A bill to formalize Baltimore County’s existing trap-neuter-return (TNR) pilot program for stray and feral cats will be introduced during the Baltimore County Council’s meeting Monday.
Through the pilot program, the county humanely traps cats who live outdoors. Cats who do not display signs of having an owner are sterilized, vaccinated, and have a small tip of their ear surgically removed while under anesthesia to signify in the future that they have been spayed or neutered. They are then returned to the area where they were trapped.
Baltimore County Animal Services has operated the pilot program since 2015.
The Joy Freedman Care for Cats Act would codify the TNR program into law and require the county’s health officer to establish guidelines and procedures for the program.
“We know that TNR is an ethical, humane, and non‐lethal way to lower our County’s free-roaming cat population,” Olszewski said. “Affirming the County’s existing pilot program into law will help ensure we continue to responsibly address the number of feral cats in our communities.”
County officials said that the TNR program “responsibly reduces the population of free-roaming cats in communities, protects human health by vaccinating the cats against rabies and is supported by leading animal advocacy organizations, including the ASPCA and the Humane Society.”
“The Baltimore County Animal Services Advisory Commission is deeply grateful to County Executive Olszewski and his team for creating this legislation, codifying TNR in Baltimore County,” Deborah Stone Hess, chair of the Animal Services Advisory Commission, said in a statement.
The bill is named in memory of Joy Freedman, a founding member of the Baltimore County Animal Services Advisory Commission and a “lifelong animal advocate,” county officials said.
“Naming the bill for Joy gives it special meaning, incorporating her deep love for animals into a new law protecting cats on our county’s streets,” Hess said.
Other Maryland jurisdictions, including Baltimore City and Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties, already have their own TNR programs.
It’s encouraging to see communities like Baltimore County embrace trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs. Done well, these programs can be very effective at reducing community cat populations—a vast improvement over the “traditional” method, which often meant a one-way trip to the local shelter. For anybody interested in learning more about TNR, please check out the resources available at the National Feline Research Council website:
https://www.felineresearch.org/post/issue-brief-what-to-do-with-feral-cats-examining-tnr