Paul Zhang has admitted to trapping dozens of cats in Queens and Brooklyn recently, taking them to three different vets to be killed. Mr. Zhang says they are feral colony cats he’s been feeding and now that he’s moved to a new location, is doing them the “kindness” of killing them.
“I can’t bear the thought of my animals getting out or being abandoned,” Zhang explains. “So I did the best thing I can consider: For them to never experience any suffering. So I put them all down. Because I also think Animal Care and Control does shit adoptions. I’m sorry, I’m a little prejudiced but I’ve seen the people that come in to adopt there and I would never let my cats go with them.”
I’m sorry you’re a little prejudiced too. But not half as sorry as I’m sure your feline victims are.
At least one of the cats he trapped and had killed at a vet’s office was someone’s pet cat named Anthony. The clinic where Mr. Zhang says he had Anthony and several other cats killed is Antelyes Animal Hospital which says:
We did euthanize several cats for him, believing that we were doing the right thing. […] After that we told him we will not help him anymore and to find another vet. He threatened to drown the cats at home. This when his true sick nature was finally displayed to us. We deeply regret that we even helped him for a short time.
And by “helped him”, the clinic means “killed cats”. It sounds like if Mr. Zhang hadn’t made the drowning threat, the vet would still be pocketing the checks and killing cats.
Can’t the Mayor’s Alliance do something?
[T]he Mayor’s Alliance, for which he says he has helped TNR (trap-neuter-return) thousands of cats, has demanded he return the traps they gave him.
Uh – I guess I should say, can’t they do something meaningful?
ASPCA – this guy is rounding up cats and having them killed in your backyard. Where are you?
This guy might be “loose change” but I do understand the idea of putting them down instead of letting them be abused.
Now, if he is into the drowning thing…then that is something else all together. We had one of those here. Finally, someone found out and put up a notice not to adopt to this guy.
What was that movie that Oprah was in where she killed her two little children so they wouldn’t end up in the hands of the slave owners who beat and
abused their slaves?
There is no evidence any of these cats would have been abused or even looked at crossways. Life trumps death – ALWAYS.
I’ve just seen way too much human and animal suffering to agree with you. Death trumps suffering….ALWAYS.
If there are people out here who can “understand” and deal with abortion…then this should come as no shock to anyone.
Don’t worry. I’m not pro-choice and I’m not rounding up stray animals and hauling them off to be killed. I wouldn’t do that. We are having a philosophical discussion about live, death and suffering…and as far as a discussion… there are worse things than death. Come with me to a few places and I’ll show you what I mean.
Again, there is zero evidence these cats would be suffering. He received offers of assistance but refused them all. No one was good enough for him.
Where there is life, there is hope. A pet who is suffering today might be rescued tomorrow.
I don’t know what sort of life Surrey had before she was picked up as a stray, pregnant with 9 puppies but from the looks of her, it was probably not an easy one. It’s possible she may have never known a kind person. So far, she doesn’t act as if kindness is something she expects from people. It’s possible at times she may have suffered. Perhaps she went hungry, was without shelter from the cold, etc. I don’t know. But the notion that you put forth – that if indeed she was suffering on the streets somewhere it would be kinder to kill her, breaks my heart. You can’t know how much happiness she has brought to our home in just the few days she’s been here. I hope we are lucky enough to have many years with her but however long our time together turns out to be, I will consider it a privilege to have shared her company. Maybe she was suffering at some point in the past but thankfully no one killed her as a “kindness” and because of that, she is now being well cared for and loved.
Life trumps death.
This is to YesBiscuit – at 5:23PM
I didn’t make myself clear. I totally agree with you…what you wrote in that particular post. I had the same experience with my German Shepherd that I got from our hell hole of a shelter. I am glad I could rescue her too but I’ve thought of how much she had suffered and if she hadn’t been able to break loose I would rather have seen her at peace. She was so broken, mentally, physically and emotionally. She was pitiful. It was obvious that she had lived her whole like in fear and abuse, in addition to pain due to many physical ailments
Thankfully, she and I were brought together. She was and always will be a huge part of my life. I often say that she is “my heart.” She was an angel and having taken care of her, I will always be motivated to rescue senior animals and give them a loving home…full of soft beds, heating pads when needed, warm blankets, constant hugs and kisses…just like I did for Bella. We were spiritually connected and we will be for eternity.
Maybe I misunderstood the situation. I will go back and read it. I was under the impression that he had to leave the cats there and was afraid that they would suffer. That is what I said I could understand.
I was speaking of the way that I would find it impossible to leave animals that I loved in a situation where I thought they would be harmed.
For one thing, vets need to stop euthanasia’s on demand. I worked as a vet tech for 10 years, and my boss NEVER did a euth-on-demand unless the animal was a) proven to be the person’s companion and b)medically suffering beyond redemption. Vets just have to STOP – they are not drive-in McDonald’s, though some of them seem to think their REAL purpose is to kill animals in this way.
As for Mr. Zheng, he should be tied to a chair and forced to watch endlessly looped tapes of the old TV Show Green Acres until he agrees to come to his senses.
I hope Alley Cat Allies is made aware of this loser. They would have the power to go after him & the vets for the unnecessary killing. Poor babies…
Interesting, today’s Post reported on the case of a former zoo employee who was caught trying to poison feral cats — she’s a bird person and has now jeopardized her entire career.
A former National Zoo employee who was found guilty of attempting to poison stray cats was placed on probation Wednesday and ordered to stay away from all felines for a year or face jail time.
D.C. Superior Court Senior Judge Truman A. Morrison III also ordered Nico Dauphine, 38, to perform 120 hours of community service and to contribute $100 to the District’s violent crime compensation fund. Morrison sentenced Dauphine to 180 days in jail and suspended the sentence.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/former-national-zoo-employee-placed-on-probation-ordered-to-stay-away-from-all-cats-for-a-year/2011/12/14/gIQAUw3kuO_story.html
Vox Felina covered the Nico Dauphin case in detail, including analyses of her work and interviews with people whose cats, in a previous incident, had been likely captured and taken to be killed by her – http://www.voxfelina.com/ – just hit the tag ‘Legal Issues’ and that should bring up all the posts.
He says that he put down his own housecats to somehow protect them. The man is clearly disturbed. I very seriously doubt that he was maintaining any colony (although he might have been a feeder, which only perpetuates suffering) properly at all.
What kind of colony caretaker doesn’t recognize his own cats in the trap? IOW, why did he think Anthony was one of his colony cats?
I think he did know Anthony wasn’t one of his. I base this on the post from Craigslist quoted in the second article you linked, and this bit in particular: Perhaps because so many people abandon their animals, especially in Bushwick area, I just made a wrong decision thinking, like all of the other cats, no one would look for them.
So, it sounds to me that he knew, and assumed Anthony was abandoned.
He *assumed* Anthony was abandoned and *assumed* the cat would somehow suffer in future so he *assumed* a vet would kill him for money. He was right about the last part anyway.
The answer is death – the questions, if asked, come late.
Too many people involved with pet rescue and animal shelters believe the animals are better off killed than any possible chance that they might fall into the wrong hands. I think they need a wider view point. But some will never change.
“ASPCA – this guy is rounding up cats and having them killed in your backyard. Where are you?”
Most likely, cheering him on. ASPCA believes in “euthanasia” for “unwanted” pets and they buy into the “overpopulation” rhetoric. Here’s their position statement page:
http://www.aspca.org/About-Us/policy-positions/euthanasia.aspx
It is indefensible to kill a feral cat unless it is seriouisly ill or gravely injured. Most are not socialized to humans and will never have a “home” in the way that non-feral, tame pets do.
The vet ought to be reported to the State Licensing Board-New York State Board for Veterinary Medicine.
He needs to be reported for having cats killed-feral or not!
I’m reading here that vets are wrong need to be told what to do, animal advocates and pet rescuers are wrong and need to be told
what to do.
We can’t even get our city pound to do the right thing! We deal with these morons on a daily basis in one way or the other. When are we going to have time to police vets and try to change the opinions of advocates and rescuers. We don’t just paint with a broad brush but there are times that it is merciful to put an animal out of it’s misery. I’m thinking of a young cat that was found in Arkansas last year. The vet fell in love with it but it was harmed beyond repair and the suffering would have been too late.
Then there was Hope who was set on fire. That first night, she spent in the pound. I hate to even think of the torture she went through. Ernie Alexander said he told the vet to give her the pain meds she needed. How many of us believe that? Coming from Ernie…it was a lie. Yes, from this vantage point, I think Hope should have been euthanized immediately. As it was, she was treated for a number of weeks and THEN euthanized. Everytime I hear a person talk about the horrible pain associated with a burn, I think of Hope and wish that she had been put out of her misery. This was no small burn. She was burned all over her body.
I said earlier today that we were having a philosophical discussion about life, death and suffering. I see that wasn’t such a great idea. I guess we have enough to do just trying to help the animals. All of us love them. Just some days, the suffering is too much to deal with.
For me it’s just that, whenever I see this issues discussed, I think of two of my own: Norton, who was a desperately sick runt kitten out of a feral colony, and P’Gell, another feral, who was struck & dragged by a car and very badly broken. Both came very close to being euthanized, and at that moment, without the benefit of hindsight, I don’t think I could’ve argued against it in good conscience. And I know both suffered because the choice was made to help them live, for all that they also healed and eventually grew strong.
But then again, when I think of how close they came to death – in hindsight, knowing them now, my loving, exasperating, beautiful cats – it brings me to tears, and I think: how, in good conscience, can I argue against giving other pets that same chance? And how can I assume no-one will be there for them? I was there. Why not others?
Every animal deserves a chance to live, this moron should be stopped. I am so tired of hearing people killing innocent animals.
This “person” has MAJOR issues. He was setting traps where he caught Anthony – and I noticed that Anthony’s owner was also feeding strays in that area. So the cats were being taken care of by others as well!
Guy kills his own cats, take tons to vets who kill them (with NO verification that they are HIS), and what he says one minute he contradicts the next. ASPCA couldn’t give two rats butts about this…maybe they told him what to do? LOL Sounds about right up their alley!
He appears to have a God-complex. Nobody is good enough but him. And he gets to decide who lives and who dies. Sorry but there is no return from death! And while I know their are fates worse than death – those cats were there long before he was and surviving just fine. They would’ve kept surviving without him. I sure hope to hell some charges are brought up against him! In fact I hope the throw the book at him – actually a few books – BIG THICK HEAVY books! Hell I’ll throw the first one!
Sadly the one thing that did happen with this is that it made me realize maybe I am too picky about how gets my rescue cats. Maybe I need to open up a bit and be willing to see the good in people and trust that I will know if they are going to be good to my bottle babies. I sure as hell don’t want to EVER end up like this wack job!