WALLA WALLA – Unfixed felines are banned from prowling outdoors in Walla Walla under a kitty curfew aimed at curbing the feral cat population.
The curfew, enacted last month by the City Council, applies to cats 4 months and older. It also prohibits leaving pet food outdoors overnight.
Violators can be fined up to $500, and three citations could lead to a larger fine or even jail time, City Attorney Tim Donaldson said. The city’s animal control officer also can seize at-large cats, he said.
While not ideal, the new rules are “baby steps in the right direction when it comes to responsibly dealing with the problem,” said Sara Archer, executive director of the Blue Mountain Humane Society.
Officials aren’t sure of the exact number of feral cats in the Walla Walla area, but colonies of 60 to 70 in the city probably are not spayed or neutered, Donaldson told the Tri-City Herald newspaper.
Some other U.S. cities have enacted cat confinement rules, leash laws, or spay-and-neuter ordinances, according to the Cat Fanciers’ Association, the world’s largest registry of pedigreed cats.
California lawmakers also have considered a bill that would ban anyone from owning or possessing an unfixed dog or cat older than 4 months, unless the owner has a permit from a local government.
Archer said she hopes Walla Walla eventually will develop a program to trap, neuter, spay and possibly vaccinate feral cats.
Such a program, which she said has growing support nationwide, works because spayed or neutered feral cats will prevent unfixed cats from moving into their territory, Archer said.
That approach would quickly help reduce the number of roaming cats in Walla Walla, said Kate Sullivan, president of the nonprofit Save Wonderful Animals Team.
A similar program has worked across the state border in Milton-Freewater, Ore., said Lyla Lampson with Pets of Milton-Freewater.
The group started a sterilize-and-release program in Milton-Freewater in 2003, and it gets about 600 feral cats spayed and neutered each year, she said.
“Within a year, the police were already telling us that the nuisance calls for cats had much improved,” Lampson said. “Now they say cats are not even on the radar screen.”
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