City to seek OK for 'trap-neuter-return' of feral cats

The city of Charlottesville will ask for tweaks to state animal laws in order to allow local governments and animal welfare groups more flexibility to practice “Trap-Neuter-Return” policies in dealing with populations of feral cats.

A statement seeking an amendment to state code was included on a list of eight specific requests for state legislation passed by the City Council earlier this week for consideration in the 2012 General Assembly session. The request comes after the council passed a memo of understanding with the Charlottesville-Albemarle Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on Oct. 17, which reaffirmed the local commitment to being a no-kill community and endorsed TNR as the best policy for controlling the feral-cat numbers.

Under TNR, feral cats — which officials often refer to as “community cats” — are lured into traps with food, taken to the SPCA to be spayed or neutered, then returned to the location where they were found.

The policy has been somewhat controversial, with critics warning of the cats’ impact on other wildlife, but local SPCA Executive Director Suzanne Kogut says TNR is the most proven and humane way to achieve a goal everyone shares: fewer feral cats.

“I think for the longest time, it has been controversial in many different ways because some people say, well the cats shouldn’t be out there …,” Kogut said. “At the end of the day, these are not housecats that are out there, these are cats that have more wild characteristics.”

The proposal passed by the City Council seeks: “legislation that will provide flexibility to localities to adopt alternative measures to address cat populations in their communities. Specifically, the city seeks a modification … of the code of Virginia to enable localities and the SPCA to pursue trap, neuter, return programs for feral cats, without incurring the obligations that may otherwise attach due to performing such procedures.”

Kogut said the proposed law change is meant to provide a clearer definition of what it means to take ownership of an animal, and alter wording that might prevent SPCA groups from releasing the cats back, which could run afoul of laws preventing the abandonment of animals.

“The issue there is really whether the laws as they’re currently drafted, that one can be viewed as an owner of the cat just by spaying or neutering it,” Kogut said. “We want to make it clear that TNR alone should not make someone an owner of an animal.”

Currently, the SPCA works with other animal groups and residents willing to take responsibility for the feral cats, Kogut said, but clarifying the laws surrounding abandonment would allow the SPCA to perform TNR on a wider basis.

“They’re out there. We’re trying to make less of them, along with everybody else,” Kogut said. “And we think this is the best way to reduce the population.”

In the five years that the local SPCA has offered free spaying and neutering and worked to provide TNR services, the group has altered about 6,500 free-roaming cats and another 6,700 that were brought into the SPCA, Kogut said. From 2008 to 2010, Kogut said, the SPCA’s cat intake fell by 22 percent, while some surrounding localities have seen substantial increases.

Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris said he sees TNR as a more cost-effective way of dealing with overpopulation.

“Rather than needing to find adopted homes and/or needing to euthanize unadopted animals, let’s put more attention on the front end in terms of the spaying and the neutering, which is going to save a lot of money,” Norris said.

Charlottesville is on the forefront of backing TNR programs.

“I think we might be the first community in Virginia to go on record to support TNR as a solution,” Norris said.