Los Angeles Country supervisor Don Knabe (knabe.com) has ordered the trapping and inevitable killing of stray and feral cats at Rancho Los Amigos, a County-owned property. A few people have complained of fleas and feces so the County Supervisor's office has declared that all cats must go even though the cats have been there for 50 years.
The cats will be trapped and under the Hayden Law, held for a certain amount of time at the Los Angeles County ("Downey") shelter until they can be killed.
The Downey shelter claims they have "barns" to relocate some of the 100+ cats but this cannot be feasible. The Downey shelter's record of adopting out friendly cats is abysmal.
Rancho Los Amigos is located next to the Downey shelter where cats have been known to get out. There is a cat right now on the Rancho property who has a on pink paper collar from the Downey shelter. People also dump their cats on the Rancho property because it is next to a shelter.
County Supervisor Knabe's office is lying and saying that a local rescue and TNR group, Fail Safe for Felines has not done a good job. They site fleas and feces. Feces is picked up daily by caregivers and fleas are a part of life. They live in the ground and are on opossums, raccoons, squirrels, etc. yet the cats are blamed.
Additionally Knabe's office thinks that this "problem" will go away with some trapping. New cats will come into this area to fill the vacuum. In fact, Fail Safe for Felines has done the right thing; fixing the feral cats and also placing over 100 friendly cats into forever homes. They are committed to being good citizens and advocates for the cats and clean up daily while monitoring the feeding stations.
Animal Control officers trapped a lactating female on the night of Saturday Oct 25, 2008 and would not release her to feed her kittens She is still on the shelter as I write this. Humane practice would be to fix her immediately and release her within 12 hours to get back to her kittens.
PLEASE CALL 213-974-4444 and Fax 213-626-6941 County Supervisor Knabe's office politely telling him his plan will fail and that TNR is the only permanent, humane solution. Ask that Los Angeles County accept progressive and successful trap/neuter/return programs and work with rescue groups, not trap and kill cats.
Knabe's office will tell you to call Animal Control. Please do not accept this. ANIMAL CONTROL HAS NO CONTROL. THEY ARE ONLY TAKING ORDERS FROM THE COUNTY SUPERVISOR. Additionally, the shelter is giving misinformation and do not believe their rhetoric.
It is not the duty of Fail Safe for Felines to take on the cats as they have but they have done so in a community-minded and compassionate manner.
Please call during business hours and fax any time. Please be polite but firm. We need to keep the pressure up for County to again meet with activists and save the cats.
For detailed information and rebuttal to animal control's inaccuracies please to go http://ranchocats.blogspot.com/
This blog will be updated daily.
Please contact us at info@straycatalliance.org after you have contacted County Supervisor Knabe's office so that we can keep track of correspondence.
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