NEWTON'S OPTIC:THE DROWNING of kittens in a bucket is to be regretted. But the hard realities of the situation must be faced. The reality is that there are unwanted kittens in Ireland. As long as there are unwanted kittens in Ireland, there will be people who have to drown them in a bucket.
The suffering of the kittens is no different from the pain of all those who have been scratched by kittens, especially while drowning them in a bucket.
Catfood suppliers have collaborated with the feline presence and must take full responsibility for our actions.
Facing the hard realities of unwanted kittens does not mean facing why we don’t want kittens to begin with. Some people are just allergic to cats so their reality starts with the premise that kittens are unwanted. Therefore, they have no choice but to drown them in a bucket. This statement is valid and the codeword is “sociopath”.
Not everyone has the stomach for drowning kittens in a bucket but there is no place for such sentiment in the natural order. Cats are also hunters who toy with their prey. In this context, but certainly not in the context of claiming two wrongs make a right, drowning kittens is practically an act of vegetarianism.
Many people want to pussyfoot around the issue with a programme of gradual neutering. But this will not remove all the kittens from Ireland at a stroke, so bucket-drowning must continue. Besides, have these “neuterers” no respect for Irish history? People have been drowning kittens in a bucket in this country for as long as we allow them to remember. In every generation, a few gallant young men step forward with eyes ablaze and bravely volunteer to drown kittens in a bucket. Who among us is not proud of these noble youths? Who, upon witnessing their dedication, does not think, “That’s my boy”? Who dares to call picking up a bucket for Ireland beyond the pail? Catlovers, that’s who; species traitors, coming into our garden to mark out territory and steal our mice.
For 20 years we have warned the people of Ireland to drown their unwanted kittens or face the consequences. But did they listen? No, they did not. Instead they said: “Oh, it’s just those crazy cat people again. Ignore them and they’ll go away.” Well, we haven’t gone away you know, and neither have the unwanted kittens.
The same people sometimes say: “There must be a million unwanted kittens in Ireland. You can’t drown them all.”
This is a lie! There are only a few thousand unwanted kittens. The rest might look like kittens but under the skin they are a completely different animal, perhaps more like a deformed hamster. Once all the kittens have been drowned, they will accept their hamsterness and never scratch us again.
Anyway, we will say who is an unwanted kitten and who is a deformed hamster, because we are the true inheritors of the first veterinary qualification. This is the truth!
So to those who claim we have no strategy for removing the unwanted kittens from Ireland, our response is clear.
Of course we have a strategy for removing the unwanted kittens from Ireland. We’re just going to need a bigger bucket.
Ruairí Ó Bárking
Dóglaigh na hÉireann