Photo: Eastern Bluebird, Pamela Underhill/Audubon Photography Awards
Tom Blackburn
One hundred million unowned cats in the United States kill 1.7 billion birds and more than six billion other small animals each year. For the past several months, I have participated in a state-mandated mediation group that is attempting to address the unowned cat problem in Virginia.
In February 2021, Delegate Ken Plum, the Chair of the Chair of the House Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee, requested the secretaries of three Virginia state agencies convene a working group to develop legislation to reduce and control the population of free-roaming cats. The secretaries convened a mediation panel consisting of representatives of pro-wildlife organizations, including ASNV; pro-cat groups, including the Humane Society; several state agencies; and Virginia Tech’s Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and its Public Health Program. The mediation panel, led by a professional mediator, met for five day-long sessions in Richmond.
Feral cat colony, Rahel Jaskow
The mediation process has been difficult, but there is some hope for success in addressing the unowned cat problem. The panel agrees on broad issues, such as the existence of the problem and the necessity of reducing the number of unowned cats. There also is agreement that Trap, Neuter and Return (TNR) programs – which capture cats so they can be sterilized and return them to the place they were captured – should maintain records and provide training to trappers and caretakers, and that there should be limits on how unowned cats should be fed to reduce unintentional attraction and feeding of wildlife.
However, there are still disagreements. Studies of TNR programs show that they are not effective in reducing the number of unowned cats in a colony unless at least 70% of the cats are sterilized because the remaining cats continue to reproduce. It appears to be nearly impossible to achieve that level of sterilization. However, the pro-cat groups disagree with the scientific studies or assert that TNR of even a small percentage of the cats in a colony reduces the number of cats that would otherwise exist. This makes it difficult to agree on how much emphasis should be placed on TNR as a means of reducing the number of unowned cats.
There is also disagreement on what to do with unowned cats that cannot be domesticated. Many unowned cats are too distrustful of humans to be placed in homes. Even if a TNR program sterilizes 70% of the cats in a colony, it can take many years before the colony is eliminated. In the meantime, the cats continue to kill birds and other wildlife and threaten public health with diseases such as rabies and toxoplasmosis. The mediation panel is divided on whether undomesticated cats should be permitted to exist in colonies, or whether they should be placed in open-air “catios” or euthanized to reduce their predation on wildlife. Some groups maintain that unowned cats live in inhumane conditions because they frequently die from starvation, disease, extreme weather and trauma, and that as many as 80% of kittens born to unowned cats die within six months.
Feral cat colony, Rahel Jaskow
The mediation panel will continue to meet without a professional mediator in the coming months to try to resolve their disagreements on these issues. The group also will discuss funding to expand sterilization of both owned and unowned cats, whether to encourage people to keep their cats indoors, and ways to reduce the number of owned cats that are abandoned.
Regardless of the outcome of the mediation process, local governments have the right to enact a broad variety of measures to limit the impact of free-roaming cats. 60 Virginia local governments have enacted ordinances that do so. However, of the jurisdictions within ASNV’s service territory, only Prince William County, Manassas Park and the City of Manassas have enacted any such ordinances. ASNV will explore working with local governments to address the unowned cat issue in the months to come.