Police called to a borough council meeting about feral cats in America

NEWS AND COMMENT-NEW BERLIN, USA: This is a nice story which dramatically highlights how council meetings about feeding feral cats and about TNR programs regarding feral cats can become heated. In this instance arguments developed to the point where the borough council secretary felt it necessary to call the sheriff. Two officers arrived to keep the peace. The report is that they had to supervise the meeting.

This is not directly about Maine Coon cats. I have to mention that because this site is about Maine Coon cats 🤔. But it is about cats in general. I would like to think that feral cats have equal rights to Maine Coon cats. The former lives in very tough conditions, abandoned and often forgotten except for TNR volunteers. The latter are often cosseted, pampered, loved and well cared for. They both are sentient beings. They can both feel pain and emotions. They are equal. One is far more vulnerable than the other and therefore need our help.

In general terms, this was an argument between the New Berlin Borough Councillors and the citizens of that town who were involved with TNR programs in managing feral cat colonies which also includes feeding them.

Peaceful, quiet and ordered New Berlin, Pennsylvania, USA. This is a church in New Berlin. The place looks very quiet, peaceful and well-managed except for meetings about feeding feral cats!

Some time ago, before this meeting, the mayor had written an ordinance (a local law) about managing feral cats. She now admits that she did a bad job because it is too ambiguous. It needs to be clearer. She wants to fix the problem and amend it. It was written in good faith on the basis that feral cats are between wild cats and domestic cats in her words. The law was written to address the growing population of feral cats.

This ordinance was finalised in April and apparently doesn't allow for animals to run at large in the community. I'm told that it says that any feral or community cat becomes the responsibility of the person or persons who feed them.

And the people who feed the feral cats as part of a TNR program are now being told to stop feeding them by the New Berlin Borough Council. 

It seems that the council is siding with the citizens of the town by saying that feral cats spread disease and are a danger to children. And if you feed feral cats the problem is that you attract more feral cats and indeed wildlife which increases the potential for disease spreading. My comment on that is that you can feed feral cats as part of a TNR program as long as you feed them in a controlled way and don't leave the food down indefinitely. I don't know whether that was discussed; it probably was.

Members of the Cherished Cats Rescue Alliance and other citizens attended the meeting last week to express their disagreement with the council's decision to stop feeding stray cats (I presume this means feral and stray cats). They suggested that a committee should be formed to clarify the current ordinance which as mentioned above is defective. That idea was shouted down.

Ed Pilko, a person involved in TNR, said that anything other than TNR is "cruel, ridiculous and ineffective". He and his wife have neutered 43 cats and adopted three and rehomed many others under their TNR program.

Despite their good work, there have been complaints made to the council about feral cats. These complaints included suggestions that the feeding of feral cats should stop and that they should be starved. Clearly, a cruel suggestion.

The conversation between the citizens attending the meeting and the councillors became heated almost immediately. In fact, even before the meeting started. Borough Council President Julianne Finkbiner told the attending citizens that only one person was allowed to talk about the feral cat issue. A resident immediately reminded her that she was violating the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act which is a law governing open meetings. The president relented and the meeting then started.

She then said that they will only be allowed to speak for 2 minutes instead of the usual 5. This resulted in more arguments. Finkbiner then shouted at the citizens. She said "This council has stuff to do and we have jobs. This is annoying. Do you know why I do this job? Because no one else will do it."

At that point the borough secretary, Rebecca A Witmer decided to call the sheriff department to try and restore some order to the meeting.

Comment: as mentioned council meetings about TNR get heated. This isn't the first time. There are really two points of view: either you favour a humane approach to feral cats and operate TNR which includes feeding the cats; or you favour the residents and take a more hard-line stance against feral cats which variously includes trapping and killing them or as mentioned starving them and stopping feeding them.

Councillors rarely ban TNR because TNR is a very useful way to deal with feral cats. It is highly positive and if conducted over a long period of time it is effective. People do see real benefits. The problem with it is that you have to feed the cats and a lot of citizens hate that. And of course a lot of people dislike feral cats. Some people hate them. They want to kill them, to eradicate them. But that doesn't work too because anybody who knows about feral cats has heard of the "vacuum effect". You kill some feral cats and new feral cats arrive to take their place. And killing cats that have been put there by irresponsible people is cruel.

These sorts of meetings take place across America all the time. They are indicative of a constant battle between two opposing viewpoints. The meetings are always reactive: how to deal with the presence of feral cats. Sometimes the meetings are better because they are proactive: a discussion about how to stop the creation of feral cats. But those are fraught with difficulty as well because it means a curtailment of human liberties and rights which people also dislike.

My thanks to the lieverthuis.info website and wkok.com.