Judge's Ruling Impacts TNR in Los Angeles

[huskerlaw]

FixNation wants you to know about an important development in Los Angeles concerning TNR. Last week a local judge issued a ruling in response to a lawsuit filed against the City of LA by wild bird groups, ordering that the City of Los Angeles is suspended in supporting and promoting Trap-Neuter-Return as a means to help homeless cats.

TNR is a community-based, humane approach to controlling homeless cat overpopulation. It involves concerned citizens humanely trapping feral cats, getting them spayed and neutered (at clinics like FixNation), and then returning them to their natural environment so they can live out their lives. It is the humane alternative to trapping and killing cats at our city shelters, which is inhumane, consistently does not work, not to mention very costly to taxpayers like us.

While the city isn’t stopping private citizens from doing their own TNR, this ruling will suspend the city shelters from distributing our clinic flyers to educate people about TNR or allowing shelter employees to encourage TNR as an alternative to people as they are there dropping off cats at the shelter. It also ceases any city coupon funding that our clinic can use towards homeless cats, which is critical in helping us cover the cost of spay/neuter services to make them free for people like you.

http://fixnation.org/2009/12/judges-ruling-impacts-tnr-in-los-angeles/

Ok, apologies to any bird enthusiasts among us, but this is RIDICULOUS.

x-posted to the California forum

[CC]

1. Brought to you from the same state that

outlaws ferrets as being dangerous to the environment. Ferrets, that can not survive in the wild more than a few days and are usually sold spayed and neutered so even if they could survive they can't reproduce. Doesn't surprise me at all that CA would step backwards, again.

[huskerlaw]

2. Well, one hopes...

that this is just one stupid judge. I'm certain it will be appealed, and there might be an injunction. This is just a district court decision, not a new part of the municipal code or a state law.

That said, now's the time to point out how counterproductive a law like this would be.