The Hobe Sound Animal Protection League is a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to addressing the issue of cat overpopulation. Below you will find an outline of our position demonstrating the merits of non-lethal population control/trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs for feral cats.

• Cost effective
• Humane
• More effective than conventional removal and euthanasia methods
• Increasingly in use in communities across the country

Our position statement also addresses the issues of rabies, predations, costs, and additional issues raised by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. We feel our efforts to date speak for themselves. Please read on for specific information regarding our statistics and more detailed discussion of the afore-mentioned topics.
Please note that we have found no documented reports in which the killing of cats has been successful in reducing their numbers over the long term. We would like emphasize that the goal of our program is to reduce cat numbers, not to maintain or establish colonies.

The 1999 Australian Threat Abatement Plan for Predation by Feral Cats concluded that, "Eradication of feral cats is well beyond the capacity of available techniques and resources because the species is so well established across such a vast area. In contrast, eradication of a population of feral cats from an island may be feasible provided a persistent campaign can be mounted. Historically, a range of techniques has been used in attempts to control feral cats, including shooting, trapping, poison baiting, fumigation and hunting . . . Available methods are generally expensive, labor intensive, require continuing management effort and can be effective only in limited areas." Feral cats were believed to be finally eradicated from the small Antarctic island of Macquarie after 30 years of hunting the cats at a cost of more than $4.5 million. The cost of killing the final cat was $500,000. These techniques likely would be found unacceptable and would probably be futile in populated mainland environments in the United States.

Julie Levy, DVM

Submitted by: Lisa Hughes
Hobe Sound Animal Protection League
141 Gomez Road Hobe Sound, FL 33455


Strategies we would advocate and promote:

Aggressive spay/neuter of animals within our community - including free-roaming, feral, and/or unadopted animals

Early age spay/neuter.

NBA - Neuter before Adoption - all animals, kittens and adult cats spayed/neutered before going to homes.

Micro chipping is recommended for cats when practical. 

Accessibility of spay/neuter programs - foster wide accessibility of spay/neuter programs to all citizens, options include mobile spay/neuter van, weekend and evening hours, voucher programs, low-cost programs.

Enforcement of current abandonment laws (part of Abuse Law)

The use of trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs is growing around the country, whether in the form of a public-private partnership, a joint venture between non-profits and municipalities or a strictly publicly funded program. (See attachments) According to Ed Boks, Director, Department of Animal Control, Maricopa County Arizona, "There is a tremendous amount of research on non-lethal population control/trap-neuter-return programs in the United States, Canada and other countries that demonstrate these programs are the only effective means of dealing with this vexing problem."

As Director of Animal Control, Ed Boks has now instituted and endorsed a trap-neuter-return policy as the official Department policy of animal control. He holds his community up as a model to others in hopes that they can learn from his community's experience and recent conversion to this effective methodology.

Cost Effectiveness:

Currently, the cost to the County for each animal brought in is $90. This includes costs for pick up, shelter/care and euthanasia. The cost to Animal Control to pick up alone is $45. With a program like ours where volunteers collect the ferals and return them to monitored colonies, the cost to the County for those services is nothing. The costs of the Treasure Coast Humane Society to spay or neuter, vaccinate and microchip run between $34 and $49. Using an average of $41, this represents a savings to the County of almost $50 per animal.

We have attached profiles of five programs utilizing TNR. They include Orange County, Florida Animal Services; San Francisco SPCA; Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society; San Diego Feral Cat Coalition, and Aggie Feral Cat Alliance of Texas. Each profile includes information on funding sources; spay/neuter statistics, and important information on savings to the community. For example, from 1995-1998 Orange County Florida was able to save $109,172 by using the TNR methodology as opposed to conventional removal and euthanasia.

FWC Position:

Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission regularly cites Florida Statute 372.265(1) in reference to feral cats, and according to Julie Levy DVM, PhD (College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville), this law is frequently used to frighten feral cat workers. However, Dr. Levy further points out that many TNR programs are actually run by municipal agencies after county attorneys have verified the legality of TNR. Dr. Levy also points out that while section 372.265(1) states that it is illegal to import any non-indigenous species into Florida without a permit, if in fact this statute were intended to apply to domestic animals, then everyone moving into Florida, bringing a cat, dog, horse, or etc., would be in violation. When Dr. Levy herself applied for a permit to import a cat, the FWC told her that the law does not apply to cats and that she did not need a permit. Dr. Levy also contacted the State's Attorney who told her they no intention of enforcing the law against feral cat workers.

Rabies:

The issue of rabies and /or cats as vectors for diseases is often cited as well by the FWC. However, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) (www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rabies) the breakdown for reported rabies cases in the year 2000 is as follows:
Wild animals - 93%

Domestic species - 6.9%

In terms of wild animals, raccoons continue to be the most frequently reported rabid species, accounting for 37% of the total wildlife figure. Skunks account for 30%, bats 16.8%, fox 6.1%, and other rodents and lagomorphs 7%.

As mentioned, domestic species account for only 6.9%. This includes dogs, cats, sheep/goats, cats, cattle, horses and swine. In 2000, cases of rabies in cats, cattle, and horses and swine decreased by 10.4%, 38.5%, and 100% respectively.


Other important facts as reported by the CDC website:

The majority of rabies cases occur in wildlife.

Wildlife is more likely to be rabid than domestic animals in the US, but the amount of human contact with domestic animals greatly exceeds the amount of contact with wildlife. The risk to humans is increased by so-called "spillover" rabies into domestic animals. Thus, pets are vaccinated and humans may also be vaccinated if exposed to address these risks.

Rabies is uncommon in dogs, cats, and ferrets in the US.

Very few bites by dogs, cats and ferrets carry a risk of rabies.

One of the most important aspects of our work in addition to spay and neuter is the vaccination of all animals we collect.

Alley Cat Allies has also underscored the efforts of the state of Ohio to deal with an explosive increase in rabid raccoons through the use of pioneering Oral Rabies Vaccination (ORV) program (see attached). The Ohio literature states that raccoon-strain rabies frequently "spills over" into pets, livestock, and other wildlife, even including the species often considered low risk for rabies like rabbits, groundhogs, deer, etc.

Their program was instituted in 1997 with the distribution of 100 ORV baits. While some of the worst hit states on the East Coast reported cases of raccoon rabies in the 100's by 1998 Ohio's cases declined to 20 raccoons, three skunks, two cats and one skunk. Their program expanded into an adjacent county and by 2000 and 2001 there were NO reported cases.

The CDC was a source of major support, supplying valuable technical support to the state of Ohio in the ORV program. Pioneering programs such as these can be far more instrumental in combating rabies outbreaks in wildlife than improperly placing the blame on feral cats or misleadingly citing feral cats as major vectors for rabies or other diseases, as has been the position of the FWC.

Predation:

FWC raises issues of predation and feral cats, often unfairly using the feral cats as scapegoats. Perhaps more insightful in this regard would be the point of view of renowned British scientist, Roger Tabor, who spent over 30 years studying feral cats. * Tabor takes the position that:

"In terms of the cats as threats to wildlife, generally for countries like Britain and America where other species have coexisted with the cat family predators for a long time, cats are no more harmful than other predators. Only in cases of small islands and the unique circumstances of Australia has the effect of cats, both feral and domestic, been very harmful. In biological systems it is insufficient merely to have found one animal will eat another, that, after all, is what predators do - but is that predation pressure within normal limits? Is the prime predator the cat?"

Tabor also suggests "disturbances by man" should be considered. . The World Watch Institute cites deforestation due to razing of forests for croplands, pastures and real estate as one of the major factors contributing to the loss of all birds, including songbirds.

Tabor further points out that there are 14,136 golf courses nationwide, each of which uses 150 acres of land. Each acre is treated with 18 pounds of pesticides annually. Pesticide use causes enormous losses in bird populations. In the U.S., 220 million acres have been deforested for livestock production, yet environmentalists are eager to eradicate all alien and introduced species except cattle. Rather than blaming cats for so many of our problems, Tabor feels we should look toward modifying lifestyles and animal-based agriculture, so destructive to natural ecosystems, and move toward methods which are less damaging to our environment.

More than 250 species of songbirds migrate south of U.S. borders. Tropical deforestation is occurring at the rate of 142,000 to 200,000 square kilometers each year, an area roughly the size of Florida. At this rate the world's remaining tropical forests will be depleted by 2030 and many species of songbirds will disappear along with them.

Again the point is that mankind is the main problem, not cats.

Summary

As a fledgling organization with limited resources, the Hobe Sound Animal Protection League has managed to have a positive impact on the feral cat population in our targeted areas. We vaccinate, spay, neuter all animals and either return to approved monitored colonies or adopt out our animals. Again, we have in a little over 2 years spayed and neutered 130 cats. Sixty percent of these cats were female. Extrapolating, this means that we prevented 78 females from going through at least four heat cycles and having 2-4 kittens per litter, with each new female kitten again repeating the same cycle. This translates into literally thousands of cats that were not born. And this was all at no expense to the County. The TNR approach we adopted was not only cost effective but also successful and humane. We hope the County will positively consider the efficacy of such an approach on a county- wide basis. TNR can and does work and has been embraced increasingly by communities across the country as the preferred methodology for overpopulation.



Sources for Tabor

*1. Berkeley, Ellen Perry, Maverick Cats, New England Press, 1992

*2. Bradshaw, John, The Behavior of the Domestic Cat, Cambridge