Wild populations of cats and raccoons on a university campus are being threatened by an organized effort to starve, sterilize, and separate their well-established and longstanding family units.

While the individuals responsible for these abuses have not been identified (and, indeed, need not be identified for the purposes of petitioning), their intentions seem ultimately to be positive but horrendously misguided. It is the intention of this petition and related efforts to inform the "volunteer group" that their efforts are doing far more harm than good.

The general outdoor vicinity of the Callison Hall building on the University of The Pacific's Stockton campus is home to a relatively-large family of cats, as well as several raccoons who coexist peacefully with the feline population.

These animals were born outside of captivity, have matured as ferals, and are not familiar with the concept of confinement. They have been fed consistently by numerous benevolent people for the entirety of their lives, and their ancestors likely received the same compassionate treatment - all without any detriment whatsoever to the surrounding student residence halls or the animals themselves. This passive, non-interventionist human interaction very clearly served the cats well, and the raccoons benefited tremendously from the plentiful food remnants.

However, this perfectly-functional system is now being disrupted by an apparent group of volunteers seeking to spay and neuter the cats in preparation for adoption. To this end, these (undoubtedly well-meaning, but  misguided) individuals have peppered the structures and trees surrounding Callison Hall with demands against the feeding of the cats, with the most recent sign calling for their starvation across a sixteen-day period. Although it seems some food is being left by the volunteers themselves, the cats have become noticeably thinner since the introduction of this restricted diet, and it is obvious that the provided food is of insufficient quantity to maintain the health of seven adolescent-to-adult-aged cats.

Furthermore, a recently-posted sign requests the removal of all cat food before 8 P.M. to "not attract racoons [sic]". It seems that the general disregard for the health of the cats is supplemented by a complete disregard for the health of the raccoons, who have accustomed themselves to scrap foraging and are likely incapable of thriving in the absence of left-over food. It is important to note that the vast majority of garbage receptacles in the area have been "animal-proofed" with heavy lids or narrow apertures, largely eliminating the raccoons' one alternative source of sustenance. Additionally, the absence of food during night hours forbids cats from fulfilling an instinctual urge to eat nocturnally (see reference 1).

Finally, it seems that the cats are now being offered for adoption by phone or via an unidentified Facebook group. Of course, pet adoptions are harmless on their own merit; when the animals being adopted were born and raised feral, however, their separation from their wild colonies of origin poses a serious ethical concern.

Should you identify any of those implicated in these abuses of fundamental animal rights, it is absolutely imperative that you refrain from harassing them. Once more, it is extraordinarily improbable that they truly mean harm to these animals - they are simply unaware of the consequences of their actions.

For more information, please visit PacificAnimalRights.com.

REFERENCES
1: Large-scale 2017 study demonstrating that feral cats roam and feed predominantly during night hours. Cove, Michael V.; Gardner, Beth; Simons, Theodore R.; Kays, Roland; O’Connell, Allan F. (2017). Free-ranging domestic cats (Felis catus) on public lands: estimating density, activity, and diet in the Florida Keys. Biological Invasions. doi:10.1007/s10530-017-1534-x.

The organizers of this petition and the related efforts have no affiliation whatsoever to the University of The Pacific or the Powell Scholars Program.