There are 63 jurisdictions where cat declawing is specifically banned in their legislation. You can almost certainly count in many more because umbrella animal welfare laws would ban cat declawing for non-therapeutic purposes. The 63 jurisdictions where declawing is banned would allow declawing for therapeutic i.e. for health reasons. That’s an important point.
Tacoma, Washington is the latest jurisdiction to ban declawing. It is the first Washington city to do it. Their addition to the list makes 15 US cities where cat declawing is banned. By ‘jurisdiction’ I mean a municipality where administrators have the authority to make laws that don’t conflict with federal laws or they are the federal law.
“I’m incredibly proud that the City Council has passed this ban on nontherapeutic cat declawing and that Tacoma takes animal welfare issues seriously. We have received an incredible outpouring of support from the community for this ban.”
Tacoma Council member John Hines
You can’t simply ban all forms of cat declawing because exceptionally rarely it is required in the interests of the patient. 99.9% of cat declawing is conducted against cats for nontherapeutic reasons and at the convenience of the owner in order to protect furniture or because they are frightened of claws.
I will do my best to update the page as when required.
- 1-16 – Cities and towns in the USA
- 17-54 – Countries
- 55-63 – Provinces in Canada
List
- Allentown, Pennsylvania
- Austin, Texas
- Berkeley, California
- Beverly Hills, California
- Burbank, California
- Culver City, California
- Denver, Colorado
- Los Angeles, California
- Madison, Wisconsin
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- St. Louis County, Missouri
- St. Louis, Missouri
- San Francisco, California
- Santa Monica, California
- Tacoma, Washington
- West Hollywood, California
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Brazil
- Bulgaria
- Cyprus
- The Czech Republic
- Denmark (does not apply to Greenland or the Faroe Islands)
- England
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macedonia
- Malta
- Montenegro
- The Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Northern Ireland
- Norway
- Portugal
- Romania
- Scotland
- Serbia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Turkey
- Ukraine
- Wales
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Manitoba
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Nova Scotia
- Prince Edward Island
- Saskatchewan
- Québec (effective February 2024)
The sad aspect of this list is that is has to be a list. It would be so much better if the US federal government banned cat declawing in one fell swoop. Over done with. Sadly that is not going to happen. The vets continue to fight teeth and claw (excuse the pun) to retain the right to mutilate kittens at the convenience of miguided cat owners.
The list is courtesy PETA who extremely helpfully keep it up to date. Many thanks. It will need up dating as bans spread out across America.
What is cat declawing? A lot of people are unsure but if they knew how cruel it is they’d not do do it. Here is a picture which explains it. It entails 10 amputations! Yes, 10. Imagine what that’s like for a kitten. Totally shock. A kind of hell when you consider the claw is a vital part of the cat’s anatomy. And they walk on their toes as digitigrades. Horrible and many vets support the operation for non-therapeutic purposes in a complete derogation of their oath which is in tatters.
