Cats v. birds: Settler delegations and arbitrary domination in Los Angeles

This article tells the story of a conflict among “trap-neuter-return” experts, environmentalists concerned about the ecological impacts of free-roaming cats, and the City of Los Angeles Department of Animal Services from 2008 to 2020. The conflict included a lawsuit, an environmental impact report, detailed models of cat population dynamics, and the question of whether sterilizing cats reduced the number of cats in the city. The story is told through a mix of fieldwork conducted around this issue in Los Angeles between 2017 and 2025, and historical and government documents. The article uses the analytics of more-than-human resistance to try to understand better how resistance, and governance, involving more-than-human Los Angeles is unfolding. I argue that the concept of arbitrary domination, and a focus on the specifically American settler-colonial relations of delegated governance can best make sense of the situation.