Despite opposition from more than 12,000 animal welfare
advocates, Washington, D.C.'s Department of Energy & Environment (DOEE)
continues its witch-hunt against outdoor cats. According to the agency's
recently released 2015 Wildlife Action Plan, trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs
in the District "will be revisited and reassessed."
It was DOEE's similarly euphemistic language that triggered
intense public outcry to the draft version of the Plan earlier this year, in
part because of the long history of TNR efforts in our nation's capitol.
For more than 25 years now, advocates in the District have
been humanely trapping unowned, free-roaming cats, having them spayed or
neutered by a licensed veterinarian, ear-tipped (the universal indicator of a
sterilized community cat), vaccinated against rabies and distemper, and then
(following recovery) returned to the location from which they were trapped.
Also contributing to the pushback prompted by the earlier
draft was the fact that the one published paper DOEE was using to justify its
plans is, as I pointed out to the agency, nothing more than agenda-driven
pseudoscience (paid for by American taxpayers).
To read more on this story, click here: D.C.'s Department of Energy and Environment Ignores Public Outcry, Retains Plan to Target OutdoorCats
