10/07/2021
A large number of community cats are slated for euthanasia in the coming weeks at the direction of county staff and I am asking for your support for let the County Commissioner know this is not acceptable to St. Mary's County in 2021.
The Commissioners have an Animal Control Advisory Board that should be able to research option and advise them on better solutions for the public and the community cat populations.
This emergent issue arose when Director of Parks & Rec, Arthur Shepherd, witnessed a managed colony of community cats being fed at the edge of the woods where the new park in Lexington Park is opening soon. Mr. Shepherd requested that Animal Control remove the cats to prevent the chance that a human would be bitten – which I will discuss later. Director of Emergency Services, Steve Walker, passed that direction on to Animal Control to round up the cats. To shed some light on this process, the cats will need to be individually trapped and the only resource at this time is for Animal Control to deliver the cats to Tri-County Animal Shelter. Once at the shelter, the only viable outcome for these cats is euthanasia since they are not social and do not interact with people. This makes community cats (a.k.a. feral cats) unadoptable.
If this practice is allowed to continue once the St. Mary’s County Animal Shelter is opened, this will severely impact the county’s ability to claim a ‘low-kill’ shelter status as each of these ‘kills’ will need to be counted toward the shelter’s kill rate as they would not be killed for humane purposes. Beyond the statistics, which impact the county’s ability to receive future grants and funding for community programs to benefit the animals this is not good practice.
Communities across the nation are embracing Trap, Neuter, Return (TNR) as the standard practice for addressing the community cat population. TNR means cats are humanely trapped, taken to a veterinarian to be spayed or neutered, vaccinated, eartipped, and returned to their outdoor home, this is the only humane and effective approach to community cats. TNR stops the breeding cycle and eliminates mating behaviors, such as yowling, spraying, roaming, and fighting. TNR also benefits public health because community cats are vaccinated against rabies. Removing cats from an area (i.e. catching and killing) is futile. When cats are removed from an area, an influx of new, unsterilized cats move in to take advantage of available resources – and reproduce. This well-documented natural phenomenon is known as the “vacuum effect.” Catching and killing cats creates an endless, expensive cycle of cruelty that wastes taxpayer’s money.
Specifically in this instance, this colony of community cats has been in place for nearly a decade with an active caretaker that feed the colony, looks out for sick or injured animals, and works to have any new cats that are abandoned at the location spayed, neutered and vaccinated. With a history of not being a nuisance to the community and the risk to human interaction extremely low, there are much more humane options that should be attempted prior to a wholesale slaughter of these animals. Consider the fact that the reason these cats are unadoptable is that they do not interact with humans, aside from the long-term caretaker that has fed them for 8 years. If a human approaches the cats, they will run and hide. I know community cats that have been taken in for medical reasons and have lived every day within a volunteer’s home for years and the cat will not come out of hiding when the volunteer is awake. They do not want to interact and will do everything in their power to avoid humans.
Let these animals live out their lives in their home in the woods. It is an easy solution to set up their feeding station further away from where humans will be in the park. We do not trap and kill every animal in nature that could ever pose a threat to a human if cornered, so why are we treating these cats any differently?
In extreme instances, community cats are relocated, but there is not basis for doing that in this situation. When cats are relocated, there is a two-month time period they have to be individually penned and acclimated and that comes at a large expense. The majority do not stay once they are relocated and end up dying from starvation due to not knowing where to find their food source. Do nothing, let the animals stay where they live, it’s as simple as that.
St. Mary’s County is in the process of building a multi-million-dollar animal shelter which I know from my experience was implemented because we are trying to be a compassionate community that wants the best for both the humans and animals living in the county. It’s time to take action that will actually save taxpayer dollars, and prove that this county walks the walk when it comes to humane treatment of animals.
We can make a difference with your support.
Please take action today. Join me in letting our legislators know that we want humane policies for our community’s cats!
In your letter, mention that you are a constituent who cares about your community’s cats, and that you support TNR as the best approach to community cats. Be sure to mention that you want to community cats in Lexington Park to be left alone.
Here are a few talking points for your letter:
• Trap-Neuter-Return is the only effective approach for community cats. Community cats are humanely trapped, spayed/neutered, vaccinated, and eartipped (the universal sign that a cat has been part of a Trap-Neuter-Return program), and then returned to their outdoor home.
• Trap-Neuter-Return stops the breeding cycle and eliminates mating behaviors, such as yowling, spraying, roaming, and fighting. Trap-Neuter-Return also benefits public health because community cats are vaccinated against rabies.
• Removing cats from an area (i.e. catching and killing) is futile. When cats are removed from an area, an influx of new, unsterilized cats move in to take advantage of available resources – and reproduce. This well-documented natural phenomenon is known as the “vacuum effect.”
When you’re ready, send your email to:
Commissioners’ Group Email: [email protected]
More effective, send a letter addressed to each individual commissioner and mail to
PO Box 653, Leonardtown, Maryland 20650:
Commissioner President Randy Guy
Commissioner John O’Connor
Commissioner Todd Morgan
Commissioner Mike Hewitt
Commissioner Eric Colvin
Thank you for speaking out for animals in your community!
Sincerely,
Melinda Brown
