What to do with a Monster : Randall Nelson

Portrait of a Dilemma: What to Do With a Monster
Essay about the mixed media piece “The Horror of Enclosure"

    In popular culture, stories about how to deal with a monster are a recurring theme. This is probably one of the oldest of human problems and it seems we have proven very good at solving it, since more than seventy five per cent of the large animal species that existed when modern humans first evolved are now extinct. From Beowulf to King Kong, the methods employed have always been similar; find the beast, determine its capabilities, then attack with whatever forces are available (local tribesmen, police, the military) and kill the damned thing. This is fine if you're planning to fight a dragon, but the monsters our society is dealing with now are not so easily identified or dispatched. They can be our pets or our neighbors.

   When I speak of pets's I'm referring primarily to domestic cats, nature's perfect predator and the threat they pose to endangered songbirds. People who let their house cats roam freely are allowing them to do what they do best- kill wildlife. Domestic cats are not native to the U.S., and the estimates for how many birds they kill each year are staggering. Many of these bird species are already under terrible pressure from habitat destruction, both in the U.S. and in Latin America, where many species winter. Experts say the only solution is to keep all cats indoors, enclosed, for the sake of the birds.

   So how do the cats feel about this? I can tell you from my own experience that they are not happy with this solution at all. Since I have enclosed our porch with hardware cloth (heavy ½ inch mesh), they have taken to lurking by the doors, making desperate attempts to escape whenever an outside door is opened. Our male cat has started spraying my clothing, especially if I hang a coat on a chair or leave a shirt on the couch. Many of my friends, especially the ones who don't have cats, have told me they would have killed him by now, if he was theirs.

   So the question is, what should we, as a society, do with individuals we know we cannot control? With pets, the burden is on the owner. Originally, cats were valuable to early farmers because of their ability to control rodent damage to harvested cereal crops. The skill at killing that once made cats valuable is still there, but has now become a liability. Since we can't make them behave, the only other solutions are eradication or enclosure. A similar problem faces us as a society. In CT, several high profile cases involving criminals released from prison who have then attacked and murdered innocent citizens have happened recently. These acts have terrorized citizens and caused officials to call for more stringent guidelines for the release of dangerous felons. The problem of dealing with potentially violent criminals is now one of our societies biggest moral challenges. Should we do what experts say I need to do with my cats- execute them or put them in prison for life? How far are we willing to go to protect the innocent? As a society, should we lock people up because we are afraid of what they might do in the future? Can a pre-emptive arrest ever be justified? Does the beast have any rights?