No-Win Situations: How Cats and People Lose When Laws Don’t Align
- Kathy Gabrielescu
- 5d
- 5 min read
Updated: 2m
The animal control system in most of New Jersey is forcing residents to choose which laws to break.
Current New Jersey law prohibits animal abandonment and failure to provide adequate food, water and shelter, and requires all owned cats to be vaccinated against rabies.
Many local ordinances require licensing of pets and limit the number of pets you can own.
Residents are expected to follow all of these laws. Not doing so can result in citations, fines, jail time, and permanent criminal records of animal cruelty.
We support animal cruelty laws and would like to see them enforced far more often than they actually are. However, with the current state of animal control policies, residents are often given no choice except which laws to break.
For the last few years, we have been getting more and more phone calls from residents telling the same story:
Resident calls animal control for assistance with stray or abandoned cats.
Animal control instructs resident to "call a rescue."
Caller is only met with rescues that are nearly always at or over capacity. After all, rescues are not funded by public funds or taxes.
Rescues are not regulated. In the rare event a rescue has space, the caller has no idea where the cats are being surrendered or if they will be safe.
Below are just four cases out of the hundreds of calls we receive. A broken system has created these no-win situations and we struggle to help residents navigate them.
Case 1: No Win for Cats and Mother
A gentleman called regarding the mother of his child. She is allegedly living in a motel room with multiple children and 6 cats. NJ Department of Children & Families (DCF) is involved and has allegedly told her the cats must be removed within 48 hours.
She currently resides in a town with inadequate animal control through a third party:
It allows for sick and injured stray cats to be removed.
The town did not contract for impound of stray cats or owner surrenders.
When I contacted this town, I was told by the municipal employee that "stray cats are wildlife," yet NJ law clearly states that all cats are domestic animals.
This family is now faces a decision.
She cannot surrender the cats to animal control or the shelter because the town does not provide this state-required service.
She has no funding and almost every private rescue is full. Even if she could find a vet willing to euthanize "healthy" cats she has no way to pay for it.
If she abandons the cats outside or denies them food, water and shelter, she is breaking the law.
If she ignores DCF, she has allegedly been told her children will be removed from her care.
This mother must now choose between losing her children or risking being charged with abandonment and animal cruelty.
Case 2: Out of State, Out of Luck
A woman called following a death in her family. She lives out-of-state and does not have the ability to take in the 6 cats left behind by her deceased family member. The decedent's animal shelter has told her they are full and will not take the cats.
She can attempt to find a vet willing to euthanize healthy cats which is extremely unlikely and costly, or she can abandon the decedent's cats outside.
Case 3: Bad Advice to Family, Funded by Your Tax Dollars
A teenager found two abandoned cats in a park. They were about 6 months old and so friendly that they willingly ran to the teenager! Not knowing what to do and being a cat lover, he scooped the cats up and took them home. His mother called municipal animal control and was told that their facility was full. She was instructed to "put the cats back outside for the mother to find." Even after she explained that they were 6 months of age and clearly abandoned housecats, animal control still unlawfully denied her access to NJ's required 7 day impound and stray hold.
Animal Control gave the mother and son two choices: put the cats back in a park to breed and die, or keep the cats and seek assistance with funding for medical care.
Case 4: Cat Suffers While Animal Control Selectively Enforces
A resident feeding unfixed cats came upon one with a broken leg and wounds so deep that internal organs were visible. Clearly suffering, the cat needed emergency surgery if they had any chance of survival. When she contacted the town, the resident was simply told that because she feeds, she "owns" the cats; however, no local licensing ordinances or state mandated rabies vaccination requirements were enforced.
Turning to social media, the woman clearly stated in a post that she had no money to provide any medical care for the injured kitten, the rest of the litter, or the parents. Animal control continued to refuse to intake the cat and left a gravely injured, unvaccinated, suffering kitten in the home of residents with small children and a family dog. Despite being friendly, any animal in excruciating pain can bite, especially if small children attempt to handle them.
The resident had no financial means to provide care or euthanize the suffering kitten. She was denied access to the municipal shelter and forced into noncompliance with NJ animal cruelty laws.
Why does this keep happening?
Many New Jersey municipalities contract with private animal control companies. The towns willingly sign contracts with few services and often no impound facilities. Residents who find strays are often told by municipal employees, "We do not take in stray animals because they might be owned." This inevitably leads to animals being left on the street struggling to survive, breeding more, and in most cases, dying in horrible ways while more take their place to suffer.
Refusing intake will always lead to more cats breeding on our streets, an increase in animal cruelty as frustrated residents take matters into their own hands, and brutal deaths of abandoned cats and kittens.
Some people find themselves in these situations due to their own decisions.
Others are victims of circumstance: No one can predict finding a stray or control the deaths of family members. It simply does not matter. People should not be forced by into cruel situations that can only be resolved by breaking laws.
What do we do now?
We need to modify New Jersey's current state laws to create a clear chain of command and mandate the NJ Board of Health's Municipal Animal Control Practices across the state. Read about our goal and how you can help: Love Cats? Hate Cats? A4898 is the Key to Improving Quality of Life In New Jersey
