Florida's Newly Adopted Feral Laws>>Urgent Please Read and Sign!

I was watching the CBS news here in Florida on friday afternoon and a short news story came on about feral cat colonies in the state of Flrida.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission adopted a policy that "feral cats could be moved and, as a last resort, killed if they threaten native wildlife".
"The new policy also discourages Floridians from releasing or feeding the feral cats on public lands managed by the commission and on lands that support wildlife habitat."

The first webpage below is a summary of the news story, the second is also a news story. The third is the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's views on feral cat colonies, and the last is a website of the group that testified at the hearing on behalf of the feral colonies and the TNR policy's effectiveness. And the last link is a letter that you can send to the local legislators designed by the Ally Cat Allies people.

Please read these articles and help me decide what to do and say to the local legislature to try and stop the removal of the TNR colonies around the state. I am not an expert on this and I hope that some of you all will have some insight of what if anything I can do to help.

Thanks, Ginger

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=...0-035716-4276r

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co.../0530cats.html

http://www.floridaconservation.org/v...ticles/cat.pdf

http://www.alleycat.org/

<<<PLEASE READ AND SIGN THIS ONE>>>THE VOTE HAS ALREADY BEEN TAKEN BUT IT MAY STILL BE EFFECTIVE IN REDUCING THE ACTIONS TAKEN IN THE STATE>>>
http://action.alleycat.org/action/in...p=2&item=10198

Thanks for the update Ginger. It is indeed a very sad day for the feral cats of Florida. Unfortunately, it seems the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had made up their minds well before any debate could possibly take place. They held meetings where much information was given to them about true cat predation statistics and the successes of TNR programs, as well as how eradication of feral cats doesn't work. They chose to turn a blind eye to the facts presented and went with their original thoughts.

As far as what can be done now, I really have no idea. Hopefully someone else can shed light on that.

The truly ironic thing is that some localities in Florida actually have some of the most feral-friendly laws on the books.

Hi Ginger. It is so sad, isn't it? Technically I'm a resident of Florida, and I signed the petitions, contacted the commisions, provided information on the effectiveness of TNR, both to the groups from whom I received e-mails and to the council...

I think the best thing to do is to conact Alley Cat Allies (www.alleycat.org) to see what further you can do... they have been at the center of the pro-TNR arguments.

You can read more about this carziness here in a thread started by Hissy in which several Florida wildlife people were laughing about having the opportunity to kill cats.