LAVALLETTE — After repeated pushback from the neighborhood, the Lavallette borough mayor and council launched a rewritten ordinance at their Tuesday, Feb. 20 assembly, which might allow the feeding of feral cats.
The ordinance provides a brand new part to the borough’s code on feeding wildlife, aiming to restrict the feeding of feral, or neighborhood, cats to sure hours, versus banning their feeding altogether.
This is, partly, in an effort to support the borough’s comparatively new animal management officer in addition to volunteers within the clean operation of the city’s TNR [trap, neuter, relocate] program, which has largely been thought-about successful by residents and officers alike.
“The Borough of Lavallette, like many other communities throughout the State of New Jersey, has an obligation to effectively and humanely control the feral cat populations within its borders,” says the textual content of the ordinance. “The Borough believes it is in the interest of the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Borough to institute a [TNR] program, in an effort to reduce the feral cat population over time without the necessity of wholesale capture and euthanization.”
It then lays out the tasks of those that feed and have a tendency to the cats, which the textual content calls “feral cat caregivers.”
According to the ordinance, these caregivers’ tasks would come with “taking steps that are reasonably likely to result in the vaccinations of the colony population for rabies…taking steps that are reasonably likely to result in the spay/neuter of 100 percent of a colony…the safe relocation of feral cats…providing the description of each cat being cared for and copies of [vaccination and neuter] documents…providing food, water and, if feasible, shelter for cats.”
The caregivers would even be accountable for observing the cats below their care at the least “twice a week,” in addition to working alongside the borough’s animal management officer to relocate cats as soon as they’ve been neutered. Once trapped and neutered, the cats wouldn’t be allowed to be relocated to any government-owned areas similar to parks or preserved areas.
It additional says that, whereas feeding is allowed, it could not be allowed at night time.
“Feeding is permitted during daylight hours only,” says the ordinance. “Food must be offered to cats in a container and shall not be dumped on the ground. Any food remaining after cats have eaten must be removed before dark. Feeding areas must be maintained in a clean and sanitary condition at all times.”
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