- November 18, 2024
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People who care for Flagler Beach’s feral cats will no longer have to worry about citations for harboring “nuisance animals” or for negligent pet ownership because they're feeding — and, through a trap, neuter and return program, spaying — local kitties.
The Flagler Beach City Commission voted unanimously Thursday, April 10 to alter the city’s animal ordinances, adding an exception to ownership laws for feral cat caretakers.
The move follows the city’s acceptance of a trap, neuter return program championed by local cat lovers who have pushed TNR as a humane way to reduce the free-roaming cat population.
The Flagler Humane Society is using grant money to spay and neuter the cats.
“By voting for this revised ordinance, you’re positioning the city to have a program that really can work,” Community Cats of Palm Coast Director Elizabeth Robinson said at the meeting.
About 250 cats have been fixed so far, she said.
“If we assume roughly half of those cats to be female, we can assume that most of them would have two litters of kittens within a year,” she said. With litters averaging about four kittens each, that would mean 1,000 kittens from the two litters. If half were female, their first litter would put another 2,000 kittens on the street.
“So that’s 2,000 cats, already, that are not going to be here because of TNR,” Robinson said. “That’s a lot, and that’s in a very short period of time.”
Kitty complaints
Not everyone was thrilled with the program.
One Flagler beach resident said at the meeting that he lived near a feral cat caretaker and was spending $1,800 to enclose his porch because the cats were making a mess of it. He didn’t like the “R” part of TNR.
“You want to save the cats — God bless you,” he said. “But I have a problem. I’ll be dead by the time these cats are gone.”
He said he tried TNR, but the cats quickly wised up to the cages, and he’d come out to find empty cages with the bait eaten. Meanwhile, his yard was a mess because the kitties were pooping all over it.
“I’d like to see more discrete timelines,” he said. “When we have somebody that has more than three or four cats, and they’re feeding 25 cats, I’d like to see that timeline move a little faster.”
The neighbor who was caring for the cats the man was complaining about — Marjorie Angelo — spoke at the meeting too, saying the cats were there because a former resident had fed them.
She said she was spaying and neutering as many as she could, but that a neighbor had approached code enforcement about the problem, and code enforcement officers were taking pictures of her yard and issuing her citations.
“We’re being punished for the work that we’re doing, because of the big disconnect between how the ordinance reads currently and how the TNR program should be working,” she said. “I’m asking you to close that loophole.”
She said she’s had 28 cats fixed so far, but that the code enforcement issue was making her life “a living hell” and that she has “suffered tremendous harassment, humiliation and threats” because of the situation.
“On the citation received the other day, the photos that were taken by the enforcement officer were actually photos of my front yard with traps,” she said. “They were being fed so they could be trapped, so they could be spayed and neutered.”
No simple solution
City Commission Chairwoman Kim Carney said she was sorry the city hadn’t acted earlier to amend its ordinance to align with the TNR program, and that the city should make the change to “make things match.”
But Commissioner Joy McGrew said she could empathize with neighbors frustrated at having their yards overrun with free-roaming cats.
“I wouldn’t be real happy if I had to live under those circumstances, either,” she said. “And it’s not fair.” She asked for suggestions, but Commissioner Jane Mealy said there were no easy ways to get around the issue, even by releasing cats elsewhere.
“If you take a cat from your street to my street, they’ll find their way back,” she said. “It’s just like the turtles. They’ll find their way home again.”
The city’s amendments to the ordinance would still allow animal control officers to treat feral cats as nuisance animals in cases where they’re causing major sanitation problems.
Thursday’s vote was the first reading for the amended ordinance. It will need to pass a second reading for the changes to become official.
