Congratulations to Mayor Slay and to the Animals ......

Whooo Hoooo  to Mayor Slay!!!! RIP

For the last couple of years, City Health Department employees and community volunteers have been humanely trapping “colonies” of feral cats, spaying/neutering/vaccinating them, and returning them to their original neighborhoods. In those neighborhoods, a colony “caretaker” feeds the cats and monitors their health. This strategy, called TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return), replaces a policy in which most captured feral cats were euthanized.

I support the TNR effort.

Local activists estimate that there are 20,000 such feral cats in the St. Louis region. The vast majority of feral cats are born and raised outdoors, and have reverted to wild ways to survive. Generally, they are too fearful to be handled. They live in groups (colonies) and live off garbage, rodents, and other animals. They live in abandoned buildings and cars. They live a year or two (more, if there is a caretaker). They multiply like … cats. They are, generally, unadoptable and they exceed anyone’s capacity to house them.

TNR is not without controversy. Advocates for wild birds cite statistics that cats, feral and domestic roamers, kill large numbers of songbirds. They argue, probably correctly, that returning cats to their territories puts birds at great risk.

Unless we choose to ignore the issue, our choice is simple: Neuter as many cats as possible; or kill as many cats as possible. For now, the City of St. Louis chooses the former – and supports that choice with our resources.
This was written by a fellow animal lover who I respect tremendously !!!