Couple charged with misdemeanors for trapping and releasing feral cats

[MaggieTheCat]

http://www.twincities.com/ci_18437201

A husband and wife in St. Paul Minnesota have been trapping and releasing feral cats in their neighborhood, in order to have them spayed/neutered and vaccinated (the costs coming out of their own pocket), to help reduce the number of unwanted cats/kittens and lessen the spread of disease. Now they are being charged with two misdemeanors: not having the cats licensed, and allowing them to roam the city freely.

City officials claim that when the couple took the cats to the vet, they were claiming ownership of the animals and by failing to have the cats licensed, and by releasing them back into the city, the couple is breaking city animal laws. The couple is facing fines and jail time.

Apparently the couple is, instead, supposed to either keep all the feral cats that they trap in their homes -- which certainly wouldn't break any other city ordinances, right? -- or watch the local ferals in their neighborhood breed, spread diseases, and die, without being able to do anything about it.

This upsets me, a lot. There are thousands of unwanted cats all across the country. There is no way to control all of them, but people like the couple in this article are at least doing something to try and make a difference, no matter how small it may be in the grand scheme of things. These cats are going to be roaming free and unlicensed regardless of what this couple does, but at least with their efforts, the cats they TNR will not be producing even more unwanted cats, or spreading diseases (which could potentially affect peoples' pets or even humans.)

[HYHYBT]

There seems to be something wrong with the link; it changes to https://secure.www.fratching.com/reg...ue&forced=true when clicked.

But yes, that's stupid.

[MaggieTheCat]

Hmm, I fixed it, maybe? It was working for me regardless but I think I got the original link right now, and not the one I got from Facebook.

[Andara Bledin]

This is actually a major problem all around the country.

Alley Cat Allies is a national organization dedicated to the protection of feral cats, including support for TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) programs and an ongoing fight against wanton killing and inhumane treatment of cats whose only crime is to not have an owner.

It appears that they don't have this story on their site, yet.

Thankfully, Californians still have the ability to run TNR on their local ferals without fear of reprisals. They tried to pass a law much like what goes on with the St Paul area here, with the cat-related portion being tucked in with some major regulations regarding dogs, but it was defeated.

We have a local Golden State Humane Society clinic that will take up to two ferals daily for a much-reduced TNR battery that includes a full vaccination suite and spay/neutering. We managed to get three of the local breeding females fixed last year, and fostered and found homes for 7 kittens. This season we had one litter which ended up in a box we delivered to a customer - thankfully, they're 'cat people' so we know the kittens were taken care of

A co-worker fought to have her gated community not take action against their ferals. Considering that the development is a stone's throw from a wilderness refuge, she used the fact that the cats actually protect the area from vermin and ran a "Cats or Rats" campaign championing them. The vote against taking action was nearly unanimous.

^-.-^

[bainsidhe]

So feeding a domestic animal means you claim ownership. People make pets out of almost any critter, wouldn't that make them domestic and therefore requiring a license? Including birds, deer, squirrels, racoons, skunks, etc. With all the trash I see left in parking lots, the local seagull population is quite well fed, perhaps we should start fining these people because seagulls aren't licensed.

[SkullKing]

This is sad, they were doing something good out of their own pockets, and are suffering for it.

"no good deed goes unpunished" indeed

[Nyoibo]

These people deserve a damn medal, not fines and crap, the interpretation of the law seems to be a load of crap.

[HYHYBT]

Thanks, the link is working now.

Interesting that NOBODY in the comment thread on the article is siding with the city on this. At least not so far. Usually there are more idiots in those

[tropicsgoddess]

I had an old neighbor that use to trap the stray cats in the neighborhood (there were more than a good handful of them) to get the fixed. What that couple did was a good thing for the community and it's just incredibly stupid that they're getting punished for that!

[Glados]

This is utter BS. These people are spending their own money in order to better the community and the city tries to punish them for it. Sadly, this definition of animal ownership is very common.

I am an animal lover and I once received a call from a co worker that her neighbor was going to abandon 5 adult cats and 2 litters of kittens on the street because "the shelter wouldn't take them" (the truth was that the shelter wanted $25 per animal to take them which was $425). I believed that the humane shelter would not allow them on the street and offered to take them to a shelter. I then discovered the cost to have the shelter take them and the shelter informed me that simply by caring for the cats for 1 hour that I was legally the owner and responsible for what happened to the animals.

I was appalled to be told that I should have allowed the cats to be abandoned and suffer to avoid taking legal responsibility for them.