It may soon become easier to care for feral cats in Columbia, as residents push for fewer restrictions on feral cat colony caretaker permits.
Currently, the city’s feral cat ordinance outlaws providing food or water to a feral cat colony without a permit. Permit holders must regularly feed and monitor the colony, obtain medical care for sick or injured cats and ensure all cats are spayed or neutered, trapped and tested annually, ear tipped, vaccinated and microchipped — requirements residents say are too extreme.
Proposed revisions were debated Thursday at a Columbia/Boone County Board of Health meeting, and the board voted to accept most of the changes.
Based on recommendations from the city’s animal control supervisor Kevin Meyers, revisions would ease the duties of colony caretakers by removing requirements for microchipping and annual trapping and testing. They would also formally define a feral cat colony as five or more cats being cared for within one property.
In his comments, attorney Dan Viets urged the board to support community members who care for feral cats.
“I think the ordinances should be designed to encourage as much care for feral cats as possible,” he said.
The city has only granted two permits since the feral cat colony caretaker ordinance was passed in 2011, although the caretaker permit itself is free to any applicant. The permit application requires written permission from the private property owner, and proposed changes would also require permission from adjacent property owners.
Christina Byrd, a volunteer at animal rescue Columbia Second Chance, spoke against any permit requirement to feed and care for feral cats, especially as those most impacted are often lower income.
“It’s just kind of important that this is easily accessible to people who have the issue, which are going to be trailer parks and rental areas and places that are overseen by property management,” she said.
Byrd added that requiring permission from the property owner is more difficult for people living in rental properties who have to involve a landlord.
“Having a permit in general is going to keep low-income people from being able to do anything,” Byrd said.
The Board of Health plans to discuss improving permit access for renters at its next meeting and tabled the proposal requiring caretaker permit applicants to obtain permission from adjacent property owners.
After the meeting, Meyers said the permit is important for aligning the city’s practices with the trap-neuter-return approach, also known as TNR, which aims to stabilize and diminish feral cat populations over time instead of trying to permanently remove them.
“I think the permit has a lot of importance in general,” Meyers said. “A lot of that is that spaying and neutering and helping with that TNR program, so it does a lot more good than bad.”
At the Columbia City Council’s direction, the Board of Health will continue to review the Animals and Fowl chapter of Columbia’s Code of Ordinances over the coming months. The City Council will have final say over any changes.
