EDMONDS – A cat named Turbo is setting off an emotionally charged debate in Edmonds.

Should cats be allowed to wander while dogs are not? And should residents bothered by neighbors’ cats in their yards be able to humanely trap the cats?

The city of Edmonds’ answer to both questions is yes. City officials are now looking at adding provisions to the law to protect trapped animals.

A disagreement between neighbors came to a head one day last month, when Turbo, a 2-year-old white cat with a black tail, didn’t come home. He was gone all day and all night.

“I was out searching for him in the rain and the dark with a flashlight,” said Laura Martin, the cat’s owner.

It turned out that Martin’s neighbor, Debbie McCallum, and her husband, Robert, had trapped the cat in a cage they baited with food.

Martin says Debbie McCallum two weeks earlier had told her she believed Turbo killed 16 quail the McCallums raised in their back yard last year.

“She just assumed he was the culprit,” Martin said. She told McCallum she would put a bell on Turbo’s collar to alert birds of his presence, she said.

Robert McCallum said other cats had been in their yard. But he knows Turbo killed at least two of the birds, he said.

“I saw that cat with my quail in its mouth,” McCallum said.

He said he spoke with the Martins several times about the matter to no avail. Laura Martin lives with her parents.

Now, the McCallums are raising 25 more quail indoors and “I’m getting ready to let ‘em go,” McCallum said.

To capture the cat, they used a trap with two wire doors that close after the animal walks in, he said. They kept Turbo in their garage overnight with food and water and with the cage covered.

They didn’t tell the Martins they had their cat.

“If (Laura Martin) would have knocked on our door and said, ‘Where’s my cat?’ we could have made our point right then and there,” McCallum said.

They called animal control the next morning and an officer came and picked up Turbo. The city’s animal shelter looked at the cat’s tags, called the Martins, and they picked him up.

“He was cut to the bone on one side of his cheek,” Martin said.

McCallum said the cat “probably got frightened in there and tried to wedge his face through the cage.”

Edmonds law doesn’t specifically address trapping, city attorney Scott Snyder said. But “every property owner has a common-law right to prevent trespassers from entering their property, and that includes the animals of others,” he said.

Also, owners of any type of animal are obligated to clean up its waste, no matter where it may be, Snyder said.

City Councilman Dave Orvis said officials are considering adding language to the law that if a domestic animal is captured, it must be treated humanely and turned over to animal control within 24 hours.

Ray Martin, Laura’s father, brought the issue to the City Council’s attention. Ray Martin has been a persistent critic of city policies in recent years.

Meanwhile, the Martins are keeping Turbo and their two other cats indoors.

“They are just going crazy to go outside,” Laura Martin said. “We haven’t let them out at all.”

Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@ heraldnet.com.