Revised cat legislation near vote

A highly revised yet still controversial proposal that would regulate the trap, neuter and release of stray and feral cats — and the use of euthanasia on the animals — will go before the Ulster County Legislature later this month.

Legislator Laura Petit has filed a petition to discharge the measure from the Legislature’s Law Enforcement and Public Safety Committee, where it has been stalled for several months. By filing the petition to discharge, Petit, I-Esopus, was able to force the measure to the floor of the full Legislature for a vote even though the proposal wasn’t endorsed by the committee.

“I’ve petitioned to take it directly to the legislative floor, where we can have a full discussion and hopefully move it forward,” Petit said.

Under the proposed law, any organization, operation or individual planning to set up traps would have to post notices with the local town clerk and at all residences within 1,000 feet of where the trapping would occur. The notice would have to precede trapping by five days.

The law would require anyone trapping cats to immediately release any that have “tipped ears,” which signifies a cat has been spayed or neutered. All other trapped cats would have to be scanned for identifying microchips and be held for at least seven days. Cats deemed feral would have to be sterilized, have their ears tipped and be released to within 50 feet of where they were trapped.

During a public hearing in May, the proposal drew comments from 33 speakers who were split nearly evenly on the proposed law.

In response to opposition, Petit said she stripped out of the proposal much of the language relating to the trap-neuter-release practice employed by many animal rescue groups.

“We tried to take [out]

everything related to trapneuter-release, just to make it strictly a notification law,” Petit said. “Whatever the underlying issues are, this is not what this is about.”

Petit said the purpose of the proposed law is to give cat owners notice that a trapping operation will take place in their neighborhood

and ensure that if a family pet is caught up in such an operation, the owner will have a way to find the animal.

The conflict over how best to deal with feral cat colonies stirred a fierce debate last year over the practices of the town of Rochester-based nonprofit group Project Cat, whose owner, Gail Mihocko is a staunch opponent of the trap-neuter-release practice employed by most animal rescue groups.