The city of Eureka (a port city in Northern California) have come up with an ordinance (local law) which limits the number of cats per household to three unless you are a licensed cattery. Is this a good idea?
Pause. Think. Personally, I like it but there will be people who take the opposite viewpoint because they are excellent cat guardians of more than three cats. It is bound to be controversial.
The proposed ordinance also limits to 6 the total number of domestic animals you can keep at a home when combining dogs, cats, pot-bellied pig and miniature goats. There are other rules concerning the size of the land for pigs and the size of the pig and so on.
Comment: in the US there is a gradual change in attitude by local authorities regarding pet ownership. Probably in response to increased human population and urbanisation there is a need to better manage pet ownership and to prevent acquiring domestic animals without due consideration of the responsibilities and consequences in the interests of animal welfare and social cohesion (stop neighbour disputes and health aspects etc.). One objective is to minimise the number of unwanted cats and dogs and indeed other animals.
In general, across the US, there are still too many cat hoarder cases. These proposals would help prevent them.
Organisations like PETA would agree this ordinance as a move in the right direction. They’d go further and ban domestic animals entirely.
And PETA is wholly concerned with animal welfare whether you disagree with their attitude or not.
There is a destructively compulsive attitude by a minority of people to possess animals as if they were possessing any other item. This needs to be curtailed. The Eureka law would help in that goal.
The ordinance goes to our relationship with animals and taking a responsible attitude to both animal welfare and society as a whole. I am one of those who feels that people need to be constrained in some areas of their lives for their own good and the good of others – both animals and humans. I am for the Eureka ordinance.
Until your rural neighbors shoot and poison all your free roaming cats. Rural people value and care for all the wildlife that cats torture to death for no good reason. That’s what happened by me. Some urban pavement-brain thought that buying a “hobby farm” in the country would allow her to keep as many cats as she wanted. 800+ shot-dead cats later (sheriff approved) and she finally learned her stupid lesson. LOL
I think most municipalities have such ordinances, though people bend them, and some are hoarders. I’m not a fan of punishing or imposing harsh restrictions on the whole population because of a few idiots, but that’s the law for ya. The most I’ve had is 19 which included 4 temporary bottle babies which aren’t counted in such cases, as well as 5 kittens under 4 months old each that I was fostering and adopting out. I think if you have connections and oversight by local animal control, you should be allowed to do your thing as you’re helping with TNR, adopting, etc. I’m looking to buy a ranch or a house that’s zoned so I can have livestock and as many cats as I can handle. That’s doing it the right way.