What Rescuers Want from NYC Government
What should we ask from New York City officials?
Admit we are in a feral cat crisis. Even if getting public funding for the problem is a long way off, the city could put a spotlight on the problem to attract more private sector funding. Rescuers are invisible people solving an invisible problem. Wealthy neighborhoods don’t have this problem, and poor neighborhoods don’t have the resources to solve it on our own. NYC could help direct private funds to fund more TNR - if they would only talk about it.
Acknowledge that there is a solution. On the NYC Department of Health website it says “The Health Department neither prohibits nor specifically endorses TNR as a practice, nor the groups that are involved with TNR.”
City officials need to read the literature, especially Los Angeles’ Dept. of Engineering’s Environmental Impact Report for the CityWide Cat Program (10 years of research by engineers!) and acknowledge that trap neuter return is the humane and effective method to reduce the feral cat population.Create a Department of Animal Welfare. We need a proper NYC gov city agency dedicated to a multitude of animal issues from feral cat overpopulation, hoarding and abuse of pets, to protections for wildlife, etc.
Introduce city-funded voucher programs for owned pets as well as feral cats. In the long term, we need to reduce abandonment of pets with access to affordable spay/neuter, and we need to encourage a more diversified ecosystem of high-volume spay/neuter providers with an equitable payment system through vouchers for feral cat TNR.