HILLIARD, Ohio: I don’t have access to any of the American websites reporting this story which is of interest to me because these websites do not comply with European Union regulations on privacy and rather than complying they simply make the website inaccessible to people residing in Europe.
However, I do have access to some photographs which I have taken the liberty to reproduce on this page. The photographs show Hilliard residents at a city council meeting. This tells me that there has been a lot of interest in this local law, as there normally is, I have to say. A lot of people in America are very concerned about the welfare of feral cats and when city councillors decide to create rules which have a negative impact upon feral cat welfare these concerned people become vocal and committed to overturning proposed laws.
I feel that this is what is happening in this case. The proposed law would penalised people for feeding feral cats and, as you can see in the photograph, a big crowd turned out bringing with them a lot of emotion at last Monday’s Hilliard City Council meeting.
You can see from one of the photographs that they don’t believe the new rules are humane. They are correct, of course. It is likely that there are volunteers carrying out TNR programs in the area which incorporates feeding feral cats. If you pull the plug on feeding you risk starving the cats to death in the worst case scenario. This is because they become reliant upon being fed by volunteers.
I have to say that it is not uncommon for city councils to consider proposals to ban the feeding of feral cats across the US. I’ve seen this kind of county council meeting discussion take place before on many occasions. Everytime the administrators have pulled the plug on their proposed legislation designed to blanket ban feeding feral cat.
I expect the same outcome in this instance. They may redraft the bill in an attempt to find a compromise. In other words they may place restrictions on feeding feral cats by volunteers to certain times and places under TNR programs and/or to impose other restrictions such as removing the food after the cats have fed. The major issue is with attracting unwanted wildlife to the feeding stations and associated human health issues.
Feral cats bring out a lot of passion on both sides. The humane side nearly always wins.
SOME MORE ON FEEDING FERAL CATS:
