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DRAFT <br /> <br /> <br />• Local veterinarians are already seeing cat patients every day and seeking to <br />educate cat owners. They will be enlisted to help spread the word about the <br />benefits of keeping cats inside, environmental enrichment, the identification of pets, <br />and the benefits of spay/neuter. <br />• Independent Animal Rescue (IAR) is an area organization active in Orange County <br />that focuses on feral cats as well as rescue and rehoming of cats and dogs. As <br />part of our effort to develop a strong partnership with IAR, shared and/or <br />coordinated forms of outreach will be discussed early in the plan for managing <br />free-roaming cats. <br />Coordination with these partners will be complimented by the elaboration of ongoing Animal <br />Services activities to include and emphasize free-roaming cats. Staff already posts flyers and <br />door hangers for low-cost spay/neuter programs in areas where free-roaming cats are centered, <br />and they refer residents with reproductive dogs and cats to AnimalKind. But there are other <br />opportunities to reach out to residents. These include outreach at low-cost rabies vaccination <br />clinics, when residents recover stray cats that have been impounded from the Animal Services <br />Center, and when complaints about neighborhood cats are taken. <br />Messages and educational themes will not be limited to the benefits of sterilization. They will <br />also address the benefits of keeping cats indoors (with information about how to enrich their <br />inside environment) and the benefits of identification of all pets. These are key in negating the <br />undesirable impacts of free-roaming cats on residents’ qualify of life and on wildlife. <br />Targeted Spay and Neuter <br />Targeted spay and neuter has been a defining focus of Orange County’s effort to manage pet <br />overpopulation in recent years. This notion specifically refers to the sterilization of cats and <br />dogs that otherwise would remain intact and reproductive. In our effort to more humanely and <br />effectively manage free-roaming cats in the coming years, targeted spay and neuter will <br />continue to be aggressively pursued to reduce their numbers in Orange County. The scope of <br />targeted spay and neuter may eventually be broadened to include un-owned and/or loosely- <br />owned cats involved in some carefully developed and managed pilot programs.