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Here, Kitty Kitty: cat-control issues confound council
, Richmond News Staff
07-16-2010
If anyone can help Richmond solve its feral cat infestation, the Richmond City Council and Police Department would gladly listen.
As long as it doesn’t involve feeding, then abandoning the animals.
The council’s Public Safety Committee and Police Chief Terri McWilliams recognize that citizens have a soft heart for the free-roaming felines.
Still, the people who mean well might be making the problem worse: committee member Terrie Stanley knows of at least a handful of citizens who sometimes cruise the city’s neighborhoods feeding whatever strays they might find.
Stanley said she knows of one local woman who legally owns three cats but has another 18 or so feral ones squatting on or around her property.
Both said that these intended acts of kindness ignore a city law: when a citizen feeds or otherwise cares for an animal, the citizen technically assumes ownership. Meanwhile, Stanley said, the Missouri Municipal League has cautioned that the problem raises rabies concerns.
In the meantime, animals that haven’t been spayed or neutered to control the local population continue roaming free and breeding. Occasionally, McWilliams said, a citizen will take in an animal, care for it and then attempt to deposit it into the city’s care.
“One feral cat can make 26 feral cats,” Stanley said.
Full story is in the Friday, July 16, 2010 edition of the Richmond News
