Texas Tech Should "Do Right Thing" by Community Cats

Texas Tech's treatment of feral cats must be examined in light of the university's values and commitments.  Take the completed QEP "Do the Right Thing."  

As members of the Texas Tech community, faculty, students, staff, administration, and all stakeholders accept responsibility for abiding by and promoting the ethical principles of the university described below. Although legal behavior and ethical behavior overlap in many areas, they are quite distinct from each other. While we follow legal requirements, an ethical institution goes beyond them to achieve the following values.

Animal cruelty is illegal behavior and also unethical.  TTU knows this from their history of cat abuse.

When we make promises, we must keep those promises. 

TTU administration failed to deliver on its promise to collaborate with area animal service organizations on trapping and removing cats.

We strive to do what is honest and ethical even if no one is watching us or compelling us to “do the right thing.”

TTU refused to work with those organizations on concerns expressed in the way facilities management barricaded cats under buildings without food or water.  Tech took offense to the watchers and compellers.

A sense of institutional and public responsibility requires careful reflection on one’s ethical obligations and the duty to respect commitments and expectations by acknowledging the context and considering the consequences, both intended and unintended, of any course of action.

TTU's careful reflection had facilities management installing physical shields so the public could not visualize cats barricaded without food or water.

TTU's leaders did the wrong thing at nearly every turn.  They've taken an aggressive, intimidating approach from the get go, remained isolated in execution and responded viscerally to any public concern expressed.  The question is when will Texas Tech do the right thing by its community cats? 

Hugh Cronin's TTU Cat-astrophe at End?

Assistant Vice President Hugh Cronin, perpetrator of barricading TTU's community cats under buildings without food or water, will leave Texas Tech today.  It's not clear if this provides TTU leaders space to remove the sheet metal blocking the public's view of any barricaded cats.  Will Facilities Management test other strategies?  They include:

1.  Simply open the grates, place box traps baited with food and water right at the entrance inside the building, and then replace the mesh grates.  Check the traps frequently.  Do not leave traps unattended for more than a few hours.
2.  Or at night, set a drop trap right outside of the entrance.  Remove the grate.  Wait for the cats to exit the building and enter the drop trap. 
3.  Or place a one-way excluder door over the entrance.  This would allow any cats out of the crawl space but not back in.

It seems Tech has spoken with one cruel voice on this issue the last ten days, Hugh Cronin's.   Cronin provided Communications and Marketing Director Chris Cook with his lines, many of which were outright lies.  Tech's top leaders steered everything to Hugh, even after it was clear an unhinged Hugh was at war with Tech's community cats and their volunteer caregivers.  With Cronin the Barbarian gone, how might Tech change their interactions with others?  That remains to be seen.

TTU Animal Cruelty Postcards

Ttu cat cruelty postcards from jepysdad

Feel free to print and mail to Texas Tech administration as long as Tech's community cats are barricaded under buildings without food and water.

Defending Tech's Animal Cruelty under Chancellor Hance

The Daily Toreader published a letter encouraging the complete dismantling of Texas Tech's feral cat program.  The author is a  Chancellor's Graduate Fellow who has done several studies on birds.  I'm sure Chancellor Kent Hance was grateful for someone other than slippery Chris Cook or an unhinged Hugh Cronin to state Tech's case on why the cats should be removed.

The letter did not defend Facilities Management's cruel methods employed.  I'm sure Jon McRoberts would not want ocellated turkeys or lesser prairie chickens barricaded behind a metal plate without food or water.

Texas Tech, an emerging research organization could learn from other university's experience after removing managed feral cat colonies.  Since they don't want to learn from sister institution Angelo State University, Tech could conduct an experiment.  The problem is Tech knows nothing about the cats and wants to hide the cats they're intent on killing.  Chris Cook repeatedly admits they don't know how many there are.  There are just "too many."  He says the population "hasn't been managed," but Tech's feral cat colony spayed/neutered over 300 cats and socialized/adopted many kittens. 

Take away the cats and their volunteer caregivers and see where Tech is in two years.  I'll bet the situation will be worse and far more costly to Tech's award winning facilities management. 

TTU Circles Wagons Around Cruel Cronin

It's hard to believe TTU leaders circled the wagons around the very person responsible for an ongoing animal cruelty campaign, but that's what happened.  TTU administrators continue to defend the man who should be fired for repeatedly lying and barricading cats under buildings without food or water.

Cronin lied about who Tech was working with to manage down its longtime feral cat colony.  First, Cronin promised to work with The Humane Society of West Texas and Tech's Cat Colony.  He never delivered on that vacuous promise.  Then Cronin or Tech mouthpiece Chris Cook tossed in PETA.  PETA officials later stated TTU had never contacted them.

Cronin and Cook repeatedly assured the public no cats were barricaded.  They were proven wrong late last week.  Cronin's response included putting in a visual barrier so any imprisoned cats could not be seen.  Someone removed the sheet metal and two cats could be seen yesterday.  Another cat was seen today.

One might expect an award winning facility management department to live up to its promises to collaborate and not lie about animal organizations the department consulted.  One could even expect creativity, installing a one way excluder door that would allow cats out from under buildings and not back in.

Hugh Cronin waged war against Tech's feral cat colony in early summer.  He's escalated it at every turn, with the apparent support of Tech's highest up.  TTU has a history of cat cruelty.  Cronin's final week of lies, as well as his coverup of cat starvation and dehydration, should be an embarrassment to the Board of Regents.  Faculty and students who oppose animal cruelty should be up in arms.

Cats Still Trapped Under TTU's Drane Hall

A TTU Feral Cat Colony caretaker reported:

UPDATE! Cats are indeed trapped under Drane Hall. Someone removed the sheet metal and caretaker reported two cats still trapped - and probably more. TTU police have been called and leaders notified. Say a prayer!!

This development occurred despite repeated assurances that no cats remained from Chris Cook, Director of Communications and Marketing at TTU.  This adds to the list of hollow words offered by TTU administration on this matter.  It also sinks Hugh Cronin's legacy as one of cruelty, hubris, insensitivity and retaliation.  TTU's actions aren't focused on the ethical treatment of cats or their longtime caregivers.

TTU can't manage what it doesn't understand.  The blowback from this will come in many ways.  The short term impact is animal cruelty with cats suffering and dying. With animal service relationships destroyed, Tech will pay in time and money for what area groups once did for free. 

Texas Tech leadership is responsible for allowing Hugh Cronin's mendacity, with Chris Cook playing a strong supporting role.  Tech already wore the animal cruelty yoke for cruel cat treatment.  They should have been loathe to re-don it. 

Texas Tech Blocks Any Collaboration, Much Less Oversight on Feral Cat Removal

For two months Texas Tech made sure local animal service organizations knew who's in charge.  Tech dangled collaboration in an early press release, then failed to follow through.  The Humane Society of West Texas and Texas Tech's Feral Cat organization have been shut out for some time.  Tech administrators repeatedly took offense to concerns shared and offers to work with facilities management on cat removal

TTU's Department of Communications and Marketing lied on multiple occasions.  Chris Cook wrote that Tech "consulted with PETA and are following their recommended procedures for humanely removing cats from under buildings."  When Tech's animal cruelty was reported to PETA their representative stated they'd had no contact from TTU and were highly concerned that cats could be barricaded under buildings without food and water.    I'm sure the two shunned groups would be stunned by Cook's other characterization:

When we met with the organizations on campus, including the Humane Society of West Texas, in May, we asked for their assistance to explore places to relocate the cats. At this point, we've received very little assistance.  

Both the Humane Society and Tech's Feral Cat Organization made multiple pleas and offers the last two months, only to get snarky e-mails in return from facilities management.

Communication and Marketing said the University had been overrun with reports of cats trapped with no food or water.  Once again Tech did not invite area animal service representatives, many of whom know the cats, to assist or provide oversight.  Tech's latest insult involved putting up sheet metal behind the grate over areas that "have been cleared of all cats."

If the cats are truly gone, why would Tech need to put up sheet metal? Because Texas Tech is in an "all out war" against the Humane Society and its longtime Feral Cat Organization.

Nothing about this makes sense.  That's the way war is.  President Nellis deserved better from his top lieutenants, but since they can't behave in a truthful or collaborative manner, Nellis needs to intervene.

Update:  Might the Texas Tech Student Legal Defense Fund raise concerns over TTU's animal cruelty?   They intervened before when the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center intubated and killed cats from Odessa's Animal Shelter.  Here's to their penning another letter to the student newspaper.