Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
3 <br /> <br />f) Animal Services Advisory Board presentation regarding stray cats (Attachment 4): <br />Guests Maureane Hoffman and Bob Marotto provided an overview of the local cat <br />overpopulation challenge and presented the concept of creating a “working cats” <br />program to place stray cats at farms. This is to share ideas and get feedback from the <br />APB. The conept is that the cats help with rodent control while the famer provid es a <br />safe home and helps deal with the surplus of free-roaming cats. Healthy spayed or <br />neutered, vaccinated cats would be placed with willing farm owners. Discussion <br />followed. Farmers often already have one or more cats. Incentives will be key, such as <br />providing free vaccinations, along with free spaying/neutering , and maybe waive the <br />license fee for working cats. Ranells raised the question of charging license fees for <br />working dogs on farms. Their numbers at the shelter double or triple each spring due to <br />cat births. Presently, non-profit rescue groups handle all the critical cat overpopulation <br />issues by helping to trap these cats and getting them spayed/neutered, then releasing <br />them again. Coyotes have become a factor as predators of domestic and wild cats. <br />Another issue is how to get the word out, using the different organizations like <br />Cooperative Extension, Soil and Water etc., and notices at feed stores. Basically, you <br />have to make it very attractive, ie, no cost, to entice farmers to buy into this. They <br />understand that spaying/neutering will have to be a part of the equation, along with <br />addressing shots and updating vaccines like rabies and feline leukemia. It is really hard <br />to catch these feral cats for vaccines. It is critical to keep them up to date on rabies <br />vaccines. Even getting them vaccinated some of the time is better than none. Animal <br />Services will consider the board’s feedback and draft up a rough descri ption of a <br />proposed program to share to get review comments. APB members are invited to come <br />before the Animal Services board any time to discuss working dog license fees and any <br />other issues or concerns. Woods thanked Hoffman and Marotto for their presentation. <br />g) Membership update: Staff did not have any new items to discuss tonight. <br /> <br />7. Informational Items/Future Agenda Items: <br />a) Mailbox VAD signs: Hughes showed a photo of a typical mailbox sign for another VAD <br />program. These are about the size of a license plate. She proposes that we have these <br />made for all of the participating farmers and hand them out at the breakfast event. <br />b) Annual Report to Dept. of Agriculture: Hughes will be preparing and submitting our <br />required annual report for the Ag Dept. <br />c) New Ag Extension Agent: Mark Bumgarner was recently hired as the new agent, for <br />livestock and crops. He is retired from the Army. We will invite him to an upcoming <br />meeting. <br /> <br />8. Adjournment: Parker moved to adjourn; seconded by Ranells. Meeting adjourned at 8:50.