Help support saving the lives of community cats by advocating for lifesaving programs in your area. Please sign and share this petition to show that you support safe, humane and positive solutions for cats living in your community. Current state rules and regulations severely hamper any lifesaving efforts focused on community cats. Alaska's Board of Game has been considering rule changes that could impact cats and the people who care for them. These changes have been pushed to early 2022. Alaska’s residents deserve TNVR (trap-neuter-vaccinate-return) programs, which are animal-friendly, cost-effective, and reduce the burden and bureaucracy placed on the state’s animal shelters. The process is simple: Community cats are trapped, evaluated by veterinarians, vaccinated, spayed or neutered, ear-tipped, and returned to their outdoor homes, unable to have kittens. The simple truth is that current methods of animal control relative to community cats are expensive, ineffective and often inhumane. Rule changes allowing TNVR programs would be better for the cats, for public health and for the wildlife we all want to protect.

Nearly 10 years after the L.A. City Council committed to making the city a no-kill community, the struggle continues. Although the 90% threshold was achieved for dogs four years ago, lifesaving efforts for cats have been much more challenging. However, a program currently under consideration would likely push L.A. over the top. The greatest barrier to saving more cats has been a legal injunction preventing the City from any involvement with trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs. As a result, the number of young kittens entering L.A. shelters is on the rise in recent years, overwhelming available resources. Last month, the City released the details of its long-awaited Citywide Cat Program, which allocates funding for the surgical sterilization of 20,000 free-roaming cats annually, over and above those funds already allocated for residents’ pets. The process is simple: cats are caught, evaluated by veterinarians, sterilized, vaccinated, and returned to their original location. This promises to be a game-changer without hampering any of the progress already made—overturning the injunction and paving the way for L.A. to become the largest no-kill community in the country.

You can help save the lives of cats in your community! Community cats (aka stray or free-roaming cats) risk losing their lives simply because they've made a home in the outdoors. In many cases, they are brought to local shelters, where they are unlikely to get adopted because many of them aren't socialized to people. That's where community cat programs come in. These programs use trap-neuter-return (TNR) to save cats. The process is simple: Community cats are trapped, evaluated by veterinarians, vaccinated, spayed or neutered, ear-tipped, and returned to their outdoor homes, unable to have kittens. And these programs are already working around the country and in Houston. You can help save the lives of community cats by advocating for these programs in your area. Thank you for supporting community cats in your neighborhood, and for everything that you do for the animals.

Community cats (aka stray or free-roaming cats) risk losing their lives simply because they've made a home in the outdoors. In many cases, they are brought to local shelters, where they are unlikely to get adopted because many of them aren't socialized to people. Community cat programs use trap-neuter-return (TNR) to save cats. The process is simple: Community cats are trapped, evaluated by veterinarians, vaccinated, spayed or neutered, and returned to their outdoor homes, unable to have kittens.

We are asking for support from our city to help this program grow into a much needed shelter based operation.

Obviously, the biggest benefit of TNR is reducing the feral cat population. Since they can’t reproduce, the size of the colony shrinks over time. TNR also reduces nuisance behavior, such as fighting and spraying. The cats generally are healthier and less likely to spread diseases since they get vaccinated as part of the TNR process. The cats continued presence helps keep rodents under control. Trap-Neuter-Return is successfully practiced in hundreds of communities and in every landscape and setting. It is exactly what it sounds like: Cats are humanely trapped and taken to a veterinarian to be neutered and vaccinated. After recovery, the cats are returned to their home—their colony—outdoors. Kittens and cats who are friendly and socialized to people may be adopted into homes. Grounded in science, TNR stops the breeding cycle of cats and therefore improves their lives while preventing reproduction. It is a fact that the removal and killing of outdoor cats that animal control has been pursuing for decades are never-ending and futile. Since feral cats are not adoptable, they are killed in pounds and shelters. With a successful program like Trap-Neuter-Return to turn to, it’s hard to believe that animal control agencies continue to kill cats, even though that approach has shown zero results. It is time to put an end to catch and kill. Trap-Neuter-Return provides a life-saving, effective solution for these beautiful, independent cats. Colonies that are involved in TNR diminish in size over time. During an 11-year study of TNR at the University of Florida, the number of cats on campus declined by 66%, with no new kittens being born after the first four years of operation. A study of the impact of TNR on feral cat colonies in Rome, Italy, also observed colony size decrease between 16% and 32% over a 10-year period. Trap-Neuter-Return quickly stabilizes feral cat populations by instantly ending reproduction and by removing socialized cats from the colony. A TNR program at Texas A&M University neutered 123 cats in its first year and found no new litters of kittens the following year. Over the course of the same study, 20% of the cats trapped were found to be socialized stray cats and adopted. I personally worked with Allied Cats of Columbus in Columbus, GA, where I saw the benefits of the reduction of cats being euthanized by animal control and a decrease in the adoptions.

TNR quantifiably reduces suffering and helps to stabilize feral and community cat populations. It also serves a springboard for a broader conversation about spay and neuter for companion animals. By getting a single city in North Texas to allow for TNR, we can create momentum to get other cities to follow suit. Doing so will not only reduce city budgets in dealing with kittens and nuisance complaints, but also local animal rescues and advocacy groups. Less breeding -means - fewer kittens - means fewer resources spent by rescues. It can also help reduce compassion fatigue in local animal service and rescue organizations. At the end of the day, TNR reduces animal suffering without any negative consequences for city governments and a multitude of benefits for communities.