>> Tonight,
what to do about cats.
Wild cats.
We were rather surprised
to hear about a proposal
being debated in Wisconsin
that would allow hunters
to shoot stray cats
like they do skunks and gophers.
It turns out there may be
more than a million stray cats
in Wisconsin.
But you had to know this idea
was going to be controversial.
>> Song birds are at stake,
as well as other small animals.
When we say feral cats,
frankly, I don't think of
Fluffy at home.
I think of a wild cat,
an alley cat on the street,
no better than
maybe a cockroach.
>> This issue is so heated
that the hunter who proposed
the idea is receiving
death threats.
>> I'm not a cat hater.
I've had cats in the past.
People need to keep their cats
under control.
>> Hi, and welcome
to Director's Cut.
I'm your host,
Charles Monroe-Kane.
Here at Director's Cut,
we're dedicated to bringing you
the best in independent films
and filmmakers.
Our film this week is called
"Here Kitty, Kitty."
It's a documentary about
one of Wisconsin's
shining moments in history,
the 2005 great cat hunt debate.
You guys remember, right?
Wisconsin became
the laughing stock of the nation
as we publicly debated
the hunting of cats.
The film, "Here Kitty, Kitty"
captures that amazing moment
in history.
And no pun intended,
but it's quite a tale.
A tale that involves
crazy cat ladies,
slandered scientists,
a couple of death threats,
even a guy who drowns cats,
aka the "Merrill Cat Killer."
It is quite a story, and
told well from the documentary,
"Here Kitty, Kitty."
"Here Kitty, Kitty,"
is the directorial debut
of Madison resident
Andy Beversdorf.
Andy, welcome to the show.
Excellent film.
>> Thanks.
>> Where in the world did you
get the idea to make a film
about the great cat hunt?
>> Well, the way I got going
down this path is I worked
with Brian Standing,
who's made a lot of movies
here in the area.
And I worked with him
at a radio station, WORT.
I had worked with him
on another film,
called "War is Sell."
And I've never had
any film training or school,
or anything like that.
But he was making the movie
and that sounded like, you know,
a fun thing to do.
So I was helping him out
with that.
And that's when he told me
that he wanted me
to take the reigns
of the next film that we made.
So, this issue
was in the news at the time.
And I thought, well,
what great drama.
What a great subject for a film.
You know, it's got all the
elements of a good documentary.
>> Take us back to that moment.
It was Q62, question 62.
What was the question?
What was the issue?
>> Q62 asked people
at the Conservation Congress--
People get to vote on issues
involving conservation
in Wisconsin and hunting issues.
And it asked them
if they wanted to list cats
as an unprotected species
in Wisconsin.
What that means is
that cats would then occupy
the same unprotected class
as say, opossums, squirrels,
rabbits.
And hunters would be--
It would be legal
to shoot a feral cat
if it came on your property.
>> Now, that's just,
you know that's going to be
controversial.
Were people naive?
I mean, we all know that.
But at the time, people
were like okay,
let's just introduce this bill.
It was a huge controversy.
>> It was a huge controversy.
And I think a lot of it
stemmed from this notion that
got tossed around repeatedly,
which is people, like
I just said, people kept saying,
"hunting cats,"
"shooting cats."
And really, when Mark Smith,
the person that you saw
in the clip there,
when he introduced it,
he did it as a response
to someone who had been trapping
cats on their land, and then
was prosecuted for a felony.
He's a trapper himself.
And cats sometimes wind up
in the traps of people
who are trapping muskrats,
or beavers, or whatever.
And he didn't want
to be charged with a felony
for accidentally trapping a cat.
And the idea that people were
going to go out on a cat season
and get in their hunting gear
and go out in the woods
and look for cats
was something that, you know,
that got blown up.
But it was never really
what was going to happen.
And you know, that's something
when I first started
doing the film, as well.
I was interested in this idea,
what makes hunters as a group,
want to keep of expanding
the number of species
that they can hunt.
You know, you had mourning doves
that they could hunt,
and now all of a sudden cats.
I wanted to get at that.
That was an interesting for me.
Why do they want
to keep expanding this?
Well, it turned out that there
were more interesting things,
so I didn't really
explore that too long.
>> But it was interesting
in your film.
And like any film,
documentary or full length film,
you've got to have
a great character.
And you have one of the great
characters in a documentary
film, a guy named Gordon King,
also known as
the "Merrill Cat Killer."
Tell me about Gordon.
He is quite a character.
>> Well, Mark Smith,
the person who proposed Q62,
knew about Gordon King.
Gordon King lives
in Merrill, Wisconsin, in just
a residential neighborhood.
And he had cats
coming across his property.
He took them.
When this would happen,
he would take them
into the Humane Society.
But one time he took a cat
to the Humane Society,
and it got loose,
and started running
all over the place.
And he didn't want somebody
to get hurt.
So, he decided to go about it
the way that people
of his generation,
in his sort of rural setting
would get rid of cats.
And that was by trapping them
and drowning them.
So he was doing this
until a neighbor reported him.
And the police got involved.
He was charged
with felony cruelty to animals.
>> A felony.
You know what?
We should look at Gordon again.
Here's a short clip
of Gordon King,
the Merrill Cat Killer.
>> This is where
you drown the cats?
>> What are you trying to do,
get some evidence here?
>> Sure.
>> A very handy place.
A sufficient depth
to completely cover a trap.
They have a very brief period
of trauma,
since they're covered
until they're down here.
And then, I just set them
in the water.
So, when I catch the first cat
and drown it,
I re-set the trap,
which seems to be a greater
attraction, evidently,
the pheromone is so strong,
or what it is,
permeating inside the trap.
It won't even wash off
in perhaps a half-hour
under water.
Of course,
there's no real motion going on.
The cat doesn't squiggle
very much before it drowns.
So the trap seems,
the more cats you catch,
the more effective it becomes.
So ultimately,
you catch the last cat.
And that's what I thought I had.
>> So tell me about that guy.
What was he like?
I mean, you hung out with him
in Merrill, Wisconsin.
What was he like?
>> He's very outspoken,
very intelligent.
Very opinionated.
And also very reasonable.
One thing that, you know,
these epithets
that got hurled about
during this whole issue
cast people in a light
where they didn't belong
a lot of times.
So if you just see Gordon King
as the Merrill Cat Killer,
which was what he was
commonly referred to as,
you're missing a lot
of the story about him.
He is a self-proclaimed
disciple of Aldo Leopold.
He's very concerned
with conservation.
And he sees cats
as a non-native species
that are not anything.
They're not an animal
that needs to be protected.
>> He's not an exception.
He's part of the zeitgeist
of rural Wisconsin.
I mean, that's what
people think.
What was the phrase
they came up with?
"Shoot, shovel and shut up."
But that's the standard belief
in rural Wisconsin,
wouldn't you say?
Wouldn't you say
a lot of people support him?
I mean, he's not that odd.
>> He's not that odd
in that regard, as far as
people who don't like cats
running around
on their property,
and want to get rid of them
for a variety of reasons.
>> Now, of course, there's
the other side of this story.
We have the Merrill Cat Killer,
Gordon King in rural Wisconsin.
Then you have the other side
of the story, which tended to be
a little bit more based
in Madison.
But also, there was a person
who we talked about earlier,
who Gordon King
got charged with a felony.
The DA had to do that.
And tell me about her.
Who's the DA
that went after Gordon?
>> Her name is Shawn Mutter.
We also talked to her
in the film.
She was pretty ambitious in
her prosecution of Gordon King.
She charged him
with felony cruelty to animals.
And what I wanted to get at
when I talked with her is,
how can you charge Gordon King
with cruelty to animals,
when people are allowed to
say, bow hunt deer in Wisconsin?
It's pretty rare that a deer
doesn't suffer when
you go bow hunting for a deer.
If you shoot a deer
with an arrow, it's probably
going to suffer before it dies.
Okay.
So, I understand that hunters
are allowed to shoot deer
with a bow and arrow.
How can you prosecute
Gordon King for drowning cats
that probably suffer
a smaller amount of time
than a deer with an arrow
through its side?
And that was the hypocrisy that
I saw and tried to bring out.
>> That's the issue right,
because they're cats.
People like cats.
>> Well, after I was done
with all this, that's a lot.
That's kind of the way
I saw this, too.
The people who were on
the cat rescue side of the issue
were on the cat activist side
of the issue.
A lot of the times, they
didn't want to bring that up.
That they're just cat people.
That they just loved cats.
And that cats hold
a special place in our society.
They talked about
animal rights issues
and cruelty to animal issues.
But the hypocrisy there
is fairly glaring,
as far as I'm concerned.
You know, take an
industrial-sized chicken farm,
for instance.
Some of these chickens
never see sunlight, okay.
That's not cruelty to animals,
but drowning a cat is?
That's something
I wanted to bring up.
And I think that leads us
down a path of, when people
take very emotional sides,
when they take--
a lot of times, they are blinded
by their emotions.
And they don't want to see
the fact that Gordon King
is a conservationist, okay.
He can be completely different
from you, okay.
You might abhor the things
that Gordon King is doing.
But if you look closely,
you'll probably see
that there are a lot of ways
that he's a lot like you.
>> Let's see a clip from her.
Because I think what makes
her interesting compared
to Gordon King,
is that for me, personally,
and we'll see this in the clip,
she doesn't seem as reasonable,
or as fair,
or as interesting as he is.
She seems a little unfair.
Let's roll that clip of the DA.
>> I received a request
for charges that he was,
I think, the Humane Society
had reported him,
that he was live trapping cats
and drowning them
while they were alive
in the Wisconsin River.
I think from the records
there was at least 10-12 cats
that he trapped.
He would lure them in with food,
and take them to the river
and drown 'em, a terrible death
by making them drown alive.
Well, I charged him
with mistreatment of animals
resulting in death.
That was a felony.
Defense counsel filed a motion,
and briefs were had on it
as to whether or not
drowning a cat
is considered cruel.
And also whether or not
Chapter 951, which is
what I charged him with,
if that cat has to be
actually owned by the defendant
or a particularized individual.
When I did my brief,
I talked about what cruel
unjustified death means.
And I took definitions
from Webster's Dictionary:
"Dispose to inflict pain
or suffering,
devoid of humane feelings,
causing or conducive to injury,
grief or pain,
and unrelieved by leniency."
>> Do you have cats?
>> Is it relevant?
>> Just curious.
>> Yes, I do.
>> So do I.
>> Okay, that's fine.
That's fine.
People always ask me,
like with child abuse cases,
they'll say,
"Do you have children?"
"Yeah."
"Then how can you know
what abuse is?"
Mind you, this is
just my humble opinion.
>> That is excellent.
Because what that does to me,
as I see it and watch that,
one, she was very defensive
when you asked her
if she had cats.
I think it's interesting
when I watch that clip
and compare it
to Gordon King's clip.
And this is just in my gut,
I don't like her.
And I don't necessarily agree
or disagree with her stance,
but I don't really like her.
She's not the kind of person
I think you want to
hang out with.
But Gordon King, he seems
like a man of integrity.
Did people come up with that
from the film,
or was it just, "I like cats,
I'm on this side."
"I'm in favor of hunting
on this side?"
What about you?
Did you like her?
Who would you like?
On a documentary filmmaker
level.
>> What I see in her
is what I saw in a lot
of the people who were opposed
to Question 62,
which is this idea
that "devoid of leniency,"
"meant to inflict pain."
I mean, to think that
Gordon King was doing
these things to cats because
he liked to see cats suffer
is just, it's completely
untenable position to take.
And I think, a lot of times,
when people are fighting,
people are in conflict,
they don't want to see
the opposing side
as having good intentions.
And it's very rare that people
act out of malicious intent,
as far as I'm concerned.
People who do bad things,
oftentimes, things that we see
as maybe even catastrophic,
oftentimes these people
have good intentions.
That doesn't mean that
what they're doing is right,
by any means.
They can do atrocious things
with good intentions.
But if we set up ourselves,
you and I
are having an argument,
and I see that--
We start the argument,
and both of us realize that
we both have good intentions,
you're probably going to get
a lot further down the road
for whatever
you're trying to accomplish,
than hurling epithets
or casting stones.
>> So Andy, from documentary
filmmaker to the U.N.,
your next step there.
>> Well, I mean, yeah.
It does have
broader indications.
I mean, I'm not trying
to say that this movie is some,
you know, teach global peace.
>> But it is.
I mean, we have another clip
I want to show,
because it shows, to me,
the juxtaposition
of like rural Wisconsin
to the urban people in Madison.
You went to some
of these meetings.
Was it the DNR?
These meetings where people
would debate it.
And after I watched
some of those, you're like,
people are being
completely unreasonable.
>> On both sides.
>> Everyone's being
completely unreasonable.
Which is how we are
when emotions flare.
This could be about anything.
Palestinians, Israelis,
the conflict is unreasonable
all over.
So, what I want to do
is roll this clip.
And then afterwards,
we're going to talk
some more about that.
But here's a clip
of a DNR meeting where people
are presenting their case points
for pro-Q62 or con.
Let's roll that.
>> Before we start with
the first question tonight,
I'd like to make sure
we all understand
what's expected of all of us.
The Chair will continue to
have testimony on the question,
as long as the comments
don't become repetitive,
and all continue to respect
each side of the question.
If problems arise, the Chair
will stop all testimony
and call the question.
>> This is where I can speak!
Let me speak!
>> They hate me.
They're just disgusted with me,
because they don't see
how someone like me could
go and kill such a cute,
fluffy little animal.
>> He's fluffy.
He had a collar.
Collars can't be seen on him.
>> Ma'am, we have already
established that people
have a great love for their cat.
I'm not going to ask this
more than once tonight.
If people do not respect
each side of the issue,
I will call the question
and we will be done with it.
>> I wanted to mention
that when sociologists study
psychopaths and sociopaths
and other criminals...
( laughter )
>> Ma'am, that is not
part of this question.
>> We have no desire
to shoot cats.
We're not that cruel, whether
or not you want to believe that.
>> Sir, we've covered that.
>> I own 65 feral cats...
( crowd reacts loudly )
that have all been tamed.
>> Please.
>> I have spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars
to keep them healthy.
I have saved a lot more
in my life.
( applause )
>> I'm in favor
of killing feral cats.
( laughter )
I live outside Mt. Horeb.
We had to stop raising
pheasants, because we had
feral cats on our land.
They've hit a population enough.
I've seen them feasting
on rabbits.
I've seen them feasting
on squirrels.
>> Sir, we've already
established that.
>> Maybe you should get out
in the country a little bit more
and look around.
>> I propose a question here.
You've put some emphasis
on the fact that feral cats are
not native to Wisconsin.
I'd like to point out
that neither are white people.
( cheers and applause )
>> Sir!
Sir!
Do you have something to address
to the question?
>> That was, again, a clip
from "Here Kitty, Kitty,"
a documentary by our guest
today, Andy Beversdorf.
Andy, do you have
a political stance?
I mean, did you come to this,
or did you leave it
with an opinion on the issue?
>> I came to it--
I left it, definitely,
with an opinion on the way
people reacted to each other
during the issue.
As far as Q62 is concerned,
I really, it doesn't matter
to me one way or the other
whether or not there's a law
protecting cats,
or listing them as unprotected.
If such a law comes about,
that's fine.
If such a law doesn't
come about, that's fine, too.
I do have a problem with,
like I said, someone
being charged with a felony
for cruelty to animals,
when much more egregious
offenses are being committed
against animals
at the same time, you know,
like an industrial chicken farm.
>> What's the reaction
to your film?
You showed it for your family.
You showed it at screenings.
How have people reacted?
Where did you show it?
Only in Madison?
>> Well, Madison.
On a big screen,
only in Madison so far.
But yeah, I've shown it
to my family.
>> What did they think?
>> Well, it seems like people
are treating this piece
of media, this piece of film,
a lot of the way
they treat the nightly news,
or the local news
broadcast on the radio.
And that is, that if you
have an opinion already,
a lot of your opinion
is either strengthened
by my film.
People I know that were
in the cat rescue community,
or the people who wanted
to save the cats,
were more inclined to view this
as a film that was pro-cat.
And the people who liked
Gordon King, or the people
like Stan Temple, or people
who were in favor of Q62,
looked at this as more of a film
that was in favor of Q62.
So, people are sort of
making of it what they want.
>> How does that make you feel
about the genre?
I've been thinking about
documentaries a lot lately.
And so, what does that mean
about the news, and
what we all bring to the news?
Is that how we
read the newspapers, too?
Have you thought about that,
how your experience
of making this documentary
makes you realize
that people are set
no matter what the facts are?
>> In a way, it makes me feel
like okay,
maybe I failed a little bit.
Maybe.
But I wasn't really ever
trying to change anybody's mind.
And maybe
that's sort of trivial of me.
But I really wanted to make
a movie where people would
sit down and either rent it,
or maybe buy a copy of it,
or go to the theater and see it.
And say, wow,
that was entertaining.
I had fun.
That was a good movie.
Because that's
what the movies are.
Go out to the movie,
buy some popcorn,
have fun watching the movie.
And if you learn a little bit
along the way, that's great.
So, I wasn't trying to
change the world with this film.
But I hope people, if people
get something out of it,
that's a little bigger
than just going to the movies
and eating popcorn,
that's great.
If that's all they get
out of it, that's great, too.
>> Well, there's another
character in your film.
One that I felt a lot of empathy
for, because he's a professor
here who basically--
Well, tell me about Stan Temple,
and then we'll play a clip.
>> Stan Temple is a wildlife
ecologist, a professor,
now emeritus professor
at the University of Wisconsin
who studied migratory bird
populations in Wisconsin.
And one of the studies he did
was on cat predation.
He did surveys
of the stomach contents of cats
to find out in a year,
roughly how many
migratory song birds cats eat.
And then, he wanted to find,
what's the population of cats,
how many birds
do they eat per year.
And in a year, how many
migratory song birds are lost
because cats are eating them.
>> And of course, his research
was used to support hunting
of the cats.
>> Well, yeah, a lot of people
used it as sort of--
A lot of people
who wanted to list cats
as an unprotected species
started jumping on
the bird bandwagon.
You know, just sort of like
the people who didn't want to
admit that they were cat people,
and so they found other things
to talk about
that would support their cause.
The same with people
who just wanted to get rid
of this invasive species,
or get rid of the cats
that are on their property.
They jump on the bird.
They might not even care
about birds.
But okay, this study's out there
and it helps us out,
so let's jump on that.
>> Let's see a clip
on how people who love the cats
reacted to Stan Temple's
research.
Let's roll that clip.
>> Answering Machine:
Monday, 11:06pm. Line one.
>> Woman: You cat murdering
bastard.
What goes around, comes around.
I declare Stanley Temple season
open.
( beep )
>> That was one of them.
>> How many of those
did you get?
>> Oh, between messages
on the answering machine
and email,
probably eight or nine.
>> Death threats.
>> Things like this
that were, yeah.
Well, open season
on Stanley Temple.
The police said
that's a death threat.
( chuckles )
But, yeah.
In the middle of the night, cars
would drive into our driveway
and circle in front of the house
and then leave.
There were threatening notes
tacked up on the door
of my office, which again,
they considered to be
a very serious escalation
of the level of threat
over just making a phone call,
or sending an email.
To actually have come up
and tacked something
to my office door risked,
you know, an encounter with me,
or having other people see them.
So it was an interesting month.
>> Who's the hero
in "Here Kitty, Kitty,"
in the end?
>> I would have to say
my hero of the film
was someone who we interviewed
for maybe 15 minutes.
And he said about everything
we wanted him to say.
His name is Kurt Zengler.
And Shawn Mutter was the DA
who prosecuted Gordon King,
originally.
And then she lost
her re-election bid,
so Kurt Zengler took over
some of her cases.
She was the DA in Merrill.
Kurt Zengler
was an Assistant DA in Merrill.
And he took over the Gordon King
case when she left.
And he abhorred
what Gordon King was doing.
He was just revolted by the fact
that Gordon King
could be drowning these cats.
Hefelt terrible about it all.
But nevertheless,
he realized that legally,
the people of Wisconsin
didn't have a problem.
Well, the people in Wisconsin
didn't have any legal problem
with this.
So he was forced
to dismiss the case.
And the case was completely
dropped against Gordon King.
>> In the end, all this
heartache, all this emotion,
all this stuff.
What happened with Q62?
>> Q62 was voted.
The people of Wisconsin
voted in favor of Q62.
In other words,
they voted to list cats
as unprotected species.
Then the governor vetoed it.
>> I remember this.
>> The thing is
that Gordon King got off.
>> Good.
>> Gordon King drowned cats
and he got off.
So the question then is,
well, was Q62 ever necessary
in the first place?
Okay, Q62 was supposed
to make it legal to kill cats.
But we still don't know
whether it's illegal.
Gordon King is the one precedent
that I know of in the state,
where he drowned cats.
And he got off.
So, it could've been
much ado about nothing.
( laughs )
>> Well, thank you.
It was an excellent film.
I hope you keep making
documentaries.
Great choice.
For more information
on "Here Kitty, Kitty,"
or any of the films
featured on our show,
please go to our Web site:
wpt.org/directorscut
While you're there,
send us an email.
We would love to hear from you.
Thank you very much, Andy.
Thank you all
for listening this week.
I'm Charles Monroe-Kane.
And for everyone
at Director's Cut,
thank you for joining us.
Check the gate.