COMMUNITY
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ing TNVR within the city limits.
“Catch and kill doesn’t work because it leaves a vacuum
to be filled by other cats,” says Susan Parry of the Parry
Foundation, a local charity that donated $10,000 to the city to
launch TNVR.
The program utilizes volunteers from three animal welfare
groups that assist at no cost. Stray and feral cats in the
community are trapped, spayed or neutered, vaccinated and
returned to their locations with ear-tips to identify they have
been treated. Population growth stops and mating behavior
is limited.
What about the adorable kittens? Many are placed in foster
homes for adoption.
“You have volunteers doing the work with a compassionate
approach that is more cost effective,” adds Parry.
Now, residents can contact United4Animals, Operation
CatSnip and the Community Cat Coalition to request TNVR
when they notice abandoned or wild cats within city limits.
“Going out at night and trapping cats is hard work,” notes
Scott Coccoli, coordinator of Community Cat Coalition, the
liaison to the city. “Knowing we are drastically reducing the
reproduction of kittens is the payoff.”
LOWERS COSTS
A previous ordinance prohibited feeding outside cats with
the threat of a citation. Cat lovers caring for lost or abandoned
pet cats and wild-natured feral cats kept their activities
under the radar, concerned about the virtual certainty of
euthanasia for captured animals. As a result, many cats were
not caught and continued to breed.
With TNVR, residents are comfortable contacting the >>
BARBARA DUPONT
700 cats were sterilized through the Fort Pierce Community Cats program.
Estimating that an unspayed female can have two litters of five kittens a
year, over 3,000 kittens were not born to roam throughout the community.
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