to repeat itself. Not if we act now.
The LAPD is doing just that. They’ve “hired” feral cats to drive the rats away. Non-profit animal welfare group, Voice for the Animals is humanely trapping these homeless cats – felines without domestic accommodations. You’ve seen these rat-busters behind grocery stores and restaurants, in parks and parking lots, wherever food and makeshift shelter can be found. Many of them have come from mother cats that were once dumped because a human family upped and moved to another city – couldn’t bother to find their companion animal a loving home; abandoned, the vast majority of these animals die from starvation. How do people justify this abandonment? They rationalize their irresponsible behaviors believing that Nature will take care of her own. For animals in the wild, Nature indeed has already established her imperative; for domestic animals, made possible by human interference via selective breeding, the responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of people.
Only a handful of people have accepted this responsibility, however. Many of them are single, elderly women living on Social Security checks – they dutifully set out food everyday without fail for these homeless cats and arrange for spaying and or neutering by humanely setting traps. For the cats who survive homelessness, it’s mostly because of this very special breed of humanity.
How come cats go hungry if there are plenty of rats? Rodents are not dumb – they flee when they get wind of felines. Cats only have to make their presence known. These sleek legends of grace and beauty pad about on all fours as they give off an odor, the overpowering “fragrance” of urine. “Once rodents get a whiff of feline presence, like gangsters under a gang injunction, they move on,” writes Carla Hill on staff at Los Angeles Times.
The downtown flower district was swift to enlist the aid of Voice of the Animals’ Working Cats program several years ago. The feline masters of stealth had also demonstrated their success in 2001 at the Wilshire Division of the LAPD when they handled the rats who were inhabiting equipment bags in outside cages and their rodent cousins who were boldly running across desks.
“‘Once we got the cats, problem solved,’” said Commander Kirk Albanese, police captain at the Wilshire Division. When Albanese was transferred to the Foothill Division in 2004, the feral success against the rat infestation was parlayed into further wins for the police department. Devoted and long-standing in his efforts to rid the LAPD of its ongoing battle with rodents, Albanese is now assistant to the director of operations at Parker Center and ready to introduce the ferals to this downtown location. “‘I think it’s a very humane way to deal with a very stubborn problem,’” said Albanese.
Today, the Southeast Division of the LAPD also has six feral cats on rat patrol. The cats at Southeast know who to rely on for their daily meals, Officer Sandra Magdaleno, given the unofficial title of the “cat whisperer” by fellow Officer Mark Miraglia. Magdaleno’s commitment to honoring and protecting the lives of her four-legged colleagues isn’t confined to a 40-hour work week. On Magdaleno’s days off, she drives all the way from her home in Temecula back to the police station in Los Angeles to make sure that her feline work force is well cared for.
Currently, the Central Division of the LAPD is also looking forward to “employing” feral cats to tackle the same challenge.
Kudos to the LAPD for acknowledging feline power and using it to their advantage. Equal praise goes to Voice for the Animals and their establishing of Working Cats program. Let their smart solution serve as a blueprint for the world – specifically for other police departments, city halls, and the business community inclusive of owners of hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, apartment buildings, corporate offices – wherever there is human life.
Ideally, voucher programs will soon be established by local governments employing the community – especially able-bodied senior citizens – to care for this elegant work force that just may hold the fate of mankind in its paws.
Leave it to the cats to teach us a lesson: the greatest power is in not having to use it.
Article Source: http://www.articles4free.com
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