A Better Life for our Community Cats
A BETTER LIFE FOR OUR "COMMUNITY CATS" Palm Beach County currently has around 200,000 free roaming and feral community cats. The current research shows that only 2% of these cats have been spayed/neutered. Cats fill up the local shelters every year and because there are so many of them, most will never have a for a life-long loving home. Not only is this tragic, it is also a tremendous expense to our community. One female cat and her offspring can produce as many as 420,000 cats in seven years! Sec. 4-35. - COMMUNITY CATS (2016) The Board establishes the following community cat requirements:
(1) All community cats must be cared for on the private property of the caregiver or with permission of the property owner or property manager.
(2) All community cat caregivers shall have all un-owned free-roaming cats within their care sterilized, implanted with a EAID, vaccinated against rabies, and ear-tipped for easy identification.
(3) All community cat caregivers are required to provide certain necessities to each community cat under his/her care on a regular/ongoing basis, including, but not limited to, proper nutrition, adequate quantities of visibly clean and fresh water and medical care as needed. If medical care is unavailable or too expensive, the community cat caregiver must not allow the cat to suffer. Dumping on the ground or dispensing large quantities of food more than will be immediately eaten by the community cats present is prohibited. Feeding areas must be maintained in a clean and sanitary condition.
(4) Community cat caregivers shall make reasonable attempts to remove young kittens from the field for domestication. (b) A person returning a community cat to field must provide the Division with the cat's EAID number and any other information upon request by the Division. (c) Community cats meeting the requirements of this section are exempt from the license tag requirements of section 4-11, Dog and cat rabies/license tags. (d) The Division has the right to remove or authorize the removal of any free-roaming cat or community cat because of immediate public health or safety concerns. (e) NO community cat shall be released at any governmentally owned or managed park, natural area, area deemed as environmentally sensitive land or on any easement adjacent to such lands without approval from the applicable governmental entity. (f) Healthy community cats that have been impounded at the Division may be immediately returned to field, released to a caregiver or adopted. Notwithstanding the foregoing, whenever such cat is visibly injured or diseased and appears to be suffering and it reasonably appears that such cat cannot be expeditiously cured and returned to field, transferred to a humane society or private animal nonprofit organization or placed in foster care, then the Division, acting in good faith and upon reasonable belief, may humanely euthanize the cat upon the advice of the Division's veterinarian.
