City Mulling Over What to Do About Cats
Prince George, B.C.- Will the day come when cat owners in Prince George will have to have their cats licensed?
It is one of the possibilities being examined by Bylaw Services in the City, as it looks for a way to deal with complaints about the felines.
In a recent report to Council, Bylaw Services Manager Fred Crittenden said that while cats are included in the definition of Animal in the current animal control bylaw “there are no provisions to encourage responsible ownership”.
In the past 5 years, Animal control Officers have attended to 657 complaints related to cats and under the current bylaw, if a cat is impounded, the owner can simply pay a nominal impoundment fee to have their cat returned.
In the report, Crittenden writes “Creating a bylaw to encourage spaying or neutering and having permanent forms of identification on cats would allow for a more effective way of dealing with nuisance cats and the overpopulation” This has created an increasing drain on resources not only of the City, but for organizations like the BC SPCA who have accessed grants of $110,000.00 in the last three years to spay and neuter free roaming cats in Prince George.
Crittenden says licensing cats is something that is on the table “We are just putting together a public consultation process.” He says that consultation will include in person interviews and some surveys “One of the questions we will be asking is, is there a need for that (licensing) in the community? Is it something community members will want and feel there is a need for? We’ll have to balance that with the costs and benefits as well.”
Crittenden says there are other communities which have cat licensing policies “Absolutely, there are a number of communities in B.C. in Alberta for sure that license cats. So we’ll be looking at what their experience has been and the costs associated with it before we make that recommendation.”
The process will take some time, but Crittenden says he would like to have something before Council to look at before the end of 2017 “But there is a process and consultation before we get there.”
Comments
Roof roof says the bi-law enforcement officer… It’s been so long since he’s had a day off from working with the dogs that this is what he came up with…..
Funny! Next it’ll be chickens with collars and tags, LOL
Wow, 54 comments on cats, with a jobs and economy story on the 250News site, and another story about an important report on health in Northern BC that indicates Child Poverty being the biggest issue on health up here. Prince Rupert having almost 40% of it’s children living in poverty…. and yet this cat story gets all the discussion!
Maybe Shirley can get her picture taken with a bunch of cute kittens, and announce $1.5 Million for funding some kind of cat management program here in PG, children in poverty? WHO CARES??? WOW!
“Prince Rupert having almost 40% of it’s children living in poverty” .. damn parents, always hoarding all the wealth for themselves. Someone should make them give some to their kids so they don’t have to live in poverty. But seriously, HOW do you have children living in poverty WITHOUT the adults living in poverty too? What a stupid catch phrase to invoke sympathy and outrage.
I read the headline as “Cuts” at first and thought, “about %$^&#$ time!” But I see it’s just another tax in the works.
It’s about time, I don’t see why cats should be free to roam, male cats spraying wheels on cars, screen doors, crapping in gardens. I guess that is why pellet guns were invented.
Or trap them and release them in the wild! I have seen this happen, then cat owners complain! Tough! Be responsible then, try it you might like it!
Time to license them!! My little dog gets a license every year as per the by-law. Cat owners figure they can let their cats run wild and into flower beds (mine for instance) and urinate and do their business there because they figure they are allowed to. This is one issue that needs to be dealt with pronto. In this ‘politically correct’ world of ours me as a dog owner is being totally discriminated against. Deal with them, especially the owners. One of my neighbours up the street has to cats on leashes, I applaud him! As for the rest of you, I can’t say the words here!!
This could be a step in the right direction. I am tired of cats urinating in my gardens, specifically my vegetable garden. My family eats from there! How would those cat owners feel if my dog urinated and defecated in their garden or better yet their refrigerator.
I couldn’t agree more! Our garden = neighbor’s litter box. Don’t know if licensing will help. Maybe give cat owners 3 mos to take control of their pets. Then bring on the fines.
Simple, get a dog that HATES cats and likes to eat them for breakfast.
Last year cats came and used my two raised vegetable beds as a litter box! I had to throw away about 75 bucks worth of freshly planted vegetable bedding plants from Art Knapps. I dug up all the soil and turned it over to air out. I was going to replant everything but the thought of eating cat sh.t and cat p.ss turned me off completely. We have given up the wish to grow some healthy organic food in our garden.
About time that cats required a license! My dogs have ALWAYS been licensed. Roaming free cats are more destructive than dogs.
nobody owns a cat, the cat allows you to feed them
A licence or a piece of paper will not stop a cat from urinating around the neighborhood. Another tax. Go after the owner and fine them.
Around College Heights never see many dog owners who walk their dogs pick their dogs droppings also. Have a pet and be responsible for it or deserve a hefty fine. Sidewalks are filthy to walk on.
Totally agree bud, my dog business is always picked up! I despise owners who don’t, makes the responsible ones look bad! There is one owner who walks his dog down St. Lawrence. Good sized dog as you can tell by his droppings on the sidewalk, haven’t caught him/her yet, but they will be in for a big surprise!
If they pass this bylaw,will it generate enough income to warrant more enforcement officers and have money left over for the SPCA.Like the pitbull bylaw and speed limit signs and driving while using a cell phone ,these are rarely enforced.
Cat owners seem to not care if their cats are causing people a lot of grief. Then get mad when their cats go missing… the height of irresponsibility. Cat laws should have been here years ago, the owners are going to change their ways.
maybe Jillian can come up with special cat lanes.
LOL thanks for the laugh
Why are cats being compared to dogs? They are different animals.. when’s the last time you read about a pack of cats attacking/killing someone….?
“Why are cats being compared to dogs?”
Lets see, does the term “nuisance” mean anything to you? I don’t want my family members picking cat feces off their fingers while picking carrots, or eating peas with pee on them. I bet you are a cat owner aren’t you P.Val?
Sorry, no pets here at this time.. but love both cats and dogs..have owned both through my life.
My neighborhood has many more cats than dogs… have yet to have a issue with a cat yet ( I have auto sprayers to keep ALL animals out of my flower beds btw ) but every time I mow my lawn there is dog crap..
Nothing better then the kids running through dog crap because of some lazy dog owner….
Here we go, talking about licensing, when has a 14 pound poodle attacked and killed someone? Gimme a break, I still have to license him! AND I have my PET under control!
You don’t license a dog because it can kill someone, at least I don’t think you do…?
Force cat owners to put a collar on the cat, with the metal license tag and a bell to alert song birds to the presence of the cat when it is about to pounce on the bird and kill it for sport! Every year we collect feathers from birds which have fallen prey to the hunting instinct which even domesticated cats have.
Good luck with that one. Cats crapping and whizzing are a problem everywhere. Like all laws, how do you enforce it where the law has the desired effect? If there was a cat in my neighborhood and it was crapping all over my flower garden I would be over at my neighbors place having a face-to-face chat regarding the stinky little beast. Don’t need enforcement. Don’t need a bylaw. Just need responsible people.
where do you find them???
There is a nice animal trap on the market. Its cage and with some sardines for bate I works great. Saw a number of adds in the Citizen looking for their pussy cat.
Cheers
Karma has ways of dealing with the likes of you. What you, and others, have written is disgusting. You’re not the only life form on the plant.
Don’t forget that it is the humans that do the most damage to our world. Should we cage them and drop them off in the wilderness too? You can’t answer yes as I am quite sure you create waste, garbage and pollution everyday.
You have to cut him some slack, he just got 14 inches of snow on his front lawn. Retored02 – want to buy my snowblower? It seems I no longer have a use for it
I tend to water gardens and beds late evening, not much of a problem.
Cat’s roaming around freely I dont agree with , but all you folks who have a massive problem with cats dumping in your gardens …. you do know what fertilizer is made from right ? as for what else is getting on your veggies … wash your car and then go look at it the next morning , that film on your car isn’t sunshine , this is an industrial town what’s in the air is getting on your gardens everyday.
Fertilizer ain’t made from cat crap! There are enough parasites and other sordid stuff in there that using it as fertilizer could cause serious harm to anyone who eats the veggies.
Don’t you wash your vegetables before you eat them?
I rinse them off. I certainly don’t scrub them, peel them then soak them in disinfectant which I’d need to do to ensure any cat borne diseases are removed.
Urine is a great fertilizer, has been used down south and around the world in fact where – you guessed it – our grocery stores buy their product from. You could be eating urine fertilized food right now if you are crunching on a carrot.
Look up Crystal Green, it is being used by vegetable farmers all over, even in Canada. Where does it come from? You guessed it, right from the pipes of your toilet (well not yours, because our treatment facility doesn’t have the technology although we have biosolids)
They say peeing on your compost is a great way to increase its value as a fertilizer
It’s interesting the choices we make as a society. $35,000.00 a year to spay or neuter free roaming cats (which means no one owns them, or takes responsibility for them )- and then what do you do with them? Try and adopt them out. Feed them forever?
Meanwhile, tomorrow they’ll be a story about the food bank running out of food.
They’re free roaming because no one wants them. Put them down, like we use to, before we became such a snowflake society.
Real people are suffering real needs and we spend money on trying to save cats – a species that clearly is in no risk of extinction.
And what cats we do adopt out, go crap in the neighbors garden.
No surprise that as usual, there are some that make excuses for bad behaviour! Go figure!
Yup, not hard to tell who the cat owners are.
I’d be more interested in seeing cat owners “chip” their cats for identification purposes and be ENCOURAGED?? (I don’t know how to make it mandatory) to spay/neuter their pet. I don’t see licensing as an answer to anything except another money grab from the City. If you know anything at all about cats, it’s that they naturally roam to hunt and for curiosity in general. Also, most cats HATE wearing any sort of collar. For goodness sake people, try to be a little more accepting of others who are willing to take in strays or adopt homeless animals to give them a better life. As for comparing this to the human homeless rate and how the money is being spent????….go adopt a homeless person or quit making ridiculous comparisons! You know what I hate? I hate cat haters!
Cats will accept a collar after a day or two from there it is easy to have them on a leash when outside can have a long leash and tie them to something on your property so you can deal with their mess.
When I lived down south (in what has now become the land of ice and snow) we used to put a harness on our cat and let him play in the back yard.He didn’t seem to mind it.
If you leash ours it turns into a board and falls over, been wearing a collar bell for years even though it is an indoor cat and only goes out if it sneaks past you. Comes back when called or just starts to roll around in the dirt
Locking up cats, not letting them roam free how ridicules is that. Just think of the harm those draconian laws forcing people to lock up their cats will bring to foxes, coyotes, bobcats, mass starvation. Does no one care?
We have cat feces everywhere in my yard, and even have had “spray” on our barbecue on the sundeck.. Cats in our yard fighting, mating, whatever, waking the house up late at night.
Cat owners in my neighborhood are totally irresponsible. Then again, so are some of the dog owners around. Dogs barking all hours at each other, neighbors, pedestrians, birds maybe? Their “messes” not picked up by the owners.. Actually come to think of it, the bad owners in my area have both cats and dogs, and both are a serious nuisance. We have spoken to the worst offender in our area, and she laughingly stated that her cats don’t even have litter boxes in the house, so I guess that makes our property the litter box. Seems fair that we shouldn’t be able to use our garden to grow vegetables so her cats can have somewhere to go to the bathroom?
Predator feces are well known to be quite unsafe to come in contact with at all by the way.
If only people had a tiny bit of RESPECT for the others they live around, we wouldn’t need bylaws that cost responsible people money.
As it stands I guess we need more bylaws to control these nasty pe(s)ts. Gotta love how some people’s “right” to own a pet seems to be more important than the rights of others to not have their yards used as a litterbox. Someone know why the rights to own a pet have at some point become more important than a home owner’s right to not have crap everywhere in their yard?
I have a three strikes and you’re out policy. The first two times I trap them they are dropped off at the local pound. The third time I have a friend who travels south on a regular basis drop the cat off in Quesnel or Williams Lake. Did not take long to get rid of the problem pets.
You are a horrible person. I can only hope that karma deals with you and, if it already has, that you get counselling for the issues you have.
The horrible ones are the irresponsible pet owners that allow their animals to roam the neighbourhoods get run over by cars, get lost or eaten by predators. If you own a pet it is you who should make sure they are safe and are not leaving their mess for others to deal with. Have seen a lot of dead animals beside the road and feel sorry for the pets but could care less for the owners that let the pet run wild.
Domestic cats are responsible for the deaths of approx 200 Million birds a year.
There are a number of bird species at risk in Canada, and a number of species that no longer exist because of cats.
Anyone with a cat should keep this in mind when they let their cat run free.
And just think how many birds would be killed if those cats weren’t spayed and neutered…400 million..a kagillion..
Humans have driven more species into extinction than any cat has, so maybe humans shouldn’t be allowed to roam around freely on this planet.
Bornandbred, you are a cat person? Are you irresponsible! I know that I had to put up walls around my patio to keep cats out, I had to sink wood slats and space them out in my flower garden so cats wouldn’t crap and urinate there. You gotta understand that some people just get sick and tired of the cat situation, why the hell should I have to rent or buy a trap to deal with an idiot that do not treat their cats as pets and harness or leash them up? Same old thing, if you love them as pets treat them as such! Period!
I own dogs and cats. I keep my cats indoors because of the risk of them being outside and being run over/taken by predators. Didn’t realize that the predators were also human.
How can anyone justify trapping cats and releasing them into the wild? Doesn’t that perpetuate the problem? At least take them to the SPCA. Deal with them humanely. You cannot argue that catching and dumping is the right way to deal with this problem.
Horrible sentiments from obvious non-cat lovers. Horrible!
I agree with you. Having lived in a rural area where people dropped off Lucky the dog and Tabby the cat, a farmer usually shot not so Lucky when the dog chased livestock, and Freddy the Lynx usually ate Tabby. So you give them a horrible death.
However, ever try and drop a stray off at the S.P.C.A. First thing they do is try and get money out of you for taking care of the problem, even though it’s not your problem.
But, if you were to deal with Tabby in a humane but lethal way, the same SPCA would charge you.
Once again, goes back to the owners who love the idea of a pet, just don’t love the work of a pet.
I would say the horrible people are those who let their cats roam freely. Some people really like birds and feed them all the time only to find feathers. Leave your car window down and you get to smell cat piss for years. People who do not take care of their Cats and make it someone else’s problems are simply very bad nasty people.
How many times have we heard:
“I loved my poor kitty so much! I can’t believe that some irresponsible driver ran her/him over and then just drove away without stopping!”
To which I respond:
“If you loved your poor kitty so much, why did you let him/her loose to run around on the street where it could get run over by someone, someone who might not even be aware that they ran over him/her?”
Where I live the coyotes and foxes,”like” stray kitty cats. More power to them.
A small dog with a splash of Terrier is all you need to keep your property Kat free. Plus they make a super loyal pet.
Does the dog come with a bark collar?
This ran across my facebook feed
ht tps://www.yo utube.com/watch?v=USS4nqgqIJo
(You know what to do)
Uncle Rob knows his cats
over 50 comments an no one even mentions toxoplasmosis!??!?!?!?!
there should be absolutely no ‘free roaming’ cats, of the ‘domestic’ type that is. a ‘license’ is a first and necessary step toward proper management of these pathogen proliferators, with eradication being the end game.
while some may enjoy the feelings associated with having ones brain being eaten from the inside, that is no excuse for exposing the rest of us to such sickness.
if you have vermin there are many methods to deal with that circumstance without bringing in poisons and/or foreign biota.
So what you are saying is cats as a species should be eradicated? Should the same should apply to humans? They carry and spread equally deadly pathogens.
written by a true hypochondriac……..
from the linked site a bit more of a realistic point of view.
vet.cornell.edu/fhc/Health_Information/brochure_toxo.cfm
————————————
Toxoplasmosis is one of the most common parasitic diseases and has been found in nearly all warm-blooded animals, including pets and humans. Despite the high prevalence of T. gondii infection, the parasite rarely causes significant clinical disease in cats-or any species.
Other animals, including humans, are intermediate hosts of T. gondii. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that as many as 60 MILLION people in the United States carry this parasite, with the vast majority showing no signs of illness.
That is one in every 6 people!!!!
In the United States, people are much more likely to become infected through eating raw meat and unwashed fruits and vegetables than from handling cat feces.
After reading all the comments one may come to the simple basic conclusion that the problem is not the cat, but the irresponsible owner.
Because of that there is no simple solution.
I subscribe to the philosophy that there are no dumb pets, there are just dumb pet OWNERS!
That is why they own pets!!! ;-)
I applaud the city for trying to do something about “Free Roaming/feral” cats.
We own a very happy indoor cat and will probably be getting her a friend in the next few months.
In our opinion as responsible cat owners the only place for a cat is as an indoor pet.
We now live in the Okanagan and the Bobcats,Cougars and Eagles to name a few, keep well fed on the outdoor cats, that irresponsible “so called owners” throw out the door.
If a cat is outdoors – it is now considered as a feral cat, and fair game for anything that takes it out of the ecosystem.
Our two previous indoor cats lived to the ripe old age of 18 & 20 years.
Show me an outdoor cat that lives anywhere near that age!
I think that they should be licensed and chipped with the owner’s information as well. The chipping should be carried out so the owner has no idea where the chip is located. That way when they let their cat or dog roam around free and it gets picked up, the owner can be located and fined. The first two would be freebies based on the possibility that the animal got loose. After that, the fine should be 300, then 500 and so on, until they get the message.
I’m picking up my humane trap on Tuesday. You can pick up your loose cat on Wednesday from the SPCA.
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