BOWDEN - Town officials say it's too costly and time consuming to deal with stray or unwanted cats brought into the town office.
So Bowden council recently passed a motion to officially revise the town's policy regarding them.
From now on, the town will not take in stray or unwanted cats and will not set out traps to catch them, unless under the following conditions, according to a policy recommended by Arno Glover, the town's assistant to the chief administrative officer.
Town staff will not accept any domestic cats that are deemed to be unwanted or abandoned "unless the cat can be visibly determined to be licensed in Bowden, in which case, every attempt will be made to contact the owner of the cat from the details within the data base. Any cost of caring for the cat will be passed on to the owner," Glover wrote.
His memo also said the town will no longer provide cat traps for stray or nuisance cats "unless the complaint is deemed to be valid."
The cat trap agreement will be updated to reflect the new rules and the animal control bylaw will be updated "to reflect any new requirements requested by the bylaw officer."
Town staff will inform residents of these changes via the town newsletter and Facebook page.
Interim CAO Jacqui Molyneux said dealing with cats has become far too costly and time-consuming for town staff. In one case, a staff member spent an entire afternoon dealing with the cat issue.
"It's running into a lot of money. Like this year alone we are well over budget," she said.
Coun. Sandy Gamble agreed it's a difficult problem. She discovered that when she found five kittens underneath her deck.
"I phoned all over the place, trying to get somebody to take them and it cost me 300 bucks to get rid of them," she said.
"Somebody has to be having a whole lot of cats that aren't fixed."
Mayor Robb Stuart added, "I've got probably 20 that cut through my yard just about every day. They've got a little trail. It drives me crazy."
He said cat licensing doesn't seem to address the problem.
"We only sold, like 10 or 12 cat licences when there's 200 cats sitting out there," he said.
Stuart noted there were several cats in the town office when he was there one day. Molyneux said there were at least 15 there that day.
Councillors Randy Brown and Carol Pion suggested the town survey other communities the size of Bowden and find out how they're handling the stray/unwanted cats problem.
"There's got to be someone who has a solution to this," Brown said.
