About an hour discussion was held this past Tuesday night at the Jefferson City Council meeting focusing on the ongoing issue of feral and stray cats.

The issue has been an ongoing discussion since the City discontinued providing residents live traps in April of 2018. Mayor Matt Gordon pointed out at the beginning of the discussion that the original talking points that were released with the city council agenda were just notes and in no way were a proposed policy. One area Gordon addressed from the notes was taking cats that were by a property owner could be taken out of town. Gordon clarified saying the intent was that the cat would go into a “barn cat program” and given to a farmer in the rural area of the community. 

Issues that were brought up included cat colonies and those feeding them at contributing to the problem and causing a nuisance, the animal shelter in Jefferson is full and can’t accept anyone who captures a stray cat, those feeding cat colonies are not willing to spay or neuter them to keep the colonies from expanding, and euthanisia. 

Council member Darren Jackson serves on the cat committee and he talked about a possible route to go.

“I would like to try some form of TNR (trap-neuter-release). I am not convinced that TNR will work, but I think it’s better than what we’ve been doing for a long time, which is nothing. I would like to see a TNR program for a couple of years so we could possibly see results.”

Jackson noted veterinarian Dr. Mark Peters was against TNR and believed that if people stopped feeding the cat colonies, they would go away. Currently there is no citywide TNR program, but several people spoke in favor of it. Linn Price with Animal Protection and Education Charity estimated about one-fourth of the cat colonies in Jefferson (about 50 cats) have been TNR’ed so far. 

The Animal Rescue League of Iowa CEO Tom Colvin addressed the Council and thought the City was headed in the right direction, but gave advice on how to better establish a solution.

“My observation is (of) what you’re lacking is one person or one task force – small group of people – to bring the accurate information to you. So that you can make decisions accordingly. I think it’s just a matter of putting this altogether.”

City Administrator Mike Palmer says the issue will go back to the committee to work with different animal agencies to develop a workable policy.