Petaluma may partner with animal advocates to increase oversight of feral cat colonies in town, with the goal of thinning the number of ferals through attrition rather than euthanasia.
The city?s Animal Services Advisory Committee is currently debating a list of recommendations for a program that would allow most ferals to be sterilized and given a clean bill of health before being released back to where they were found.
In exchange, caretakers of cat colonies would need to work closely with city animal shelter staff, to register their colony locations and put any tame cats found up for adoption.
A similar policy is on the books now, but advocates for ferals say it isn?t successful because of mistrust between caretakers and animal shelter authorities.
Advocates say caretakers don?t want to register their colonies out of fear their cats will be confiscated and put down ? and the shelter is bound by city policy to only allow registered colonies.
But an update of the city?s 2004 feral cat ordinance may break the stalemate, by creating a program under which city staff and a nonprofit group work together to better monitor cat colonies.
?This is pretty exciting,? said Patricia Boyd, a Petaluma resident and founder of Save Our Ferals, which is urging changes to the current law.
?We?ve had a lot of lumps and bumps along the way, but people are starting to pay attention and realize that euthanization is not the way to go,? Boyd said.
Her group sought changes to Petaluma?s feral cat policy to avoid the use of euthanasia on ferals. Instead, a so-called ?trap, neuter, return? approach would allow the cats to live out their lives, but not reproduce and add to the feral population.
However, feral cats pose a threat to bird life in the Petaluma wetlands, Shollen-berger Park docents say, and that?s why the current ordinance bans colonies within a half mile of the wetlands park and a block of all other city parks.
Where that half-mile line ends, and whether any city-owned site might be set aside to house cat colonies, are apparently the main sticking points in the animal committee?s attempt to draft a new policy for the council to consider.
The committee next meets on Aug. 6, to hear more policy recommendations from a four-person subcommittee appointed earlier this year.
The policy, as currently envisioned, calls for a nonprofit group to partner with the city to manage feral cat colonies. The group would be responsible for paying the cost of sterilizing and vaccinating feral cats, shelter manager Nancee Tavares said.
Colony locations would have to be registered with the city and permission must be given by the property owners. Any tame cats found in the colonies would have to be brought to the shelter for adoption.
Feral cat advocates say careful monitoring of colon-ies, to trap and sterilize every cat, is a more humane way of dealing with the stray cat population. Colonies of sterile cats will eventually die off naturally, Boyd said.
Colony caretakers must also be part of the solution, she said.
?We do have caretakers who are working underground, and we have to convince them to work with us,? Boyd said.
The animal shelter would continue to take in feral cats trapped or reported by residents who don?t want them on their property, Tavares said. Caretakers would have to watch their cats closely to make sure the animals don?t wander away to somewhere they?re not wanted, she said.
So far, no nonprofit group has been found to work with the city on a colony-management program, committee chair Charlie Reinhart said.
Any group would have to have a funding plan in place, and meet other criteria, for the new program to work, officials said.
?It?s going to be a long process, but I think we?re all going in the right direction,? Reinhart said.
(Contact Corey Young at corey.young@arguscourier.com)
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