SALISBURY – Efforts to introduce a new ordinance focused on community cats highlighted a council work session last week.
Last week, Wicomico County Humane Society Executive Director Kim Nock and Susan Coleman with Community Cats Coalition came before the Wicomico County Council seeking support for new language in the county’s animal control laws.
“We wanted to get verbiage put into the law stating that once these cats are fixed and vaccinated, and we ear tag them to identify they have been fixed, that they’ll be left alone and cannot be retrapped again,” Coleman said.
Coleman said the coalition works with the humane society and the community to vaccinate and sterilize feral cats. Those cats are then released back to their colonies.
“We practice trap-neuter-return,” she said. “That way the colonies get stabilized, no new cats come to the area, no new kittens are being born and it decreases the population.”
Officials with the two organizations told the council the trap-neuter-return (TNR) program controls the feral cat population and keeps cats out of the shelter. For example, Nock said the humane society’s live release rate had increased from 54% to 87% in six months as a result of working with community organizations to return feral cats to their colonies.
Nock noted, however, that these cats are often trapped by Salisbury Animal Control and brought to the humane society.
“The only thing that’s in the code is the definition of a community cat,” she said. “We would like for it to be added that a community cat cannot be brought into the shelter, or if it’s trapped it has to be replaced.”
Councilman Ernie Davis asked if the humane society and Community Cats Coalition had approached the city about its trapping practices. Nock replied that they had, but to no avail.
“They feel it’s a service they provided for the city in the past and that they will continue to provide it,” she said.
Coleman noted that Salisbury Animal Control responds when residents call about feral cats in their yards or neighborhoods.
“We need more education because people are feeding them and that’s why they are coming into the yard,” she said.
Nock agreed.
“When people are educated … they are going to make a different phone call,” she said. “Instead of calling city animal control, they are going to call Forgotten Cats or Community Cats Coalition or one of those organizations.”
Officials from the two organizations presented the council with an ordinance last week that would ban agencies from impounding community cats that are eartipped and identified as having completed a TNR program.
Officials noted, however, that many of the problems centered around the city’s animal control authority.
“You indicated it is primarily a city problem …,” Council Attorney Bob Taylor said. “We can put anything we want in the county code and the city can tell us to take a hike if they wanted to.”
Taylor added that an ordinance would not educate community members on the larger issues at hand.
“Putting something in the code doesn’t educate anybody,” he said. “Nobody I know sits around reading the county code at night. I think the problem needs to be addressed in some other way than just to put a lot of language in the code that really isn’t going to do much of anything.”
Council President Larry Dodd agreed to hold another work session with Coleman and Nock after they meet with city officials this month.
“I think we have a lot of work ahead of us,” he said.
Nock agreed.
“It’s not a quick fix,” she added.
