Over a thousand healthy community cats lose their lives needlessly in the Virginia Beach tax-funded animal shelter. You can help me change that awful statistic, and not only save healthy cats, but help reduce the community cat population in our community. Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is the only proven humane effective approach to reducing the feral cat population in communities worldwide. TNR includes the trapping, neutering, and vaccinating of community cats and then returning them to their outdoor home. Many animal shelters in VA actively participate in TNR; however, Va Beach is limited because of an outdated city ordinance (Article 5, Section 530) regarding cat/dog running at large. The result is the needless impoundment of cats.

Community cats do not belong in a shelter environment. They are unsocialized to humans and unadoptable as house pets. Without TNR they go unvaccinated and reproduce often. In VB, almost all are impounded and killed after the state mandatory stray hold of three days.

A crucial step to humanely reducing the feral cat population in VB is to amend this city ordinance to exclude cats. VB would then be closer aligned to other cities throughout VA in humanely reducing the number of feral cats in our city. This is a win for cats, citizens, and animal control and shelter employees.