The Jefferson city council got an education about trap-neuter-return (TNR) as a method of dealing with un-homed cats. Education, said Alice Burton of the national Alley Cat Allies organization, is the biggest part of the effort.
Burton traveled from Bethesda, MD, to meet with the city council and with Josh Colvin, director of animal control services for the Animal Rescue League in Des Moines. It was her second trip to Jefferson. She visited in July during the public response to headline stories about the Jefferson police department’s practice of occasionally shooting feral cats.
Burton said she was an animal control officer in Arlington, VA, for 14 years. She said when the animal shelter there started using TNR she was totally against it. She said she didn’t change her mind until TNR had been in place for six months and she saw it worked. There were fewer complaints of roaming cats, fewer kittens coming into the shelter, and the demoralizing job of euthanizing cats had lessened.
According to Burton, TNR isn’t about loving cats, it’s about a more efficient way to deal with community cats. “Community cats” has become the common term for the free-roaming cats living outdoors. “Feral” describes a level of socialization – feral cats may appear friendly at first, but after two or three days, they revert back to avoiding humans. They are unsocialized and not adoptable.
Using TNR, community cats are trapped, either spayed or neutered, and then returned to where they were trapped. Their left ear is notched, indicating they’ve been altered so they aren’t trapped multiple times. The cats are more docile and the cat population doesn’t increase.
She also suggested cost effective ways to keep cats out of yards where they’re unwelcome. Coffee grounds or citrus peels mixed in with garden mulch is one easy way to keep cats out of flower beds, for example.
Burton said the city is not being asked to fund a TNR effort, or to mandate it, but only to approve it. The current ordinance now prohibits cats running at large; she suggested the council amend the ordinance and allow P.A.W.S. or A.P.E. to implement TNR. Those groups could find the funding for spaying/neutering.
The city would see very little expense. Colvin of the ARL said the Des Moines city council is expected to have on first reading at its Dec. 17 meeting an animal control ordinance for TNR. The city attorney there spent only 30 minutes reviewing a draft ordinance provided by Alley Cat Allies. The expense to the city will be the legal notice published after the ordinance is adopted.
Burton said TNR is being done successfully all over the world, and that she knows of no places that have started TNR and discontinued it.
Colvin said that in Des Moines, the only cats that get brought to the ARL and are eventually euthanized are feral cats. A TNR program can greatly reduce that. He said it’s a misconception that cats should be indoors during the winter, that community cats do well outdoors. “TNR isn’t taxpayer dollars. I think it’s good policy,” Colvin said.
Help from Alley Cat Allies would be free, Burton said.
Council members asked a few questions but gave no indication if they would support the needed ordinance amendment.
