Alley Cat Allies sent the following letter to the City of Mountain Home, Idaho, urging strongly against the city’s false and dangerous interpretation that Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is abandonment under its animal ordinance. TNR is not abandonment, but a homecoming that provides community cats with critical, life-improving spay and neuter and vaccination.
Ahead of the Mountain Home City Council meeting tomorrow evening, we’re speaking out on behalf of community cats and the advocates and organizations in Mountain Home who care for and protect them. They should be commended and supported rather than penalized.
Mayor Rich Sykes and members of the Mountain Home City Council,
Alley Cat Allies is reaching out to express our deep concerns about the City of Mountain Home’s improper and dangerous interpretation that Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is abandonment according to its animal ordinance. We strongly recommend against this interpretation and instead urge you to support TNR, the only humane and effective approach to community cats, or unowned cats who live outdoors, and implement ordinance changes to facilitate it.
Alley Cat Allies is the leader of the global movement to protect cats and kittens. Through our innovative programs and fearless advocacy, we champion the humane treatment of all cats. We work toward a world where cats’ lives are valued and protected, and every community and shelter has policies and programs to defend them.
Founded in 1990, Alley Cat Allies launched TNR into the mainstream in the United States, and we regularly work with lawmakers, animal shelters, and the public to change attitudes and advance lifesaving laws and policies that best serve the interests of cats. We offer the opportunity to provide our expertise and resources to Mountain Home.
Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) Is the Only Humane, Effective Approach
Mountain Home should support the only humane and effective approach to community cats that improves cats’ lives and the community—and that is TNR. As you may know, TNR is carried out and supported by advocates throughout your city and in communities across Idaho, with great success.
Through TNR, community cats are humanely trapped; brought to a veterinary clinic to be spayed or neutered, eartipped (the universal sign that a cat has been spayed or neutered through a TNR program), and vaccinated; and then are returned to their original outdoor homes.
TNR is proven to stabilize community cat populations by stopping the cycle of reproduction; improve the cats’ health and public health through vaccinations; and benefit animal control agencies and shelters by reducing cat intake and calls of concern. Today, communities in Idaho and nationwide have adopted TNR ordinances or policies, and thousands more worldwide are conducting grassroots, volunteer-led programs.
TNR Is Not Abandonment
It is critical to understand that TNR is not abandonment and should not be enforced as such under your current ordinance. As explained above, through TNR, community cats are returned to the exact location where they were trapped and nowhere else. These are the areas with which the cats are familiar and bonded, and where they know how to find resources such as food, water, and shelter. They are returned to where they thrive, and it is a homecoming.
So long as community cats are returned to the exact location where they were trapped, it is not abandonment. And good Samaritans providing this community service with no financial assistance from the city should be praised rather than punished.
Sec. 6-6-1 of the Mountain Home Code of Ordinances specifies that animal cruelty includes “[i]ntentionally, maliciously or recklessly abandoning an animal” and further, that a person who, through act or omission, “dumps or abandons” an animal is committing animal cruelty. Sec. 6-6-11(B)(4). Abandonment is defined by Sec. 6-6-1 as: “[t]o completely forsake and desert an animal previously under the custody or possession of a person without making reasonable arrangements for its proper care, sustenance, and shelter. To intentionally and absolutely leave, quit, renounce, resign, surrender, relinquish, vacate, discard, or give up.”
Because these cats are returned to their outdoor homes, where they were living prior to trapping, it is reasonable for the person returning the cat to the same location where they were trapped to know the cat has provisions for adequate care. Therefore, there could be no reasonable determination, much less proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that the TNR volunteer knowingly believed the opposite to be true. Additionally, community cat caregivers and TNR advocates are not the owners of community cats, but good Samaritans providing a community service.
Those who conduct TNR do so because it improves, rather than threatens or harms, the health and well-being of community cats. The threat of prosecution where none should lie prevents volunteers from helping in this important community activity.
Please Support TNR
We urge you not to penalize the compassionate people of the Mountain Home community who spend their own money and time caring for community cats and ensuring they are spayed and neutered. We ask that you reject any interpretation of TNR as abandonment and support community volunteers and TNR instead.
Alley Cat Allies offers support in finding solutions that humanely and effectively address any problems or concerns you have. Our team is happy to provide any other information that would be helpful, and we hope to hear from you soon.