Support TNR laws for Tulsa

  • by: Dana Gray
  • recipient: City of Tulsa Animal Welfare Commission and City of Tulsa Mayor

Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is the only effective, humane, and responsible solution to curb the community cat population. For the past five years, trained Tulsa volunteers have studied the issue and spent thousands of hours responsibly implementing TNR at their own expense and through local and national grants and fundraising. The result is a greatly reduced feral cat population in Tulsa with NO expense or additional workload to the city - a tremendous, proven success.

Ordinances embracing TNR and best practices are now before the City of Tulsa. Tulsa city leaders have an opportunity to adopt these TNR laws to continue to humanely curb the community cat population. TNR is the only solution that is humane and kind. TNR is the only solution that is effective (trapping/euthanizing cats is not humane and compounds the issue by creating a vacuum that invites unsterilized cats into the environment, increasing reproduction). Passing these ordinances aligns Tulsa with national best practices, celebrates its success to date, and positions Tulsa to effectively continue to reduce its community cat population over time.

Trapping/euthanizing is NOT a logical or effective solution. Trapping requires time and effort, and euthanizing innocent cats is expensive and not responsible or humane. Trapping/euthanizing will greatly increase the labor and veterinary expenses for the city's shelter, a shelter already struggling to keep pace with the city's overwhelming animal overpopulation crisis.

Considerable research has been conducted documenting the effectiveness of TNR, establishing best practices of TNR, and documenting how managed TNR colonies reduce the feral cat population in their respective communities. TNR volunteers' efforts in Tulsa have saved the City of Tulsa countless labor and euthanasia costs.

Opponents of TNR mistakenly blame community cats for the recent decline in bird populations – but birds and feral cats have existed together for decades. Legitimate scholarly research documents that the decline is largely due to increased and repeated use of toxic insecticides and pesticides. Toxic environments are killing birds as well as the bees. A closer look at information provided by opponents of TNR reveals position papers by self-proclaimed experts offering no credentials, articles in publications that are not academic or peer-reviewed journals, and research conducted in other countries that cannot be generalized to the U. S. population. None of these pieces of so-called "evidence" is relevant to the community cat population in Tulsa.

The City of Tulsa has an opportunity to make an intelligent and informed decision to adopt TNR ordinances, to adopt proven best practices, and to significantly and responsibly reduce its feral cat population through TNR ordinances. The City of Tulsa has one opportunity to get it right. TNR is the only viable, humane, and affordable solution. Adopt TNR and support TAW by allowing it to address other issues including spay/neuter, adoptions, cruelty, etc.

#SupportTNR, #TNRworks

Sign Petition
Sign Petition
You have JavaScript disabled. Without it, our site might not function properly.

Privacy Policy

By signing, you accept Care2's Terms of Service.
You can unsub at any time here.

Having problems signing this? Let us know.