General (05)Date:9/16/2025 8:35:40 AM
From:"Michael Mavrovouniotis"
To:"Public Comment" publiccomment@anaheim.net
Subject:[EXTERNAL] General Public Comment for City Council: OC Animal Care abandonme nt of cats.
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Voice of OC, September 16, 2025
What’s Going On With the Cat Colonies at Cypress College?
https://voic eofoc .org/2025/09/w hats-going-on-w ith-the-c at-c olonies-at-c ypress-college/
Excerpts (f rom the last section of the article):
Still No Catch & Release Program for Orange County’s Cats
These programs — known as trap, neuter and return (TNR) — release unowned cats back where they were f ound af ter a spay or neuter to prev ent the
community cats f rom hav ing more litters.
While it’s commonly of f ered across the state and nation, Orange County’s animal shelter continues to ref use to of f er this k ind of serv ice.
Activists hav e spent years calling f or the shelter to reinstate TNR in order to help reduce the increasing number of k ittens and f eral cats on the streets.
A recent San Diego Superior Court ruling f ound the San Diego Humane Society’s catch and release program is legal as long as it remains only f or
community cats with no signs of ownership — since releasing lost or abandoned pets is still considered animal abandonment.
OC Animal Care also does not accept healthy stray cats into the shelter and directs people who hav e trapped a healthy stray cat to return it where it was
f ound.
To the Voice of OC article, I personally want to add this:
This shows exactly w hat happens w ithout TNR: You get c onflic t. In one corner, the people who are troubled by c at c olonies and w ant them to “go
aw ay”. In the other c orner, people who don’t w ant c ats to suffer and w ant to continue to give them food and w ater. TNR is the solution c ompatible
w ith both c oncerns and the humane treatment of the cats. TNR stops the proliferation of cats in a humane w ay. No c at is killed, but the population goes
dow n over time.
OC has the audacity to use “abandonment" as the exc use, w hen what it’s doing is abandonment by proxy: By telling people to put c ats bac k w here they
found them, OCAC is contributing exac tly to the problem we see in Cypress College.
Are you going to continue tolerating the inhumane conditions of cats in your city? Or are you going to ask OCAC to do its job?
Why should you renew the contract (which runs out next year), if OCAC is failing?