Changes demanded to feral cat ordinance

By JEFF STITT

jstitt@yourmvi.com

White Oak council won’t take any action until April in regards to changing a feral cat ordinance that’s been a hot-button issue for animal lovers from Trap-Neuter-Return operations around the region.

At Monday’s workshop meeting, Solicitor Patricia McGrail presented council with proposed changes to the ordinance. They were submitted to Mayor Ina Jean Marton and the solicitor by people who were present at last month’s meeting to express outrage over the current ordinance, which was adopted in late December.

Donna Priselac, who also spoke at last month’s meeting, told council on Monday that she and others sent a copy of the borough’s current ordinance to attorneys at Alley Cat Allies. Priselac said attorney Elizabeth Holt crossed out language local TNR groups took issue with in the current ordinance and made notations of what changes the groups would like to see made.

Alley Cat Allies works in communities “to champion low-cost spay and neuter policies and programs, as well as lifesaving Trap-Neuter-Return and Shelter-Neuter-Return,” according to its website, alleycat.org.

The groups are calling for the borough to add a definition of a “community cat” and a “community cat caregiver” to the ordinance.

The proposed definition states that a community cat is a cat that is abandoned, stray, lost or feral, and that a community cat caregiver is “a person, who in accordance with Trap-Neuter-Return, provides care, including food, shelter or medical care to a community cat. A community cat caregiver shall not be considered the owner, harborer, controller or keeper of a community cat.”

The animal groups suggest leaving the current definition of a feral cat, defined as an unowned free-roaming cat that is partially socialized or unsocialized to humans and tends to resist contact with humans, but suggests striking the definition of a stray cat — any cat whose owner or keeper from time to time allows the cat to run at large off the property of the owner or keeper.

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