The Billiken's Bluff

Madison, Wisc. (Billiken) - When hunter Mark Smith decided to put up a proposal before his fellow hunters in April at the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, he thought was doing a good deed. Given that the 48 year old firefigher from Wisconsin regularly welcomes wild game on his land, he had come to recognize roaming cats as an "strong>invasive species" on the property. So he did the logical thing that one does when finding a domesticated animal to be a nuisance. He petitioned the Wisconsin Conversation Congress to make them an "unprotected species" so that he could blow them all away with his shotgun.

"I get up in the morning and if there's new snow, there's cat tracks under my bird feeder ... I look at them as an invasive species, plain and simple," Smith explained.

If Mark Smith gets his way in April, Wisconsin's many firefighter/hunters will no longer have to deal with the travesty of cat tracks on their property - at least not without the right to fire at will. At the time of the proposal, they didn't expect to receive any return fire from the enemy. Said one hunter, "It's gonna be like shootin' cats in a barrel."

The proposal has sparked an understandable outcry from cat lovers, including "cat enthusiasts" Cheryl Balazs, Ted O'Donnell and Adam Bauknecht who are trying to organize opposition to Smith's proposal on their web site dontshootthecat.com. Even among some hunters, the idea of making cats an "unprotected species" remains controversial. For hunting enthusiast and camoflauge model Senator John Kerry, the proposal presented a clear difficulty, prompting some to claim he was taking both sides of the issue. "I actually voted for killing the cats before I voted against it," he protested, confusing Wisconsin residents who realized the vote wasn't until April.



The proposal also has its avid proponents. One backer is University of Wisconsin-Madison wildlife ecology professor Stanley Temple, who has spent years trapping cats and analyzing their stomach contents during a four-year study. Through the study he estimated that between 7.8 million and 219 million birds are killed by rural cats in Wisconsin each year, which is only slightly less than the number of cats killed by wildlife ecology professors in the state.

But if the WCC authorizes Operation Cat Destruction and everything goes to plan, all that would change in Wisconsin. "Instead of eating birds, these kitties are gonna be eating lead," explained Temple, to much guffawing and high-fiving from the Wisconsin firefighters and hunters he hangs out with at McGraw's Bar and Billiards on Tuesday nights, where many mounted feline heads are proudly displayed alongside a black and white photograph of the infamous "60 pound tabby" that Mark Smith's grandfather caught up north in the winter of '34.



What no one could have expected was that Operation Cat Destruction was about to go horribly, horribly wrong.

Just as the war on cats was heating up in Wisconsin, shots rang out across the bay in neighboring Bates Township, Michigan. Michigan State Police arrived on the scene to find that a man cooking in his kitchen was shot after one of his cats knocked his 9mm handgun off the kitchen counter and onto the floor, discharging the weapon. Though he survivied the attack, twenty-nine year old Joseph Stanton was shot in his lower torso and was transported to Iron County Community Hospital.

Although it was a lone incident, Michigan State Police were shocked to discover upon further investigation that the suspect, Mr. Fluffles, frequently used his owner's computer to connect to an underground of cat revolutionaries and militants determined to counter the strike being planned against them by hunters in the region. Mr Fluffles' relationship with groups such as Pussy Jihad and the Black Mini-Panthers stemmed, from, oddly enough, his connections with the anti-cat violence organization dontshootthecat.com. His attorney refused a statement, and calls to these organizations have not been returned.



Although Mr. Fluffles is in custody, Michigan State Police remain deeply concerned about the depth and capabilities of these militant cat organizations. A visit to their web site reveals that Mr. Fluffles may be merely one of legions of cats determined to fight back against what is conceived in the domestic cat populations as a direct threat on felines everywhere. One poster on the underground sight bitethehandthatfeedsyou.com, who uses the handle "Col. Whiskers," openly called for violence against humans whenever possible. "Invasive species? We'll show them invasive," he said on the site's message board. "I got a .45 and I'm getting real sick of chasing squirrels."



Asked about whether they were concerned over the outbreak of a revolution, Michigan residents downplayed the possibility that their beloved pets would wage an attack on them. Still, others were concerned about reports of neighborhood cats cruising down suburban streets in Impalas with tinted windows, driving "unnecessarily slow," and seemingly "staring folks down." Still others had received disturbing phone calls late at night, with unsettling purring on the other end.

But it was hunter Mark Smith who eventually received what has been perhaps the most direct threat yet. He awoke Thursday to find his Lacross, Winsconsin home spray-painted with the words, "Who's an unprotected species now bitch??"

He appeared uneasy about the message when questioned at his home. "Not quite sure what we started here," he said, greasing his hunting rifle. "But I damn well `know we're gonna finish it."